Acknowledgements: We are very grateful to the helpful comments of the anonymous referees. The research leading to these results has also received funding from the Institutional Research Grant No. IUT2-17 of the Ministry of Education and 1250 Science Estonia, Grant No. 9247 of the Estonian Science Foundation, and from European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007(FP/ -2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects). This is the author's Post-print version (final draft post-refereeing as accepted for publication by the journal). The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published as: Pungas, E., Täht, K., Realo, A. & Tammaru, T. (2015)
DOES ETHNICITY MATTER IN INTENTIONS TO STUDY ABROAD? ANALYSIS OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES IN ESTONIAAbstract. This paper examines factors that shape intentions to study abroad. Previous research highlights the importance of various forms of capital-human, economic, social, cultural and mobility capital-as well as of personality traits in the formation of the intention to complete education in foreign countries. Our specific focus is on ethnic differences in going to study abroad. The data comes from a representative survey of high school graduates in Estonia. We apply multilevel binary regression in order to capture both individual and school effects in the formation of study intentions. Our key findings reveal, first, that there exist significant ethnic differences in the willingness to continue studies abroad despite controlling for individual characteristics, including various forms of capital and the personality traits. Second, ethnic differences disappear once we control for the study language of the school. The institutional context thus 3
DOES ETHNICITY MATTER IN INTENTIONS TO STUDY ABROAD? ANALYSIS OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ESTONIAAbstract. This paper examines factors that shape intentions to study abroad. Previous research highlights the importance of various forms of capital-human, economic, social, cultural and mobility capital-as well as of personality traits in the formation of the intention to complete education in foreign countries. Our specific focus is on ethnic differences in going to study abroad. The data comes from a representative survey of high school graduates in Estonia. We apply multilevel binary regression in order to capture both individual and school effects in the formation of study intentions. Our key findings reveal, first, that there exist significant ethnic differences in the willingness to continue studies abroad despite controlling for individual characteristics, including various forms of capital and the personality traits. Second, ethnic differences disappear once we control for the study language of the school. The institutional context thus plays an important role in the formation of ethnic differences in educational aspirations.