Tracking Detracking Reforms – Explaining the Development of Institutional Tracking

Scholarship on the origins of national educational systems has seen substantial development lately. Important contributions have been made in explaining differences in educational financing and the setup of vocational training and education. Still, much remains to be explored when it comes to the evolution of educational institutions.

The present paper aims to explain differences in one of the most central institutional factors in education, the practice of tracking. Tracking refers to students being separated into different tracks according to ability or future plans for further education, whether academic or vocational. While there are ample studies of the effects of tracking, little scholarly attention have been paid to explanations to differences in the degree of tracking between countries. Some countries more or less abolished tracking during the decades after the Second World War while others have in large retained the traditional institutional structure of education. How come?

It is argued that these differences mainly are the result of a political struggle where national differences in party strengths and coalitions have determined the outcome. However, tracking implies moral questions and considerations which goes beyond a simple left-right divide. Not the least because of the linkage between tracking and vocational education, where the left traditionally has had strong interests in the quality of the latter. The paper argues that coalitions between the left and liberal parties have been decisive for the passing of detracking reforms.

The empirics are based on pooled time-series analyses where government composition serves as the main explanatory variable, while change in the degreee of tracking is the dependent variable. This comparative approach includes most Western countries and spans from the 1960s to the 2000s.

The prime contribution of the paper is the development of a cross-national explanation of detracking reforms and thus the differences in tracking in present day educational systems.