School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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    Issues in the school-to-work transition - Evidence from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth
    MARKS, G (SAGE Journals, 2005)
    The purpose of this article is to examine how accurate pessimistic accounts of the school-to-work transition are, given the substantial decline in unemployment since the 1991/93 recession. This examination is limited to young people who did not go to university, a group which is more likely to be experiencing problematic school-to-work transitions. The analyses use data from the first eight waves of data from the 1995 Year 9 cohort in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project. In the years after leaving school, an increasing majority are in full-time work and there is considerable movement into full-time work from part-time work and unemployment. Furthermore, each year full-time workers show increases in job status and earnings. Only a small minority of non-university bound youth have problematic school-to-work transitions. These analyses also suggest that the policy emphasis on increasing participation in vocational education is misplaced. Except for apprenticeships and then only among males, vocational education does not appear to promote full-time employment.
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    Cross-national differences and accounting for social class inequalities in education
    MARKS, G (Sage Publications, 2005)
    This article focuses on two questions relating to social class inequalities in education: cross-national differences and the contribution of material, cultural and school factors in accounting for the relationship. These questions are addressed using the EGP measure of occupational class and student performance in reading literacy in 30 countries. The pattern of cross-national differences is more closely associated with indicators of modernization and the organization of the school system, rather than indicators of overall societal inequality and economic development. Both material and cultural factors contribute to the relationship between class background and student achievement with cultural factors marginally more important overall. In countries with highly tracked school systems, schools mediate the relationship in that children from lower class backgrounds are more likely to attend lower performing schools. However, the inverse is not true: school differences in student performance are only partially accounted for by class background and other socioeconomic factors.
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    Gender Differences in the Effects of Socioeconomic Background: Recent Cross-National Evidence
    MARKS, G (SAGE Journals, 2008)
    This article examines two related questions: (1) Are there gender differences in the influence of socioeconomic background on students' educational performance? and (2) Is student performance influenced more by the socioeconomic characteristics of the same-sex parent? Seven hypotheses are derived and tested using data from 30 countries on student performance in reading and mathematics. There is little or no gender difference in the effects of socioeconomic background on educational performance in almost all countries examined. In no country are all the hypotheses relating to the same-sex socialization model supported, although there is a tendency for father's socioeconomic characteristics and father's occupation to have a stronger impact among boys in some countries. There were very few instances where mother's characteristics were stronger among girls. In sum, there is only limited evidence to support the same-sex socialization model for educational performance.