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International coordinated research project within the Open Research Area Progamme (ORA)

Social inequalities in educational attainment are an inherent feature of modern societies. However, the degree to which individual educational outcomes are affected by social origin varies across institutional contexts (Blossfeld and Shavit 1993; Erikson and Jonsson 1996; Breen et al. 2009). The comparably strong educational inequalities existing in Germany are often attributed to the rigid structure of its school system, where students are channeled early on into distinct school tracks that define the boundaries of their future educational pathways. In recent years, a number of reforms have introduced elements of flexibility in the German tracking system, with the purported aim of reducing inequality of educational opportunities.