Research Projects of the Sociology of Education Working Group

On this page you will find brief information on ongoing and completed research projects of the working group


ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS

  • European Labour Market Under Pressure – New Knowledge on Pathways to Include Persons in Vulnerable Situations (Paths2Include)

    Duration: 03/2023 – 02/2026

    Project leader: Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf

    Project staff: Prof. Dr. Dominik Buttler

    Project summary: PATHS2INCLUDE will expand our understanding of the multidimensional aspects of labour market discrimination, the impact of different policy frameworks, and the gaps and possible need for change on various levels in order to detect mechanisms and processes that shape barriers or facilitate inclusive labour markets in Europe.

    Attention will be made on the importance of how context puts people in vulnerable positions within three central labour market processes: recruitment, career trajectories, and work exit. Furthermore, the project will focus on predicting risk factors of vulnerability in the future of work.

    We will employ a harmonized cross-national factorial survey experiment and qualitative interviews with employers to gain a better understanding of why and under which contextual conditions barriers are shaped, and how to develop inclusive practices. Moreover, we will use available harmonized data sets to conduct comparative quantitative analyses and microsimulations to generate best practices that promote inclusion in employment and decent work. 

    Paths2Include will provide insights on how institutional and contextual factors shape barriers for persons in vulnerable situations. Based on this knowledge, the project will develop proposals for effective policies combating labour market discrimination on the EU labour market.

    In addition to Germany, these countries participate in the project: Norway (coordinator), Romania, Italy, Luxemburg, Spain, Belgium and Poland.

    Project websitehttps://paths2include.eu

    Subscribe to the PATHS2INCLUDE newsletter here.

  • Education and Conventions: Potentials, Empirical Findings, Challenges and Desiderata of Convention Theory in Education (Special Issue)

    Special Issue of the online-journal Historical Social Research 

    Guest Editors: Christian Imdorf (Leibniz University Hannover), Arne Böker (Institute for Higher Education Research Halle-Wittenberg), Romuald Normand (University of Strasbourg), Christian Schnejiderberg (University of Kassel) and Rebecca Ye (Stockholm University)

    Call for Papers

    Deadlines and timeline:

    • Deadline for abstracts: 1 November 2023

    • Decision to authors to submit a full paper: until early December 2023

    • Deadline for articles (first versions): 30 March 2024

    • Peer-review until early-May 2024

    • Deadline for articles (final versions): mid-October 2024

    • Publication: Spring 2025 (earliest date)

  • Vocational Schools as Pathways to Higher Education: International Perspectives (Special Issue)

    Special Issue of the online-journal Social Inclusion (Vol.13, 2025)

    Guest Editors: Christian Imdorf (Leibniz University Hannover), Claudia Schuchart (University of Wuppertal) and Nadine Bernhard (Technische Universität Berlin)

    Call for Papers

    Deadlines and timeline:

    • Deadline for abstracts: 1-15 July 2024 
    • Deadline for articles (first versions): 1-15 December 2024
    • Publication: July/September 2025
  • International students in STEM subjects and the role of their social networks

    Funded by the Leibniz Centre for Science and Society (LCSS)

    Duration: 2023 – 2025

    Project leaders: Prof. Dr. Lysann ZanderProf. Dr. Christian Imdorf

    Project staff: Jannika Haase, M.Ed.

    Project summary: Given the skills shortage due to demographic and technological changes in Germany, especially in STEM professions, international students are an important target group for German employers. Although research has been carried out on international students, their integration and their academic success in their host country, only few studies have investigated the role of social relationships from the perspective of international students as potential employees in Germany. In our research project, we focus on international (STEM) students’ well-being and further experiences, their future prospects, and in particular on their social relationships within and outside the university. We use quantitative and qualitative methods, i.e., the combination of a three-wave quantitative panel study and interviews with international (STEM) students at Leibniz Universität Hannover.

