The effect of school tracking on the development of political interest among adolescents and young adults in Germany

Democratic systems depend on active and engaged citizens. An important requirement for all types of political participation is the political interest of individuals. In contrast to the analysis of voting decisions, there is still too little research regarding political interest. Various studies have shown that adolescence can be seen as a crucial phase for the development of political interest, in which educational institutions become increasingly relevant. It has repeatedly been shown that the more one remains in education, the more one’s interest in politics increases. However, less is known about the influence different types of education have on the development of political interest. In many school systems, students are sorted into academic and non-academic/ vocational tracks at the secondary education level. The development of political interest under the influence of different types of education is the focus of this paper. In this contribution we use the example of Germany. The German school system is strongly stratified at secondary level I (years 5 – 10, SL1). After primary school, students are sorted into an academic track that lead to the eligibility to study (e.g. Gymnasium) and non-academic tracks (e.g. Realschule) that prepare for vocational education. At secondary level II (years 11-13, SL2), the school system opens up. We assume that the type of continuation of the educational biography in upper secondary school has an effect on the development of political interest. In particular, we are interested in the extent to which continuing academic education, moving into non-academic education, or vice versa has an impact on the development of political interest. We analyse the data of the third starting cohort of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which covers the entire secondary school period (SL1 & SL2) as well as entry into the labor market. Due to the focus on SL2 we use the first measurement of the outcome variable political interest in grade 8 as a base line to analyse the development in SL2. For our analysis, we use multilevel mixed effects linear regression models. The five observation points are nested in individuals, so that processes can be examined with regard to various influencing factors at the individual level. The main independent variable on educational trajectory is based on the combination of the type of school attended by the students in SL1 and SL2. According to other studies we find, that students who came from the academic track have a greater political interest at the beginning of SL2, than students from non-academic track. Overall, political interest seems to be stabilized during SL2. Looking at specific trajectories, a convergence effect in the course of SL2 can be observed. Contrary to initial assumptions, the academic and non-academic educational trajectories converge, with a slightly decrease of students in the academic track and a slightly increase of students in the non-academic track. Therefore, the sorting into tracks in highly stratified systems such as in Germany seems not to be associated with stable track-specific effects over the educational biography as suggested by other studies.