A network analysis of intra-EU migration flows: how regulatory policies, economic inequalities and the network-topology shape the intra-EU migration space Postprint Artikel/Aufsatz Michael Windzio, Céline Teney & Sven Lenkewitz (2021) A network analysis of intra-EU migration flows: how regulatory policies, economic inequalities and the network-topology shape the intra-EU migration space,

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This article investigates students’ access to social capital and its role in their educational decisions in the stratified German school system. We measure social capital as the availability of highly educated adults in adolescents’ and parents’ social networks. Using panel data on complete friendship as well as parental networks and the educational decisions of more than 2700 students from the CILS4EU-DE dataset, we show that social networks are segregated along socio-economic differences, which restricts access to social capital for socio-economically disadvantaged students. A comparison shows that parental networks tend to be substantially more segregated than children’s friendship networks. In addition, our results indicate that access to social capital is linked to academically ambitious choices—i.e., entering upper secondary school or enrolling in university. This relationship is especially pronounced for less privileged students.

Students with more cultural capital fare better in the educational system. However, while research shows the link between cultural capital and academic success, it largely neglects the role of friends in the school grade advantage of culturally-endowed students. Therefore, since peer processes are relevant for students’ school grades and social networks can amplify social inequality, this study examines (1) whether friendship relationships differ for students with a low vs. high amount of cultural capital and (2) whether friendship networks are connected to the school grade gap between students with a different cultural capital endowment. To this end, I analyze longitudinal social networks of around 1400 adolescents in 18 German secondary schools with stochastic actor-oriented models and employ simulations. Results show that adolescents with more cultural capital tend to select higher-achieving peers as friends and that adolescents tend to influence each other's school grades. However, simulations, which help to explore alternative scenarios, suggest that peer influence can work in favour of culturally-disadvantaged students. This counterintuitive finding can be explained because culturally-advantaged adolescents select higher-achieving peers compared to their schoolmates, but compared to their own grades they have slightly lower-achieving friends and vice versa. Accordingly, simulations suggest that social networks can decrease educational inequality under the right circumstances.

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