    Project website: https://www.lcss.uni-hannover.de/en/research/our-research-projects/lcss-bridging-projects/international-students-in-stem-subjects-and-the-role-of-their-social-networks

  • Inclusive Access to Higher Education Institutions via Vocational Schools?

    Funded by the Leibniz Centre for Science and Society (LCSS)

    Duration: 10/2020 – 05/2023

    Project leaders: Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf; Prof. Dr. Nadine Bernhard

    Project staff: Nadine Dörffer, M.A.

    Project summary: This bridging project deals with vocational schools as possible institutional pathways to higher education in Germany from a sociological and educational science perspective. We ask whether and how vocational schools allow for the reduction or compensation of social inequalities in the transition from upper secondary education to higher education. Distinctions are made between the different types of vocational schools and university entrance qualifications. In addition, the study examines the extent to which scientific knowledge impacts the practical implementation and legitimization of decisions and actions of vocational schools that support the transition to higher education.

    Overall, the project will clarify how institutional and social permeability to higher education are promoted by specific schools, school types and their organizational contexts. In a first step, different types of vocational schools and higher education entrance qualifications will be quantitatively analyzed based on the data of the “DZHW Panel Study of School Leavers with a Higher Education Entrance Qualification”. The analysis focuses in particular on the institutional mediation of socially inclusive university admissions with a special focus on social origin and gender. Based on these results and in a second step, we use a qualitative research design to better understand the institutional and organizational effects of the schools on socially permeable trajectories of their students to higher education. For this purpose, we compare contrasting, context-sensitive case studies of selected vocational schools in Lower Saxony.

    By demonstrating how some vocational schools enable more social equality than others in providing access to higher education, we hope to draw some policy-relevant recommendations to further improve social permeability on the vocational path to higher education.

    Project website: https://www.lcss.uni-hannover.de/en/research/our-research-projects/lcss-bridging-projects/inclusive-access-to-higher-education-institutions-via-vocational-schools

Dissertation projects

Stefanie Schröder

How do study preparation institutions shape the educational pathways of refugees to German universities?

German Title: Wie gestalten Studienvorbereitungseinrichtungen die Bildungswege von Geflüchteten an deutsche Hochschulen?

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf

Planned Submission Date: Summer 2024

A remarkable share of refugees who have arrived in Germany since 2014/2015 is highly qualified and has strong educational and academic aspirations. Preparatory colleges (the so called ‚Studienkollegs‘) and higher education institutions as language course providers are the two main organizations offering obligatory study preparation for non‐EU international study applicants, including refugees. So far, research on conditions for refugees’ successful transitions into and through study preparation, and eventually into higher education, is scarce.
The dissertation project fills a research gap on the organisational level by considering the established norms and rules in the field of study preparation and the role of professional staff within the organizations in shaping successful pathways into higher education. For the theoretical framing, the dissertation project draws on concepts from the sociology of education and inequality as well as from the sociology of valuation. The empirical basis is formed by expert interviews with key actors in the field study preparation organizations, especially teachers and managers of study preparation courses, as well as interviews with refugee participants from study preparation courses. The qualitative data was conducted within the DZHW project ‚Refugees on their way into German higher education‘ (‚WeGe‘; 01.04.2017-31.03.2021).


Helena Geisler

Significance of educational credentials in the recruitment of skilled personnel

German title: Bedeutung von Bildungszertifikaten bei der Auswahl von Fachkräften

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf, LUH & Prof. Dr. Irene Kriesi, SFUVET

