STUDY INVOLVEMENT OF ACADEMIC AND

VOCATIONAL STUDENTS:
DOES INTER-SCHOOL TRACKING
SHARPEN THE DIFFERENCE?

Mieke Van Houtte Peter Stevens

Department of Sociology Institute of Education
Ghent University University of London
Mieke.VanHoutte@UGent.be p.stevens@ioe.ac.uk
Issue
How to organize vocational education?

vocational education in Flemish educational system:

- part of compulsory secondary education
- part of hierarchical tracking system
- tracking between schools
categorial: - academic schools most common
- technical/vocational schools
- vocational schools
multilateral: - academic + technical + vocational
Starting point

Finding: differences between vocational & academic students

● educational performance
● study involvement
● cultural and political attitudes

Objective

To examine whether inter-school tracking sharpen the differences

Focus: study involvement
Background

- differentiation-polarization theory to explain track differences

 inter-school tracking  differentiation
 polarization
- heterogenous groups  spillover-effect
 multilateral schools:
academic students = normative reference group
- heterogenous groups  frog pond effect
 multilateral schools:
academic students = comparative reference group
Research questions

3) Does it make a difference for vocational students’ study

involvement to attend a categorial or multilateral school?

2) Do categorial schools sharpen the difference in study

involvement between vocational and academic students?
Data
subsample from Flemish Educational Assessment (FlEA)
gathered school year 2004-2005

2152 vocational & 3758 academic students in 66 secondary schools

56 categorial schools  22 academic – 3376 ac. students
 30 techn/voc – 1645 voc. students
 4 vocational – 171 voc. students
10 multilateral schools  382 academic students
336 vocational students
Design

Multilevel analysis (HLM6)

Dependent variable = study involvement:

6-item scale – 5 answering categories
Cronbach’s alpha = 0.76
sum item scores, range 6-30

Main independent = school type

categorial schools coded 0
multilateral schools coded 1

Control variables: gender, age, SES, ethnicity, parental involvement

Results
First research question Second research question
Figure 1. Association between track (Vocational versus Academic) and Study
Involvement: Effect of Schooltype – Multilateral versus Categorial. Results
Multilevelanalyses (HLM6).

20.84
Vocational track

Academic track

19.97

involvement
19.10
Study

18.23

17.36
categorial multilateral

School type
Discussion

Conclusion: categorial schools do not sharpen the difference

between vocational and academic students
multilateral schools do:
academic students as comparative reference group

Note: Flemish multilateral schools 

well-defined tracks within a school

Implication: putting tracks together while maintaining firm

distinction is no solution