SELECTION AND SELF-SELECTION AT GERMAN MASS UNIVERSITIES

In many countries university expansion in recent decades has led to a process of institutional differentiation between mass and elite universities, between state and private universities, and between long- and short-term courses. Selection into these different types of higher education is practised not only by the university itself, since the students subject themselves to a certain self-selection. The effect of both forms of selection is to reproduce the institutional differentiation of the level of the university in a social differentiation at the level of the student body. The data analysed here are from a survey conducted during the winter semester 1989-1990 among university beginners at three German universities with the following results: (1) Students enrolling in various subjects differ substantially from one another in terms of motives, expectations regarding future career, and cognitive abilities. As the survey was carried out among those just beginning their studies, the differences observed cannot be attributed to subject-specific socialisation processes (professionalisation) but must be due to the factor of selection alone. (2) Students do not distinguish themselves from one another across universities. Controlling for the overall set of subjects taught at the particular universities, differences in the characteristics of those enrolled in different universities are not statistically significant. This finding confirms the homogeneity of German universities. (3) The values and norms instilled in the context of family and school socialisation provide the best explanation for the choice of subject and the selection process at the university.