Opinion on Educational Inequality
Why aren't there more educational reforms that try to increase equality of opportunity in the education system? It is often argued that such reforms do not win majorities because the middle class cares only about their own children and have little interest in supporting disadvantaged children. In a study based on data from the ifo Education Survey, however, we find that many reforms aimed at greater equality of opportunity have clear majorities in the German population. More than three-quarters of Germans are in favor of the state covering preschool fees for all children from low-income families from the age of four. The same applies to the fact that the state should provide considerably more financial resources for schools with many children from disadvantaged backgrounds. More than three quarters of Germans also favor expanding scholarship programs that support low-income students. Two-thirds of Germans are in favor of postponing tracking of students until after the sixth grade. 65 percent favor compulsory preschool for all children from the age of four. All these reform proposals often aim to increase equal opportunities - and they find very clear majorities in the German population.
With the help of survey experiments, we also investigate whether the population's preferences for education policies aimed at improving equal opportunities change when they receive information about the actual extent of inequality in the education system. The proportion of the population that considers inequality of opportunities for children from different social backgrounds in the German education system to be a serious problem rises from 55 to 68 percent when respondents are informed about the extent of existing differences in achievement. Approval rates for education policy measures also increase slightly, although these effects are on average rather small. However, there are substantial effects of concerns on policy preferences among those whose concerns are shifted by the information treatment. There are substantial effects on support for compulsory preschool, which increases further if respondents are informed about policy effectiveness.
Further findings that Germans support measures to reduce inequality in education can be found in the ifo Education Surveys 2019 and 2023.
The academic paper on the topic is:
Educational Inequality and Public Policy Preferences: Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments (with P. Lergetporer and K. Werner). Journal of Public Economics 188: 104226, 2020
Non-technical contributions:
Public Opinion on Education Policy in Germany (with P. Lergetporer and K. Werner). In: M.R. West, L. Woessmann (eds.), Public Opinion and the Political Economy of Education Policy around the World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 205-243, 2021
Section 4 in: Public Opinion and the Political Economy of Educational Reforms: A Survey (with M. Busemeyer and P. Lergetporer). European Journal of Political Economy 53: 161-185, 2018