Critical Events throughout the Educational Career: The Effect of Grade Retention and Repetition on School-Aged Children’s Well-Being

Katharina Rathmann, Katharina Loter and Theres Vockert
Additional contact information
Katharina Rathmann: Department of Nursing and Health Sciences, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, 36037 Fulda, Germany
Katharina Loter: Institute of Sociology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany
Theres Vockert: Department of Nursing and Health Sciences, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, 36037 Fulda, Germany

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-30

Abstract: More than 20% of all school-aged children in Germany experience a grade retention and repetition during the educational career which is likely to affect their well-being as a central element of school success. This study aims at revealing the temporal dynamics of general and school well-being around the event of grade retention (i.e., the year when the decision to repeat a grade is taken) and the subsequent grade repetition (i.e., the repeated school year) during secondary school in Germany. Longitudinal data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) is used on native students attending grades 5 through to 12 (N = 4581 from originally 273 schools). Distributed fixed-effects regressions by gender and school type have been conducted, using satisfaction with school and life as outcomes. Although retention decisions often trigger an immediate decrease in students’ well-being, there arise still benefits from this event in the short-term, middle-term and long-term, though trajectories differ by gender and school type. Overall, it is necessary to promote students´ well-being throughout their educational career, particularly in those critical periods when they face grade retention. Results highlight that tailored programs for both genders and students in different school types should be provided to foster well-being during this phase.

Keywords: well-being dynamics; grade retention and repetition; school-aged children; distributed fixed-effects; National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/11/4012/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/11/4012/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:11:p:4012-:d:367528

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().