Claudia Diehl, Dr.phil.

Arbeitsvorhaben

How Do Boy and Girl High School Pupils Perceive Inequality (Working Title)

Research on educational inequality has been booming in the last decades, but we know little about how high school students themselves perceive inequality and fairness in school and society. In my envisioned monograph, I will tackle this topic by analyzing data from a two-wave survey among students aged 12 and 15 that I am currently conducting with colleagues from different disciplines at the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” at the University of Konstanz. This data will help answer questions such as: How do children from different social and ethnic backgrounds perceive and evaluate their chances in the educational system? Do they think that girls and boys, migrants and natives, children from wealthy and poor parents are treated fairly, have the same chances of moving ahead, and have an equal say in school affairs and society at large? To what extent do they believe in meritocratic principles and think that they – rather than ascriptive characteristics such as sex, ethnicity, and parental background – shape grades and school recommendations? What role do school and classroom characteristics, parents, and peer networks play in forming these perceptions? I assume that these perceptions and evaluations are key in understanding processes of political polarization that are likely to start in early adolescence. In this respect, research on perceptions of inequality among high school students touches upon an important issue of our time: Why are many individuals, especially those who are economically disadvantaged, alienated from the so-called elites in politics, the media, and science? I hope to provide insight into this question by analyzing the circumstances under which these processes already start in adolescence and under what circumstances they solidify – or do not solidify – over the person’s life cycle.

Recommended Reading

Diehl, Claudia, Christian Hunkler, and Cornelia Kristen, eds. (2016). Ethnische Ungleichheiten im Bildungsverlauf: Mechanismen, Befunde, Debatten. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Diehl, Claudia, Patrick Fick, and Matthias Koenig (2018). “Religion und ethnische Bildungsungleichheiten: Empirische Befunde zu einem strittigen Zusammenhang.” Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform 101: 112–139. https://doi.org/10.1515/mks-2018-1010203.
Diehl, Claudia, Elisabeth Liebau, and Peter Mühlau (2021). “How Often Have You Felt Disadvantaged? Explaining Perceived Discrimination.” Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 73: 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-021-00738-y.

Publikationen aus der Fellowbibliothek

Diehl, Claudia (Berlin, 2021)

How often have you felt disadvantaged? : Explaning perceived discrimination

Diehl, Claudia (Berlin, 2018)

Religion und ethnische Bildungsungleichheiten : empirische Befunde zu einem strittigen Zusammenhang