Social mobility and secondary school selection in Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract

This paper examines the way in which current educational selection operates at the secondary level, and the degree to which this process is inseparable from commonly accepted ascriptive factors such as differential ethnic evaluation. An overview is given of the major ethnic divisions, as well as of the selection procedure at the Common Entrance (CE) examination, leading to these four broad hypotheses: 1) the median family size, defined for this purpose as the total number of children, will vary significantly across educational categories; 2) there will be a difference in secondary school representation between geographical areas; 3) socio-economic variables, defined as paternal occupation and education, will be associated with secondary school selection; and 4) ethnic groupings will not be represented in secondary schools in accord with their proportionate representation in the relevant age groups. The research sample consisted of 1,415 secondary school students determined by stratified random sampling, according to type of school, religious affiliation, and degree of urbanization. Findings show that although considerable inequalities of educational opportunity exist, these are neither as great nor as extensive as one might imagine. It appears that socio-economic variables are the most significant predictor of selective secondary school attendance, although the related factors of region of early residence and ethnicity, greatly complicate this assertion