A study revealed that 50% of the students visiting a gymnasium come from families of the top levels of German society. Some people have voiced concerns that gymnasia are designed to accommodate a minority of privileged children and that talented working-class children are impeded in gaining access to gymnasium. There have been calls for the abolition of the gymnasium and a switch-over to comprehensive schools. Others want the gymnasia to target more children from poor backgrounds.
Some believe that gymnasia are "the great equaliser" and have pointed out that state-funded and parochial gymnasia have helped many students rise above humble backgrounds. Some also point to the fact that gymnasia are the only schools where working-class students nearly catch up with their middle-class peers, while in the case of comprehensive schools, the effects of social class on student academic performance are more pronounced than in any other type of school.
Progress in International Reading Literacy Study
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study revealed that working-class children needed to achieve higher reading scores than middle-class children in order to get letters of recommendation for entrance into the gymnasium. After testing their reading abilities, the odds for upper-middle-class children to be nominated for a gymnasium were 2.63 times higher than for working-class children.
| Children from upper-middle-class backgrounds | 537 | 498 |
| Children from lower-middle-class backgrounds | 569 | 559 |
| Children of parents holding pink-collar jobs | 582 | 578 |
| Children of self-employed parents | 580 | 556 |
| Children from upper-working-class backgrounds | 592 | 583 |
| Children from lower-working-class backgrounds | 614 | 606 |
According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, students from ethnic German families were 4.96 times more likely than children from immigrant families to have their teacher write a letter of recommendation. Even when comparing children with the same reading scores, ethnic Germans were still 2.11 times as likely to receive the letter.
PISA study
According to the PISA study, competency was linked to social class. After allowing for cognitive competency, middle-class children were still attending gymnasium at three times the rate of working-class children. After allowing for reading competency and cognitive competency, children from the highest social class still attended gymnasium at four to six times the rate of working-class children. According to the study, immigrant children were not discriminated against. The reason so few immigrant children attended gymnasium was poor reading skills. After allowing for reading competency, children from immigrant families were as likely as children from native German families to attend gymnasium.
ELEMENT-study
The German scientist Lehmann did a longitudinal study on the performance of pupils in Berlin in standardised tests. Such pupils used to be admitted to a gymnasium after the fourth grade and after the sixth grade. Pupils in German schools do not undergo standardised testing, but rather write essays. However, Lehmann wanted to know if those test results would predict the likelihood of admission to a gymnasium after the sixth grade and if admission to a gymnasium after the fourth grade would boost their performance in standardised tests.
Lehmann's findings were as follows:
Performance in standardised tests was a key indicator of admission to a gymnasium; after evaluating the performance in those tests, it was clear that social class did not play a major role in determining whether or not a pupil would be admitted to a gymnasium.
Working-class children were not discriminated against; in fact, there seemed to be some evidence that after evaluating performances in standardised tests, gymnasium admission after the sixth grade seemed to be slightly biased against middle-class children and favoured working-class children as well as those from the higher social classes.
After evaluating the test scores, it was shown that girls were somewhat more likely to be admitted to the gymnasium than boys.
Very few pupils who did poorly in standardised tests in the fourth grade were admitted to gymnasium. However, those who were, were able to improve their performance in those tests in subsequent years.
Even after testing performance in grade four, those who were admitted to gymnasium outperformed their peers who were not at grade six.
Study by the University of Mainz
A study by the University of Mainz revealed that of all children living in the city of Wiesbaden, 81% of children from the upper social classes and only 14% percent of working-class children received a letter of recommendation from their teachers. It also showed that only 76% of working-class children whose grades placed them at the top of the class, as well as 91% of children from the upper social classes in the same situation received a recommendation.
The big-fish-little-pond effect
According to scientists Joachim Tiedemann and Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha, there was a big-fish-little-pond effect. Children were more likely to have their teacher write a letter of recommendation if the remainder of their primary school class was not too bright. They stated,
A high share of students with above-average academic achievement, cognitive abilities and achievement-oriented parents actually decreases students' chances of getting into higher educational tracks (Realschule and gymnasium instead of Hauptschule).
Are children with immigration backgrounds discriminated against?
According to the same study, they are not. The researchers stated,
After controlling for individual students' competencies, e.g. their cognitive abilities, the common assumption that children with immigration backgrounds are disadvantaged could not be confirmed. Even a high proportion of children in a class who do not speak German as a family language does not induce adverse results in recommendations.
Do gymnasia help working-class students catch up with their middle-class peers?
In 2003, a study revealed that lower-class and working-class children attending a comprehensive school lagged behind their less disadvantaged peers in terms of mathematical abilities. The same study revealed that working- and lower-class children attending gymnasium nearly caught up to their peers attending the same school.
However, special care must be taken in interpreting the data, since lower- and working-class children admitted to gymnasium may be different from other pupils in their class ab initio.
Does gymnasium matter after all?
A study done by Helmut Fend revealed that gymnasium may not matter as much as is generally perceived. According to the study, parents' social class, not schooling, determined children's life trajectories. The study revealed that upper-middle-class children graduating from gymnasium (and upper-middle-class children graduating from comprehensive schools) later graduated from college and followed the footsteps of their parents into higher professional jobs. It also revealed that for every working-class child who graduated from college, there were 12 upper-middle-class children who did.