Numerous research studies have found that parents with a history of immigration have higher expectations of their children's educational goals than parents without. A widespread explanation is that this is partly due to hopes of economic improvement through education. The new study, led by sociologist Prof Dr Reinhard Schunck from the University of Wuppertal, adds the so-called reference group effect - also known in educational research as the "big-fish-little-pond effect". This describes how pupils rate themselves in comparison to their classmates.

Reinhard Schunck explains it like this: "A child who consistently receives better grades at a school compared to their classmates feels - metaphorically speaking - like a big fish in a small pond. If the child moves to a school where the other children do better, their own performance remains unchanged, but the child is now in the middle of the class. Their self-concept as a 'big fish' dwindles and they feel less good." Other studies have also shown that such social comparison processes not only apply to the evaluation of one's own performance, but are also relevant for the evaluation of others, for example when teachers evaluate their pupils.

In their study, which was published in the journal European Societies, Prof Reinhard Schunck, Dr Nora Huth-Stöckle and Dr Eva Zschirnt wanted to find out whether this effect also applies to parents and their expectations of their children and whether it can explain, at least in part, why parents with a history of immigration often have higher educational expectations. For their analysis, the researchers drew on a representative sample of fourth-graders and their parents in Germany. This included extensive information about the pupils and their performance, the class structure, the parents' background and the highest school-leaving qualification they expect their child to achieve.

Key findings

• The expectations of all parents are lower if their child is in a high-achieving class and higher if they are in a low-achieving class, regardless of the child's performance.
• Children from immigrant families are more likely to be in lower-achieving classes.
• In these classes, immigrant parents tend to set higher educational goals and are more likely to expect their child to graduate from high school than non-immigrant parents.
• The results suggest that the reference group effect also has an impact on parental judgement: If the child is doing relatively well in the class level, the expectations of all parents increase.
• However, the results also show that the higher educational expectations of parents with a history of immigration can only be partially explained by the effect. Overall, parents with a history of immigration have higher educational expectations of their children than parents without a history of immigration.

"Our study shows that expectations do not arise in the abstract, but are formulated in the context of comparison groups - in this case the class. This means that the structure of the school classes themselves influences how high parents set goals for their children," says Prof Schunck.

The findings help to understand how social inequalities continue or change: Parents' educational expectations have an influence on children's educational decisions, for example on the choice of school types or the intensity of learning. Further research is needed, the authors explain, to examine how such expectations affect study and career decisions in the long term. "High expectations can mean pressure and opportunities at the same time," emphasises Schunck. The results are therefore a contribution to the discussion on performance heterogeneity and the composition of classes as well as the promotion of educational careers.