In contrast, the two other pathways for upper-secondary education have staggered degrees, which means that additional educational achievements and exams are required after the first diploma in order to enroll in universities. However, if they wish to study at a university of applied sciences, they need one year of practical experience in the form of an internship. Young people who complete this track with a baccalaureate are formally entitled to enroll in all types of higher-education institutions: traditional cantonal and federal universities, universities of applied sciences, and universities of teacher education. Baccalaureate school is the most demanding of these paths in terms of academic performance. One-fifth enroll in baccalaureate school, 5% choose upper-secondary specialized school, and two-thirds start a vocational education and training program, which is mostly organized in the form of apprenticeships. Another exception is the study by Sixt, which, however, concentrates exclusively on Germany.Īt the transition from lower- to upper-secondary education, 95% of the pupils in Switzerland enter one of the three federally certified pathways within two years after completing their compulsory education. She analyzed the impact of three different features of cantonal education systems from the perspective of social inequality, although she remained focused on the transition from primary school to the highest track in lower-secondary level-the pre- or long-term baccalaureate school-and did not take into account the cantonal educational provisioning of places at baccalaureate school. An important exception for Switzerland is the study by Combet. At the same time, the degree of social inequality in access between cantons as it relates to the cantonal educational provisioning of places at baccalaureate school-one of the main structural conditions that varies between the cantons-has been neglected in recent research. An exception is the study by Buchmann, Kriesi, Koomen, Imdorf, and Basler, which investigated the role of the cantonal proportion of baccalaureate degrees as well as of entry exams in regulating admission.
So far, however, research has paid little attention to the dimensions of educational and socio-spatial structures of cantons and communities that moderate a pupil’s chances of being enrolled in baccalaureate school. On the other hand, scholars have problematized the great variation in the proportion of pupils in baccalaureate school between and within cantons, which cannot solely be explained by differences in pupil performance.
Social origin influences the transition to baccalaureate school and leads to educational inequalities, even when we control for the academic performance of pupils. On the one hand, previous research has well documented, and frequently denounced, inequalities related to individual characteristics, particularly to social origin. Consequently, in the public, in politics, and in the educational sciences, discussions repeatedly arise as to whether access to baccalaureate school is fair and equal. Inequality first increases with an increasing number of places (the scissors effect) and decreases only after the demand of more privileged families for places at baccalaureate school is saturated.īaccalaureate school ( Gymnasium) (Information on the denomination and descriptions of the different educational pathways can be found at, accessed 10 March 2022) at the upper-secondary level is the royal road to universities in Switzerland, although new pathways have been institutionalized in recent decades. The degree of inequality varies between cantons, depending on the supply of baccalaureate school places. Our results show that institutional structures at the cantonal and municipal levels influence the probability of transition beyond individual pupils’ characteristics. Empirically, we analyze national longitudinal register data to model educational transitions from compulsory to baccalaureate school by using logistic regression models. For our theoretical foundation, we combine concepts of neo-institutionalism with mechanisms of social reproduction in education. This paper aims to analyze how the institutional conditions of cantons and municipalities impact a pupil’s probability of entering baccalaureate school and how the cantonal provisioning of places in baccalaureate school affects social inequality of access. There is a recurring debate on whether access to baccalaureate school is fair and equal among pupils who live in different cantons and who are of different social origin. However, cantonal enrollment to baccalaureate school varies widely due to Swiss federalism. In Switzerland, baccalaureate school is still considered to be the royal road to a university education and the elite path for the social reproduction of the upper class.
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