The double-edged sword of de-tracking reforms in Germany: Using a Difference-in-Differences approach to estimate effects on students' educational aspirations and their association with students' socioeconomic backgrounds

Some German states recently reformed their tracking practices by reducing the number of secondary school track options from up to four to a two-path structure, in which students can continue their school career until they acquire the general university entrance qualification in both tracks (academic and comprehensive). We examine whether these de-tracking reforms were, as intended, associated with a change in students’ educational aspirations and whether they reduced socioeconomic disparities in students’ educational aspirations. We analyze representative data of around 65,000 ninth graders from states with and without reforms from pre- and post-reform periods (2012 to 2018), using a Difference-in-Differences approach and a regression of students’ educational aspirations on their socioeconomic backgrounds. Our results suggest that students’ educational aspirations have increased in the wake of the de-tracking reforms, but that socioeconomic disparities in students’ educational aspirations have increased rather than weakened. Implications for tracking practices and socioeconomic disparities are discussed.