Decisiones y educación superior. Lógicas de acción de jóvenes en el proceso de transición académica post-obligatoria

Abstract

This research had two main objectives; the first corresponds to characterize the process of inequality of educational opportunity in the process of transition from high school to college and on the dynamics of continuity and / or dropout of tertiary level. The second is an attempt to generate explanatory mechanism of the phenomena under the conceptual and methodological framework of analytical sociology. The analysis model incorporates the conceptual developments of the first Boudon (1983), Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) and Breen (2001), corresponding to the rational choice theory; but also adds some elements of methodological and substantive allowing enrich and behaviorally attempts sociological explanations, such as analysis of educational decisions Gambetta (1987), the theory of ordinary rationality the second Boudon (2011) and BOD Hedström scheme (2005). This work is confined to the reality of Chile and the empirical level "Transition from School to Work" survey, which corresponds to a research initiative originating in the context of Aequalis and the IDB is used; especially geared to meet the decision-making process of access, retention and qualification of young people in the Chilean higher education. The most relevant results at the descriptive level trajectories show that young people are heavily influenced by family income, ownership of college graduation and mode of secondary education; as well as the results in selectivity, educational level of parents and the occupation of household head. Moreover, young people and their families show a high propensity for continuing higher education; and generally choose their houses of study based on the level of perceived social prestige. By way of explanation, the operation of the generic mechanism of relative risk aversion of downward mobility base that effectively allows the proportions of young people with educational highest minimum thresholds (parents with higher education) are overrepresented in the paths that reflect access higher education. The assumptions of the analysis model that said the beliefs of academic performance of the actors would condition the decisions of access and continuity of higher education; are plausible according to the analysis in the study population; In this sense, the introduction of the mechanism of adaptive preferences allowed to base the relationship between beliefs and beliefs throughput performance needed to successfully overcome the academic demands in higher education, the notion of subjective probability of success; i.e. preferences related to the transition to higher education or continuity appropriately adjusted according to beliefs about past performance, and the potential achievement of educational credential. Finally, this work has made it possible to develop a transition exercise of a descriptive model of inequality of opportunity in education, from a strong imprint of the traditional theory of rational choice, to social mechanisms explanation of analytical sociology

Date of Award	8 Jan 2016
Original language	Spanish
Awarding Institution	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Supervisor	Helena Troiano Goma (Director)