Analyzing Educational Careers: A Multinomial Transition Model
提出了一个多项转移模型来分析教育生涯，考虑学生先前路径和成绩，发现路径影响后续教育转移概率，且传统逻辑模型会扭曲阶层效应。
The logit model of educational transitions has become standard in research in educational stratification. One limitation of the model, however, is the assumption that individuals progress through the educational system in a unilinear sequential mode. Many school systems contain parallel branches of study that are most fruitfully seen as qualitatively different alternative pathways with different probabilities of school continuation attached to them. This study tests a multinomial model of educational careers, that takes previous paths and grade-point averages into account. Applied to a large Swedish longitudinal data set the model tests whether conclusions about class stratification in educational attainment based on a logit model are borne out. Results show that the pathway a student has taken through the school system influences the probability of making subsequent educational transitions. This result is robust to unmeasured heterogeneity modeled using a latent class approach. Furthermore, the traditional logit model tends to deflate class-origin effects at early transition points while inflating them at the transition to higher education. The results give some support to the hypothesis that origin effects are strongest at more “indirect” and unusual pathways.