Planned Submission Date: 2026

It is an ongoing debate whether the education system should expand vocational or general education. Switzerland has the highest proportion of compulsory school leavers in upper-secondary vocational education and training (VET) programs in Europe. Vocational programmes are also widespread at the tertiary level and offer an alternative to university programmes, which require a university entrance certificate. However, there is little research on how recruiters evaluate different educational pathways within an occupational field. With my cumulative dissertation I contribute to this question and focus on the organizational level represented by the recruiters. I will first reconstruct different recruitment goals and find out how recruiters evaluate applicant information in relation to these goals. Therefore, I will use sociological theories of valuation. Secondly, I want to focus on the significance of educational certificates in relation to non-educational information like age, gender, hobbies etc. Recruiters get this non-educational information by interpreting the applicants’ CV, motivation letter and job interview. For the analysis I will use sociological theories about the re-production of social inequalities in employers’ decision making as well as economic theories emphasizing productivity and signalling properties of credentials. Thirdly, I want to investigate what competences and status recruiters attribute to different credentials.

My dissertation is part of the project The role of educational credentials and skills in the hiring process at Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training. The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. We follow a sequential Mixed-Method Design and will first conduct semistructured interviews with recruiters of different occupational fields in the German speaking part of Switzerland. We will then conduct a Factorial Survey where recruiters evaluate fictional CVs that differ regarding the education pathways.


Nadine Dörffer

Vocationally oriented schools as pathways to higher education for socially disadvantaged students?

German title: Berufliche Schulen als Weg an die Hochschule für sozial benachteiligte Schüler*innen?

Supervisor and first examiner: Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf

Second examiner: Prof. Dr. Nadine Bernhard

Planned submission date: 2024

Nowadays approximately one-third of all higher education entrance certificates in Germany are obtained at a vocationally oriented school. However, these schools remain subordinate in the discussion about socially unequal transitions to higher education. Even though early pathways to higher education via vocational school types have been institutionalized since the educational expansion processes of the 1960s/70s, knowledge about their respective contribution in guiding their students to higher education remains scarce. Additionally, vocationally oriented schools differ in their institutional and organizational structures between school types and federal states. In my dissertation, I address the question how vocationally oriented schools enable socially disadvantaged students to transition to higher education. My dissertation is broadly embedded in educational inequality research and focuses on institutional permeability as a precondition of social mobility (Bernhard 2018). For this purpose, this cumulative dissertation follows a mixed methods approach. Within its publications, the dissertation explores the main research question from individual, institutional and organizational perspectives. Therefore, I use secondary data sets of individuals (DZHW Studienberechtigtenpanel) for multivariate analysis and collected qualitative data material (documents, interviews) for qualitative content analysis. Overall, the dissertation project aims to enrich and specify knowledge about vocationally oriented schools as pathways to higher education and to critically classify the findings about their opportunities to reduce social inequalities in the transition to higher education.


Jacqueline Fank

Occupation-specific skills in German training occupations: Measurement, gendered prevalence and utilization in the labour market

German title: Berufsspezifische Fähigkeiten in deutschen Ausbildungsberufen: Messung, geschlechtsspezifische Ausprägung und Verwertung am Arbeitsmarkt

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf, LUH & Dr. Daniela Rohrbach-Schmidt, BIBB

Planned submission date: 2028

German training occupations are highly standardised and follow a strong occupational principle. As such, the 327 training occupations (as of 2023) – and numerous full-time school-based training occupations – are heterogeneous in terms of various occupational characteristics and their later utilization in the labour market. In my dissertation, I address the occupational specificity of acquired skills with a special focus on gender. I examine whether different training occupations vary in their degree of occupational specificity and how this affects later employment. Given the strong gender segregation in (training) occupations, I focus on differences between male-dominated, female-dominated and gender-mixed training occupations.
First, I develop a text-based indicator that measures the proportion of occupation-specific skills in the training regulations. Second, I examine the differences in occupational specificity in the different training occupations (with a focus on the gender type of the training occupation). Finally, I use data from the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey to analyse the relationship between the proportion of occupation-specific skills acquired in the training and the utilization of these skills in later employment, and how this relationship differs by gender type of the (training) occupation as well as for women and men.

My dissertation is part of the project Heterogeneity of training occupations - segments in vocational education and training at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), which examines the heterogeneous characteristics of German training occupations.