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Frida RudolphiResearcher

About me

I am a researcher in sociology at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University and Assistant Professor (lektor) at the department for Social Work at Umeå University.

My research mainly concerns questions related to inequality in education, but also other aspects of young people’s lives. I apply a multidimensional approach to both inequality and education. That is, I both study different aspects of background, such as social and ethnic origin, gender, family structure, and different aspects of schooling outcomes, such as achievement and attainment, and at different ages. I use quantitative data and methods in my research.

Research projects

Computer gaming and educational outcomes among youth

Computer gaming and educational outcomes among youth: how does gaming relate to achievement and school relevant behavior? Using a multidimensional perspective on education and unusually detailed measures of computer gaming, this project addresses mechanisms suggested by theories in the field.

A gaming room
Dreamers

Why are educational inequalities by gender and immigrant background not those we would expect given students’ aspirations, confidence, and stress?

Girl presenting school work
IntegrateYouth

This project aims to describe and understand the fundamentals of integration of youth, and its variation across five countries (Norway, Sweden, England, Germany and the Netherlands). We use the large-scale CILS4EU/CILS-NOR data on young people of immigrant and majority origins.

Tre killar sitter bredvid varandra på en bänk
Gender differences in education: how do they come about?

There is a lack of empirical research on the processes behind the fact that females on average do better than males in school, and we still lack knowledge about why there is such a strong horizontal gender segregation in education. This project tests hypotheses on how gender differences in education arise and are maintained.

Two children standing near cliff watching on ocean at daytime

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Change in social selection to upper secondary school - primary and secondary effects in Sweden

    2010. Robert Erikson, Frida Rudolphi. European Sociological Review 26 (3), 291-305

    Article

    Inequality of educational opportunity (IEO) depends on two separate mechanisms: children from advantaged social backgrounds perform better at school—primary effects—and tend more than others to choose to continue in education—secondary effects. IEO in the transition from compulsory to academic upper secondary education has earlier been shown to have decreased in Sweden since the middle of the 20th century. We investigate whether this change can be accounted for by changing primary or secondary effects, or perhaps by both. The analysis is based on longitudinal data for six cohorts of children, born from 1948 to 1982. Primary and secondary effects are separated both by grade point averages and cognitive test results. The estimation of the effects is based on the comparison of actual and counterfactual transitions among children from different social classes. Results show that the decrease in IEO overall seems to be related to corresponding changes in the primary and secondary effects. Secondary effects are greater when the separation is based on cognitive ability tests rather than grades and we end by discussing the consequences of this observation for the separation of primary and secondary effects.

    Read more about Change in social selection to upper secondary school - primary and secondary effects in Sweden

  • Weak Performance—Strong Determination: School Achievement and Educational Choice among Children of Immigrants in Sweden

    2011. Jan O. Jonsson, Frida Rudolphi. European Sociological Review 27 (4), 487-508

    Article

    We ask how the advantages and disadvantages in the educational careers of children of immigrants in Sweden are produced, making a theoretical distinction between mechanisms connected with school performance on one hand, and educational choice on the other. Using a new data set, covering six full cohorts of Swedish-born ninth-graders in 1998–2003 (N¼612,730), with matched school-Census information, we show that children of non-European immigrant origin are disadvantaged in their school performance but advantaged in their choice of academic upper secondary education. They have lower and more often incomplete grades, which force a sizeable proportion—10–20 per cent—into non-meritorious tracks or lead them to leave school. Given grades, children of non-European background make heterogeneous choices: many do not enrol in upper secondary education, but among those who do the propensity is high that they choose academic studies before vocational. In contrast, children of the ‘old’ (chiefly Nordic) labour immigrants are similar to the majority group in their equal preference for these two routes. A school system where choice plays a significant role appears to be advantageous for the often high-aspiring second-generation immigrant students, but greater efforts to reduce early achievement differences may still alleviate ethnic minority disadvantages.

    Read more about Weak Performance—Strong Determination

  • Inequality in Educational Outcomes: How Aspirations, Performance, and Choice Shape School Careers in Sweden

    2011. Frida Rudolphi.

    Thesis (Doc)

    This thesis examines different aspects of educational inequalities, drawing on the notion that inequality in educational attainment depends on two separate mechanisms: that children from advantaged social backgrounds perform better at school (primary effects) and tend more than others to choose to continue in education given performance (secondary effects).

    Study I shows that the long-term decrease in social class inequality in the transition from compulsory to academic upper secondary education since the middle of the mid-20th century up to the late 1990s, seems to be related to both declining primary and secondary effects. Secondary effects account for around 35 to 40 percent of the total inequality in academic upper secondary education.

