Attitudes of Student Teachers (ELSE). A factorial survey of the importance of attitudes in reproducing social inequality at the transition from elementary to secondary school through teachers' transition recommendations

Since the publication of the PISA 2000 results, the social inequality of educational opportunities in the German school system has again been the subject of increased discussion. Particularly at the transition from elementary to secondary school, unequal educational opportunities for students are reproduced in terms of social background, gender and ethnicity (migration background). Teachers’ transition recommendations play a special role here. Teachers are repeatedly criticized for their objectivity when assessing performance, but also when making transition recommendations for secondary school.

The ELSE study investigates the ’xtent to which attitudes (e.g., gender stereotypes, xenophobia, subjective theories about school and teaching), personality traits (e.g., Big Five, authoritarianism; social dominance orientation), and socio-structural characteristics (gender, social origin, migration background) of student teachers affect the decision of a (fictitious) transition recommendation. For this purpose, a total of 364 student teachers at the University of Kassel were surveyed in January/February 2014 using a specially developed questionnaire. To record the transition recommendation, four vignettes with information on the performance and social behavior of a student are developed, which represent a borderline case between grammar school (Grundschule) and secondary school (Gymnasium) recommendation. The information on the performance and social behavior is identical for all four vignettes, only the name of the student varies, so that the gender and ethnicity (migration background) is evident: 1. Lukas B.; 2. Yusuf M.; 3. Mia S.; 4. Ayla M. The questionnaires were distributed randomly, in each questionnaire there was only one vignette, so that for each vignette there were about 90 transition recommendations of the student teachers. Contrary to the study's assumptions, the most frequent high school recommendations for grammar school were made by girls with a migrant background (61%), while the lowest were made by girls without a migrant background (39%). The correlations between transition recommendations and the attitudes, personality, and socio-structural characteristics of the student teachers surveyed have been analyzed in several module papers.