Ready-Steady-Go: oder doch nicht? Analyse der Vorschule im österreichischen Bildungssystem.
摘要
The Austrian education system is known for its highly diversified structure that channels students into ability groups. It is characteristic of this system that, after a comprehensive school-like education in primary school, tracking begins (in international comparison) early, at the age of ten. In fact, tracking in Austria begins much earlier, namely at the very beginning of a child’s school career. So the downgrading of “immature” children at the age of six to pre-school also falls under this category. Intended as a measure to give children more time to develop the prerequisites for attending school, attending preschool represents a loss of career path due to its inclusion in compulsory schooling.
The article is specifically dedicated to two questions. Firstly, what is the extent and social distribution of preschool attendance? Secondly, which level of success in the further educational career is associated with preschool attendance? The basis for these analyses is a register data set that covers an entire school entry cohort and maps the further educational career over 15 years.
Descriptive analyses show a highly social and regionally uneven distribution of preschool attendance. Regression analyses reveal that preschool attendance is significantly positively associated with early school leaving and even more strongly negatively associated with obtaining a university entrance qualification at the end of upper secondary education. The results contribute to a better understanding of the selectivity in the Austrian education system and add to the empirical evidence on the relationship between tracking and further educational pathways. On a policy level, the article provides a basis for initiating a reform of the school entry phase.