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This article explores the mechanisms of educational pathway decision making at the transition from primary to secondary school in the German education system by analysing data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). The highly reliable data of the German sample of the 2001 PIRLS make it possible to take into consideration simultaneously students' cognitive abilities at the end of primary schooling, criteria for parental decision making in education, as well as institutional adjustment options of family education strategies, in order to describe the complex mechanisms of educational pathway decision making. First, a general overview of the German education system and a review of the current state of research concerning the issue of social inequality of education in Germany are given. Subsequently, a theoretical background seeking to answer the question of how educational disparities arise and how they are structured, as well as a model for analysing parental choices in education are presented. After hypothesizing, multifarious statistical analyses are conducted with the aim of proving these assumptions and demonstrating how complex the mechanisms of educational segregation in Germany are. The results demonstrate that all participants in the process of decision making take a more or less socially biased achievement criterion as a basis and, thus, the logic of meritocracy does not seem to be an appropriate idea for segregating students into different branches of education at the end of primary schooling.

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Although there is an increasing number of studies investigating the effects of attending music programs and classes, research on the impact of gender role self-concept on the decision to attend music classes is limited. Current research highlights the significance of gender role self-concept in decision-making processes. Accordingly, we conducted path analysis on a sample of n = 353 fifth-graders to identify interrelations and mediation effects of students’ gender role self-concept on the attendance of a specific music class through the self-concept in music, intrinsic value of music, and other relevant aspects. The results showed that only gender role self-concept of femininity revealed direct effects on attending a music class. Students describing themselves as feminine had a more positive self-concept in music and value music more. No mediation effects could be detected. However, a negative direct path from gender role self-concept of femininity on music class attendance was observed. No effect was found for gender role self-concept of masculinity and music class attendance. The intrinsic value for music showed the highest impact on music class attendance. After discussing the main results, recommendations for researchers, teachers, and school administrators are made with regard to an accessible music education, which is independent of gender role orientations.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires the empowerment of learners through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), already at primary level. Teacher education for the SDGs is a focus of ESD. However, many teachers in Madagascar are underqualified and show knowledge gaps regarding ESD. This paper aims at identifying starting points for an ESD-oriented further development of teacher training, considering regionally relevant issues. Teaching Sustainable Development issues requires procedural knowledge. This paper reports on (i) Malagasy primary school teachers’ (n = 286) teaching and learning prerequisites regarding land-use and health issues compared to expert knowledge, (ii) modeling teachers’ respective procedural knowledge with the Rasch Partial Credit Model and validation studies, and on (iii) comparison of groups of teachers differentiated by diversity dimensions, e.g., teaching at rural or urban schools. The teachers underestimated land-use and health courses of action regarding effectiveness and possibility of implementation, compared to experts. IRT modeling resulted in two distinct knowledge dimensions, i.e., land use and health (latent correlation: 0.31). Rural teachers showed higher procedural land-use knowledge than urban teachers. No differences occurred regarding health knowledge. The paper argues for ESD-focused reorientation of teacher training, considering regional specificities of land-use topics, e.g., regarding vanilla and rice cultivation in North-East Madagascar, and health topics.