Looking at the future from the periphery of the system: low-ability grouping and educational expectations

ABSTRACT Extant research has observed that educational expectations are malleable and adjust in response to educational inputs such as the position in a stratified level of education. Examining two distinct forms of curricular differentiation introduced in the comprehensive Spanish educational system (low-ability grouping programmes), I study whether two identical 15-year-old students with the same academic performance would differ in their educational expectations if one of them was diverted into these programmes. I use the 2018 PISA database and Entropy Balancing to balance the distribution of variables that confound the relationship between low-ability grouping and expectations. Results indicate that being diverted into a low-ability group exerts a substantial effect on the vertical and horizontal expectations about Upper Secondary and Tertiary Education. Programmes based on a simplification of the general curriculum mainly condition horizontal expectations (academic vs vocational education), while pre-vocational programmes also shorten the educational plans of participants. Therefore, the effects associated with the educational position of the student are not exclusive of highly stratified systems and other forms of curricular differentiation in otherwise highly comprehensive systems can be influential in the reconfiguration of educational expectations.