College Aspiration Formation Periods and Their Mediation Between Students' Socioeconomic Background and Educational Achievement: Evidence from JLSCP 2015-2018 data

<p> The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the delayed formation of college aspiration causes disadvantages in educational achievements in Japanese high schools today, where post-graduation paths are no longer entirely defined by school type and over half of all students attend university.</p><p> This paper defines delayed formation of college aspiration in accordance with this context and investigates the relationship between students' socioeconomic backgrounds, such as household income and parents' educational backgrounds, and the periods in which their college aspiration was formed, also considering their school type as a mediator. The paper also examines whether delayed formation of college aspiration is connected to disadvantages in educational achievements.</p><p> The results of analysis based on panel data of high school students are as follows. 1) In all school types, a small but consistent number of students had not formed college aspiration before senior year. 2) Parents' educational backgrounds affect children's college aspiration formation periods; as well, college aspiration formation periods affect career paths after high school graduation, especially with regard to enrollment in highly ranked universities. 3) The mediation effect of college aspiration formation periods with regard to the relationship between socioeconomic backgrounds and post-high school career paths was 20%.</p><p> These results suggest that in the current era, when over half of all students enter university, socioeconomic disparity arises or grows during high school based on delayed college aspiration formation. Given this possibility, research on disparities in educational achievements should consider that the process of forming educational aspiration during high school plays an important role in the mechanism of generating disparities. In addition, there is room for consideration of the relationship between high schools' framing of students' post-high school career paths and disparities in educational achievements. Social change and policy directions in Japan have reduced this framing at the high school level. This may cause further delay in college aspiration formation and increase the socioeconomic disparities in educational achievements. More resources from high schools and political support for disadvantaged students to determine their aspirations after high school are needed.</p>