Prof. Fabrizio Bernardi presented the research results of a project he worked on together with Héctor Cebolla-Boado from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid (Spain). As part of the project, they used data from the French Panel d'Élèves du Second Degré study to examine the interaction relationship between school grades and class-specific cost-benefit calculations in transitions in the education system. Among other things, it showed that there is a compensation effect, also called the George W. Busch effect. This means that there is a greater class-specific inequality with respect to educational transitions among students with poor school performance. In contrast, their results did not confirm the hypothesis that this inequality is greater for students with intermediate school performance. At the same time, they found a strong coherence between previously expressed preferences for a particular educational path and the educational paths students actually took. However, a closer examination revealed that class-specific inequality was greater at the end of the decision phase for a particular educational path than at the beginning.

The presentation was followed by a lively discussion with the participation of many members of the audience.