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Adolescents' occupational expectations are relevant for occupational status attainment. In strong vocational education and training (VET) systems, such as in Germany, school leavers face the challenge of forming occupational expectations that correspond to the competitive VET market. This study investigates students' target occupations in the application process and its relation to their first training occupation. Do applicants for VET positions apply for occupations of different socioeconomic status over time? Does the status of the target occupations increasingly fit to the finally achieved training occupation? Are there differences by familial socioeconomic background? Analysis are based on longitudinal data on the application process collected from German students in lower secondary and intermediate secondary schools in one urban area. Overall, the status level of the target occupations at the beginning of the application process differs significantly according to school track, but additionally to school grades or family background. At the end of the application process, the application behaviour becomes diversified: applicants with poor school grades and of low status continue to apply for target occupations at a similar status level but at the same time apply for occupations of relative lower status. This lower level does not, however, translate into training occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ex-post harmonization of survey data creates new opportunities for research by extending the geographical and/or time coverage of analyses. Researchers increasingly combine data from different survey projects to analyze them as a single dataset, and while teams engaged in data harmonization continue to expand the information they provide to end users, there are still no commonly agreed standards for the documentation of data processing. Existing harmonization project typically opt for recode scripts that are generally hard to read, modify, and reuse, although some projects make efforts to facilitate verification and reproduction. This paper describes an alternative procedure and a set of simple tools for the exploration, recoding, and documentation of harmonization of survey data, relying on crosswalks. The presented tools are flexible and software-agnostic. The illustrative example uses the programming language R and spreadsheets—both common software choices among social scientists. Harmonization of variables on trust in institutions from four major cross-national survey projects serves as an illustration of the proposed workflow and of opportunities harmonization creates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the predictors of second-language proficiency for a group that until now has hardly been investigated: immigrants who rarely participate in the host society and who have a low level of second-language proficiency (sample characteristics are for example: no paid job, low educational and literacy level, high mean age and number of years since migration). In contrast with earlier research, not only self-assessments were used as indicator for second-language proficiency, but also language test scores. Results from a sample of 624 immigrants partly replicate findings from earlier studies: self-assessed second-language proficiency is higher among immigrants who have followed a language course, do voluntary work, have a high educational level, high mother-tongue proficiency, a low migration age, and a large number of years since migration. No links, however, were found between having psychological problems, gender, and migration motive and self-assessed second-language proficiency. Furthermore, some new predictors of self-assessed second-language proficiency were identified, namely similarity in alphabet between mother tongue and second language, daily interactions with natives in the public domain, and speaking the second language at home. For a subsample (N=98) second-language proficiency was also assessed via (objective) lexicon tests. When using scores on this test as dependent variables, only years since migration turned out to be a significant predictor. Though certainly tentative, this finding indicates that different predictors of second-language proficiency may apply depending on how it has been measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined interminority attitudes among a large sample (N = 1,987) of two minority groups (of Turkish and Moroccan origin) in the Netherlands. The focus is on their attitudes toward each other, toward a third ethnic minority group, and toward the native majority group. The aim is to simultaneously test theoretical predictions related to group categorization and group identification, intergroup contacts, and endorsement of multiculturalism. More social distance was reported toward the less-similar ethnic outgroup than the more-similar Muslim one. More contact with a particular outgroup was associated with less social distance toward that outgroup. There was evidence for secondary transfer effects of contact in relation to other ethnic minority outgroups, but not in relation to the native majority group. Stronger national identification and stronger endorsement of multiculturalism were both associated with less social distance toward all ethnic outgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on two individual validation studies employing face-to-face interviews and a mail survey, this article investigates factors influencing the probability that respondents truthfully admit to having been convicted of a criminal offense. Overall, 63 percent of the 495 respondents stuck to the truth in the survey settings. The mail survey elicited significantly more truthful responses (67 percent) than the face-to-face survey (58 percent). Female, older, and better-educated respondents confessed their delinquent behavior less often than male, younger, and less-educated ones. Whereas the need for social approval did not show a significant effect on the probability of an honest answer when controlling for other variables, trait desirability did. Regarding the face-to-face survey, the more interviews an interviewer had successfully completed in the ongoing study, the higher the response quality of the interviewees. In the mail mode, a strong negative effect of time to response could be observed: the longer respondents waited before they sent back the questionnaire, the lower the validity of their answers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of religiosity within Muslim immigrant families who live in the Netherlands, a rather secular society. We studied whether transmission of religiosity within immigrant families is influenced by warm family relations on the one hand, and integration into the host country on the other hand. Two analyses were carried out on a nationally representative sample of Turkish and Moroccan first- and second-generation immigrants aged 15-45, in the Netherlands. The findings support the hypotheses to some extent: warm family ties are found to facilitate religious transmission but transmission is stronger when parents have different national backgrounds. A stronger transmission is found within families that are stronger embedded in religious communities; however there are large differences between men and women. Our research shows that the influence of parental religiosity cannot be ignored in the study of immigrants' religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher response rates are commonly assumed to be associated with higher survey quality. Nevertheless, increasing response rates without attention to response quality may result in an increase of measurement error if it is associated with reluctance to participate in surveys. This article examines the nature of the relationship between reluctance and response quality. The question is studied in a cross-national context using data from the European Social Survey, Round 3, conducted in 2006–2007. Hypotheses are tested separately and compared across four countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. A measure of response quality, satisficing, is developed through latent class analysis using the indicators of “don't know,” straight-lining, inconsistent, and “extreme + middle” responses. To explore the relationship between the latent variables of reluctance and satisficing, before and after controlling for cognitive ability, structural equation modeling is used. The findings suggest that the relationship between reluctance and response quality is present but spurious, being completely explained by cognitive ability. The observed effects are not only consistent but also invariant in their magnitudes across the countries. The implications of this study for future data collection are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Linking paradata from a survey on labor market participation to administrative data, this article has a unique opportunity to examine nonresponse and measurement error jointly and provide estimates for bias, variance, and mean square error. We find that increased contact attempts resulted in significant reductions in nonresponse bias. Measurement error increased somewhat with increased effort, though total bias was nevertheless reduced. One of the key survey indicators revealed an interesting case of counteracting effects of nonresponse and measurement error whereby increased effort to recruit nonrespondents led to an increase in mean square error with increased level of effort despite a reduction in nonresponse bias and constant measurement error. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]