    Study II suggests that there has been a continuing trend of declining inequality in academic upper secondary education between pupils of high and low educational origin between 1998 and 2006, a development mainly driven by change in secondary effects. Primary effects have remained more stable and account for a substantial part of the inequality process across the two most important educational transitions.

    Study III indicates that class inequality in educational performance at age 16 is attributable to a non-trivial degree to a class gradient in aspirations at age 13. It is argued that survey information on aspirations may help disentangle how educational inequalities develop through feedback processes between skills and ambitions throughout educational careers. Treating early aspirations as anticipatory decisions, by letting their effect on performance represent a choice effect, suggests that cross-sectional estimates of the proportion secondary effects are downwardly biased by up to six percent.

    In Study IV, Swedish-born children of immigrant parents are shown to be a heterogeneous group in terms of educational outcomes, with some subgroups doing very well and others quite poorly. A polarized pattern is revealed. Many minority groups do not perform on a par with their majority peers in compulsory school. Conditional on grades, children with parents of a non-European background often do not enroll in upper secondary education, but among those who do, the propensity is high to choose academic studies over vocational.

    Read more about Inequality in Educational Outcomes

  • Ethnic Inequality in Choice-driven Education Systems: A Longitudinal Study of Performance and Choice in England and Sweden

    2012. Michelle Jackson, Jan O. Jonsson, Frida Rudolphi. Sociology of education 85 (2), 158-178

    Article

    The authors ask whether choice-driven education systems, with comprehensive schools and mass education at the secondary and tertiary level, represented in this article by England and Sweden, provide educational opportunities for ethnic minorities. In studying educational attainment, the authors make a theoretical distinction between mechanisms connected with school performance on the one hand (primary effects) and educational choice, given performance, on the other (secondary effects). Using large national data sets and recently developed methods, they show that performance effects tend to depress the educational attainment of most, although not all, ethnic minorities, whereas choice effects increase the transition rates of these students. This pattern is repeated at the transition to university education. These results are true for many immigrant categories in both England and Sweden, although immigrant students are a heterogeneous group. Black Caribbean students in England and children of Turkish and South American descent in Sweden fare worst, while several Asian groups do extremely well. The authors conclude that it may be a generic feature of choice-driven school systems in Western societies to benefit non-European immigrants, and they discuss some possible explanations for this.

    Read more about Ethnic Inequality in Choice-driven Education Systems

  • Gender Inequalities in the Education of the Second Generation in Western Countries

    2014. Fenella Fleischmann (et al.). Sociology of education 87 (3), 143-170

    Article

    Drawing on comparative analyses from nine Western countries, we ask whether local-born children from a wide range of immigrant groups show patterns of female advantage in education that are similar to those prevalent in their host Western societies. We consider five outcomes throughout the educational career: test scores or grades at age 15, continuation after compulsory schooling, choice of academic track in upper-secondary education, completion of upper secondary, and completion of tertiary education. Despite great variation in gender gaps in education in immigrants’ origin countries (with advantages for males in many cases), we find that the female advantage in education observed among the majority population is usually present among second-generation immigrants. We interpret these findings in light of ideas about gender role socialization and immigrant selectivity.

    Read more about Gender Inequalities in the Education of the Second Generation in Western Countries

  • How are our young adults doing? A report on labour market activities and living conditions

    2018. Stephanie Plenty (et al.).

    Report

    This report has three aims:

    1. To describe the activity statuses of young adults aged 19–20 years, based on their own reports.

    2. To identify vulnerable subgroups. This is done among NEET youth, but the perspective is widened by also considering vulnerable positions among youth in work or education.

    3. To describe the living conditions for young adults in different activity types and with different degrees of vulnerability.

    Read more about How are our young adults doing? A report on labour market activities and living conditions

  • Ethnic Differences in Language Skills: How Individual and Family Characteristics Aid and Prohibit the Linguistic Integration of Children of Immigrants

    2018. Jörg Dollmann, Frida Rudolphi, Meenakshi Parameshwaran. Growing Up in Diverse Societies.

    Chapter

    Proficiency in the language of a new country is perhaps the most important precondition for the successful integration of immigrants in various other integration aspects, like educational and vocational success, interethnic relations and ethnic identify formation. Explaining ethnic disparities in linguistic integration therefore has the potential to aid our understanding of ethnic differences along various other integration dimensions. In the present contribution, we first demonstrate substantial heterogeneity of adolescents’ language proficiency in four European countries depending on their ethnic origin and their migration history. In order to further understanding these differences we examine very different individual and family factors that can be hypothesised to influence language learning processes. Besides an influence of social background on language learning, we show that ethnic specific factors such as language use in the family are at least partly relevant for the language acquisition process.

