Students from a high socioeconomic background show relatively homogeneous, high levels of educational attainment, whereas students with a low socioeconomic origin display a large variability in their educational careers. In this paper, we examine whether the varying degrees of students' academic self-efficacy can contribute to an explanation of…

This article presents the results of a research project which examined the factors enabling educational upward mobility. The findings are based on 58 qualitative interviews with successful first-generation students who are scholarship holders from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. From an in-depth analysis of the individual resources,…

In this paper, we develop an information distortion model (IDM) of social class differences in self-beliefs and values. The IDM combines psychological biases on frame-of-reference effects with sociological foci on ability stratification. This combination is hypothesized to lead to working-class children having more positive math self-beliefs and…

Previous international research has shown that educational goals are fundamental for explaining differences in the educational attainment between individuals. For a better understanding of educational inequality, it is therefore crucial to know more about the mechanisms leading to different expectations. Our paper contributes to this field of…