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Diplomas: expectations and returns

Diploma may be considered as a social model, not only regarding social status, but also according to individual representations, local environment, national and cross-national contexts (Allmendinger 1989, Shavit, Blossfeld 1993).
However, it has been established in the Midterm Equalsoc Conference of Berlin (2008) that the number of years spent at school is not correlated with a decrease of social schooling inequalities (Shavit 2008), and that the level of diplomas reached in various countries is not correlated with level of competencies (Allmendinger 2008). At an individual level, the same diplomas and degrees even in the same field can have different returns following the cultural and social capital (Blasko, Robert 2007).
This leads to undertake researches on the different aspects of diploma’s representations: They result from social uses and assessments too, which are progressively constructed along the educational pathways. They result from the way the labour market integration is anticipated too.
Which are the various factors, social representations and subjective beliefs influencing the orientation decisions? How cultural and social origins affect even the ability of having a choice, for example, between academic and vocational tracks? Which are the expected returns in terms of health, security, integration and others social expectations? Which are the distinctive characteristics of youngsters corresponding to each representation of diplomas according to their gender, age, social background, schooling history and educational track? Such are the questions a new team of the Equalsoc Educ group could deal with in a cross-national comparative point of view. The first data to be used is the Panel 95 DEPP-MEN and CEREQ-CMH Survey in France, the Survey of Young People in Third Year 2005 ESRI in Ireland, the Global Development Network Survey from CERGE-EI Fundation-TARKI Insitute in Hungary and the German Panel from MZES in Germany. The first step is a workshop in Paris in December 2008.