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Political involvement differs according to youngsters’ social background, but the role of students’ own educational pathways in that social gradient is less clear. We investigate whether track position and the school composition mediate and/or moderate the social gradient in the development of students’ political involvement. Examining schools in Ghent (Flanders, Belgium), Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and Bergen (Norway) – we investigate whether these determinants for change in political engagement during upper secondary education differ between educational systems. Results from multilevel conditional change models show that the role of social background in changes in political involvement matters across the studied educational systems, but the role of track and school composition varies. In Barcelona, all the impact from social background on the increase in political involvement can be accounted for by track position, whereas in the Flemish system, the increase in political involvement is higher among those in academic tracks if they have low social background rather than high. There is more variance between schools in Ghent, and ethnic school concentration is associated with a smaller increase in political involvement there. The Norwegian system has little between-school variance and small differences between tracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effects of homogamy and heterogamy in socio-economic background and educational level on the marriage rate among cohabitors. Using unique register data and the Cox proportional hazards model, we analyse marriage formation in over 20,000 cohabiting unions in Finland. The large number of observations enables an inspection of the interactive effects in all partner-status combinations. Our results show that homogamy or heterogamy in socio-economic background is of little consequence for the couple’s probability of marrying; homogamy encourages marriage only among cohabitors from farmer families. With regard to education, homogamy increases the marriage rate among cohabitors with a low level of education, but reduces it among the highly educated. Whether educational heterogamy promotes, deters or has no effect on the marriage rate depends on the combination. The results emphasize the importance of a detailed measurement of homogamy and heterogamy when examining the role of group boundaries in union transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]