This article is based on a survey carried out among 2,428 ninth-graders from 64 high-performing schools in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the study, we examine the relationships between socioeconomic background, extracurricular participation, and educational outcomes. The findings demonstrate high levels of participation in out-of-school, compared to school-based, extracurricular activities. Extracurricular participation was also shown to be associated with better grades and, to some extent, with higher levels of university aspirations. The relatively small estimate sizes indicate, however, that extracurricular participation is not a major factor in differences in educational outcomes. Nevertheless, since participation was higher among socioeconomically more advantaged students, and grades and/or levels of university aspirations were higher among those who participated, we argue that extracurricular participation should be understood as part of social reproduction in Russia.

This study explores how researchers analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each teams workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.

High aspirations can be an important factor for educational attainment, especially for youth in disadvantaged schools who are otherwise more likely to leave school early. In this article, I study the relationships between pre-migration status, social capital, and educational aspirations among youth in disadvantaged Swedish schools, using data on 960 students collected in 2014. Regression results showed that access to social capital was related to pre-migration status, and that both factors contributed to high university aspirations among children of immigrants, partly through high expectations from parents. The findings consequently show how post-migration resources and outcomes relate to pre-migration factors, challenging the destination country bias that is often present in studies on immigrants and their children.

This article focuses on the school-to-work trajectories of early school leavers in Sweden. I use sequence analysis of population-level registry data covering the first 10 years after compulsory school for 6404 early school leavers to identify four clusters of school-to-work trajectories: an exclusion trajectory characterized by not being in employment, education, or training; an education trajectory characterized by second-chance education and an increasing share of tertiary education; a precarity trajectory; and a career trajectory. Having an immigrant background or being a woman was associated with a lower likelihood of being in the career trajectory than having a non-immigrant background or being a man. Differences in the likelihood of being in the education trajectory between persons with immigrant and non-immigrant background could however be fully explained by parents education, if education level was measured relative to their country of origin. This highlights the importance of pre-migration factors for post-migration outcomes.

In this article, we study whether social capital contributes to ethnic inequality in education or whether there is evidence of counter-stratification. We use data from three surveys of Swedish ninth-graders in different contexts to fit regression models for access to social capital and educational returns. Our results show that students with parents from Asia or Southeast Europe had equal or better access to social capital, compared to children with at least one parent born in Sweden. Results for children with African background were mixed. Regarding educational outcomes, we found similar rates of returns from social capital across groups. Better access to social capital thus seems to buffer against disadvantages for some, but not all, groups.

I avhandlingen studerar jag utbildningsambitioner hos ungdomar med migrationsbakgrund i svenska skolor med låga genomsnittsbetyg, faktorer som påverkar dessa ambitioner, samt deras förhållande till utbildningsresultat. Avhandlingen består av en kappa med syfte, forskningsfrågor samt empiriska, teoretiska och metodologiska utgångspunkter, samt fyra artiklar där jag med hjälp av enkät- eller registerdata besvarar forskningsfrågorna.

I den första artikeln undersöker jag förhållandet mellan socioekonomisk status före migration, tillgång till socialt kapital efter migration, och utbildningsambitioner hos ungdomar i svenska skolor med låga genomsnittsbetyg. Ungdomar i familjer med högre socioekonomisk status före migration hade bättre tillgång till socialt kapital, och båda faktorerna hade ett positivt samband med utbildningsambitioner. Resultaten tyder på att tillgång till resurser före migration påverkar ansamlingen av resurser efter migration.

I den andra artikeln undersöker jag i vilken utsträckning den sociala omgivningen har olika inverkan på ungdomars utbildningsambitioner under olika institutionella förhållanden. Ungdomar i ett utbildningssystem med tidig nivågruppering var mindre optimistiska om att kunna förverkliga sina utbildningsambitioner. Sambandet mellan bekantskapskretsens attityder respektive sammansättning och egna ambitioner var istället starkare när nivågrupperingen skedde senare. Resultaten tyder på att utbildningssystemet kan påverka ambitioner både genom hur det strukturerar utfall, och genom hur det strukturerar interaktioner mellan ungdomar.

I den tredje artikeln undersöker jag och Alireza Behtoui i vilken utsträckning tillgång till och avkastning på socialt kapital varierar mellan ungdomar med, respektive utan, migrationsbakgrund. Ungdomar med migrationsbakgrund hade lika god eller bättre tillgång till socialt kapital som ungdomar utan migrationsbakgrund, och liknande avkastning. Resultaten tyder emellertid på att en bättre tillgång till socialt kapital endast delvis kompenserar för sämre tillgång till andra resurser för ungdomar med migrationsbakgrund.

I den fjärde artikeln undersöker jag vilka faktorer som påverkar övergången mellan skola och arbete för unga vuxna med ofullständig gymnasieutbildning. Unga vuxna vars familjer hade haft hög socioekonomisk status före migrationen återgick oftare till studier; samtidigt hade unga vuxna med migrationsbakgrund en långsammare etablering på arbetsmarknaden än unga vuxna utan migrationsbakgrund. Resultaten tyder på att unga vuxna med migrationsbakgrund påverkas både av familjens förhållanden före migration, och förhållanden på arbetsmarknaden efter migration i övergången mellan skola och arbete.

Avhandlingen visar på en växelverkan mellan resurser som försvunnit, blivit kvar, och skapats i och efter migration, men också hur dessa resurser sällan är tillräckliga för att kompensera för ojämlikheter i skolan och på arbetsmarknaden.

Educational tracking affects both the trajectories and the composition of peers that students meet in school. This study compares the effect of significant others on students educational aspirations within two transition regimes: the more comprehensive Swedish system and the more stratified Dutch. Separating between doxic and habituated aspirations, I hypothesize that (1) aspirations among students in disadvantaged schools will be lower in the Netherlands than in Sweden; (2) the higher educational aspirations of girls and children of immigrants will disappear when significant others are controlled for; and (3) the positive effect of significant others is more marked among Swedish students than among Dutch due to greater student heterogeneity. The data comes from 3202 students in schools with low average grades in Sweden and the Netherlands. Results were in line with the hypothesis with one important exception. There was a marked difference in habituated aspirations but no difference in doxic aspirations between the Dutch and Swedish students. In conclusion, the findings suggest a) that early tracking systems creates a disconnect between students hopes and what they perceive as likely outcomes, and b) that the phenomenon termed "immigrant optimism" and "ethnic capital" reflects unequal access to social capital.