This paper reports the motivations of middle-class Asian students who choose German universities of applied sciences under the third wave of international student mobility. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the students' qualitative experiences in Asian countries that influenced their preference for German universities of applied…

Low interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) among high school students in general and women in particular is a highly prevalent phenomenon in many industrialized countries. This study analyses whether study counselling--guiding students to select a major in higher education through self-exploration and fostering their…

Background: Despite a well-documented underrepresentation of women in STEM majors and occupations, empirical evidence on whether there really is a "leaky STEM pipeline" is mixed due to a lack of methodological consistency. Studies vary by (1) the definition of STEM, (2) the decision to measure choices alone or to also include…

Academic cheating is a problem that affects many educational institutions and has become increasingly significant with the new challenges of online education. Recent studies have found that learning goals are correlated with cheating behavior among students. In this study, we investigated whether learning goals are still a predictor of cheating…

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…

The purpose of this study is to describe the perceptions and expectations of German language students, especially in terms of receptive skills. This study asks two main questions: (i) what are the expectations of students towards learning German and (ii) how are students' perceptions of German learning, especially reading and listening, the data…

In this study I examine the academic self-concept (ASC) of students who changed from vocational to academic tracking at the transition to upper secondary education in Germany. I ask (1) how their ASC differs to the ASC of their established peers in academic tracking, and (2) how their ASC is affected by the change in the learning environment.…

Based on a case study, this article discusses connections between educational inequality in Brazil, transnational migration and educational upward mobility. It analyses a young woman's migration from a "favela" in Brazil to Germany with a focus on the educational aspirations that motivated it, that is, as a case of "educational…

The importance of close social contacts in the educational process has been widely documented, but mainly for the school sector. The present article examines the importance of close relationships on university students' dropout tendencies. Using longitudinal panel data collected at a medium-sized German university, students (N = 7,169) were…

Given their lower socioeconomic background and achievement, immigrants and their descendants have been shown to make more ambitious decisions regarding educational transitions. While previous research has extensively analysed transitions within and after compulsory education, research on late transitions is scarce. This study focuses on the…

Context: In the present study, we explore what motivates young adults to re-engage with education or employment after a period of non-engagement. Insights into this process facilitate the implementation of tailored support measures for at-risk groups. It is well-known that young people who are not involved in any kind of education, employment, or…

Turkish immigrants who have been to Germany since 1961 have experienced many problems due to different reasons such as not recognizing the destination country, not knowing the mother tongue of the country, and xenophobia during the process of their integration into the region. One of the problems experienced by immigrants is that they cannot get…

Careers advisers in schools are of great importance. In order for the counselling to be effective, a social capital-intensive relationship must be built up between adviser and student, characterised by trust and shared understanding of roles and expectations. The aim of this quantitative study is to investigate the influence of a student's…

Educational expectations are a key predictor of educational attainment. Throughout adolescence, friends increasingly function as 'significant others' and, thus, can affect the development of these expectations. Although scholars often interpret the clustering of students with similar expectations within friendship networks as the outcome of peer…

This article examines the extent to which normative beliefs on acculturation constitute (a) individual resources and risk factors for adolescents facing developmental tasks and (b) institutional norms that define developmental milieus in secondary schools. To what extent do egalitarianism, multiculturalism, assimilationism, and segregationism help…