    Read more about Ethnic Differences in Language Skills

  • Classroom composition and language skills: the role of school class and friend characteristics

    2020. Jörg Dollmann, Frida Rudolphi. British Journal of Sociology of Education 41 (8), 1200-1217

    Article

    The present study addresses the question to what extent language skills among students are influenced by the composition of the overall classroom context and the composition of friendship networks within school classes. Furthermore, we ask whether the effects differ between stratified school systems, with a more homogenous student body in school classes, and comprehensive school systems, with a more heterogeneous student body. Focusing only on classroom characteristics, we find positive effects of the socioeconomic and cognitive overall composition of the school class in Germany’s selective school system, but not in Sweden’s comprehensive system. In contrast, the ethnic composition does not matter significantly in any of the systems, while direct peer interactions, captured with social networks measures targeting friends in a school class, matter slightly more in Sweden’s comprehensive school system.

    Read more about Classroom composition and language skills

  • Aiming high no matter what? Educational Aspirations of Ethnic Minority and Ethnic Majority Youth in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden

    2020. Frida Rudolphi, Zerrin Salikutluk.

    Report

    We examine cross-national variation in the ethnic gradient in aspirations among 14-year-olds in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden by using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries, collected in 2009/2010. Results show that most ethnic minority groups are more likely to have university aspirations than ethnic majority youth. The most consistent minority advantage is found in England and Sweden, consistent with the interpretation that the ample scope for choice in progression through these school systems allows high ambitions of minorities to play out well. However, minority advantage of some groups is also present in the Netherlands and Germany, where transitions are more heavily conditional on previous performance. The pattern for immigrant generational status varies across countries and ethnic origins. There is no consistent empirical evidence indicating that aspiration differences between ethnic minority and majority youth will diminish due to assimilation processes across the generations.

    Read more about Aiming high no matter what? Educational Aspirations of Ethnic Minority and Ethnic Majority Youth in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden

  • Ethnic gaps in Swedish upper secondary school completion: Is 'immigrant optimism' the problem?

    2021. Jörg Dollmann (et al.).

    Report

    In many Western countries, researchers have documented ‘immigrant optimism’ in education, i.e., the tendency for immigrant-background students to choose academically more demanding routes than others at given levels of grade point averages (GPA). For some, this indicates structural integration, while others alert against an ‘immigrant optimism trap’ when ambition trumps ability, leading to high risks of non-completion. Using longitudinal Swedish population data (n≈90,000), we estimate the upper secondary ‘completion gap’ to 12% to the detriment of immigrant-background students. We then address the ‘trap hypothesis’ via two counterfactual analyses. The first shows that if immigrant-background youth made similar educational choices as other students at the same GPA, the completion gap would shrink by 3.4 percentage points. The second analysis suggests that restricting admission to programmes based on prior GPA, which would lead to a massive relocation of low- and mid-GPA students to vocational programmes, would reduce the completion gap by 2.2 percentage points. These changes must be considered marginal in view of the substantial restrictions of choice that either of these measures would entail. We conclude that completion gaps are not primarily a result of immigrant optimism, and optimistic choices are likely to be a net positive for structural integration.

    Read more about Ethnic gaps in Swedish upper secondary school completion

  • Aiming High, No Matter What? Educational Aspirations of Ethnic Minority and Ethnic Majority Youth in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden

    2021. Frida Rudolphi, Zerrin Salikutluk. Comparative Sociology 20 (1), 70-100

    Article

    The authors examine cross-national variation in the ethnic gradient in aspirations among 14-year-olds in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden by using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries, collected in 2009/2010. Results show that most ethnic minority groups are more likely to have university aspirations than ethnic majority youth. The most consistent minority advantage is found in England and Sweden, consistent with the interpretation that the ample scope for choice in progression through these school systems allows high ambitions of minorities to play out well. However, minority advantage of some groups is also present in the Netherlands and Germany, where transitions are more heavily conditional on previous performance. The pattern for immigrant generational status varies across countries and ethnic origins. There is no consistent empirical evidence indicating that aspiration differences between ethnic minority and majority youth will diminish due to assimilation processes across the generations.

    Read more about Aiming High, No Matter What? Educational Aspirations of Ethnic Minority and Ethnic Majority Youth in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden

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