Academic track mismatch and the temporal development of well-being and competences in German secondary education

Formal education is one of the most influential predictors of professional success.As parents in Germany are aware of the importance of education, they often try toenable their children to enrol in the prestigious academic schooling track (Gymnasium).This explains why the transition recommendation made by the teacher afterthe fourth grade is sometimes ignored if the desired track was not recommended fora particular student. How the mismatch between the teacher’s recommendation andthe parents’ choice of schooling for their child affects the child’s development is not sufficiently known. It is very likely that such a mismatch can have consequences forthe child’s well-being, competences and overall academic success. Based on fiveconsecutive panel waves of German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) data(waves 1 to 5, collected between 2010 and 2016) (n = 2;790 in wave 1), our analysesdemonstrate that social background and the probability of ignoring a teacher’srecommendation are associated, and that highly educated parents are more likelyto overrule the teacher’s recommendation. Panel regression models show that pupilswho pursued the academic track (Gymnasium) despite the absence of a teacher’srecommendation were more likely to drop out of the academic schooling track,and were not able to catch up with their peers with respect to both objective andsubjective academic competences over the entire observation window. However, themodels also show that academic track mismatch did not seem to negatively influencethe health and well-being of these pupils.