Journal of Education and Psychology

Abstract

This research is an extension of the study of Chang and his associates (1996) on the effect of tracking in secondary education on future status attainment. According to Chang, academic senior high school graduates perform better in their first as well as their current jobs and have higher income than those from vocational senior high schools. In addition to the classification between academic and vocational senior high schools, this research further divides public and private senior high schools among academic and vocational high schools.

The finding shows that graduates who were placed in public academic senior high schools are most advantaged in gaining a high level of occupation and income than those who were placed in private vocational senior high schools. It also shows that public and private school tracking has a stronger impact on status attainment than that of academic and vocational school tracking does.

This paper suggests that the stratification of secondary education results from the superiority of academic and public schools over vocational and private schools. In order to decrease the effect of stratification of academic/vocational and public/private tracking, our suggestions are to complete the technological and vocational education system and to upgrade the competitiveness of private schools.

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