PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This paper uses a twin-based approach to examine the extent to which institutional differences in school systems that relate to tracking across German states moderate the role of genes and environment in explaining children's attendance at upper secondary school. The results show moderation effects for two of the three indicators included: teacher recommendations and rigidness of tracking. Contrary to expectations, binding recommenda-tions do not reduce the relevance of environmental influences. Similarly, differences in the timing of tracking do not lead to changes in the relevance of genetic and environmental influences on track attendance. Overall, the results provide little evidence that any of the tracking systems distinguished here for Germany offer significant advantages over others when it comes to providing students with better opportunities to reach their full po-tential. However, this is true only for the indicators considered here.