The Economic and Political Influences on the Origin and Maintenance of Academic and Vocational Tracks in the Secondary Education Systems of OECD Countries

Abstract:

A developed public system of primary and secondary education exists within all of the thirty-four member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). At the same time, these systems are organized very differently depending on the country or set of countries in question. This thesis aims to understand why developed countries feature vastly different education systems despite similar goals of providing a universal system of public education to its citizens. More specifically, this thesis borrows perspectives from both political economy and sociology to help explain two major questions: 1) Why do some countries pursue secondary school systems that sort students into academic or vocational studies and 2) Why do some countries pursue early tracking from ages ten to twelve while others pursue late tracking at ages sixteen and beyond? Distinguishing features between coordinated versus liberal market economies, a set of classifications borrowed from political economy’s varieties of capitalism, appear to help explain the existence of tracking versus non-tracking in the secondary school systems of developed countries. Additionally, the effects on inequality of early versus late tracking appear to influence partisan interests, namely those of Christian versus social democratic parties, which then influence the existence of early versus late tracking in many developed countries. More specifically, coordinated market economies feature the structural support for secondary school tracking that liberal market economies do not, and countries with Christian democratic leadership are more likely to pursue early tracking than social democratic leadership, which pursue late tracking, because the former is more likely to support higher inequalities in the form of restricted intergenerational mobility.