Determinants of Academic Attainment
A generation ago the person least likely to attend a Gymnasium was a "catholic working class girl from the rural parts of Germany". Nowadays however the person least likely to attend a Gymnasium is a "minority youngster from the ghetto", who is "the son of immigrants"
The influence of social class on educational achievement is much greater in western Germany than it is in eastern Germany (former GDR). In western Germany the child of an academic is 7.26 times as likely as the child of a skilled worker to attend a Gymnasium, while in eastern Germany a child from an academic background is only 2.78 times as likely as a working class child to attend a Gymnasium. The reasons for this are unclear. Some people have the opinion that immigrants were to blame for this because more uneducated immigrant families lived in western Germany than in eastern Germany. This assumption however could not be confirmed. The difference between eastern and western Germany was even stronger when only ethnic German children were studied.
Social class differences in educational achievement are much more marked in Germany's big cities than they are in the rural parts of Germany. In cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants, children of academics are 14.36 times as likely as children of skilled workers to attend Gymnasium.
Read more about this topic: Education In Germany
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