Search

This article analyses the impact of social background on the probability of over-education in a cohort of Spanish university graduates born in the 1970's and graduating in 1999/2000, based on the 2005 Reflex survey. The influence of three resources associated to social origins (cultural, social and economic capital) is evaluated in order to challenge one of the pillars of the modernization theory: the merit-based selection. Our results reveal that, even when controlling for field of study, occupational experience and average grade, both cultural and social capital exert an effect on the risk of over-education in Spain, but economic capital does not. Moreover, we conclude that the direct effect of social origins on over-education is not significantly mediated by a field of study choice dependent on social origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the immigrant educational optimism hypothesis using data from Spain. Specifically, we examine the nature of higher educational expectations among migrant-origin families in comparison to non-migrant families, conditional upon students' prior school performance and social background. Our dataset includes more than two thousand students in secondary schools in Madrid and, as an innovation in the literature, allows identical analyses for dyads of parents and children. Our results suggest that immigrant optimism is more likely the result of positive selection of parents as first movers than lack of understanding among migrant families of how to process information regarding their children's educational prospects in the host country. Interestingly, students from migrant-origin families themselves do not share the same optimism as their parents. We argue that migration is linked with "hopeful" aspirations and identities, which is in line with research showing selection among labour migrants on the basis of unobservable characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]