Decision-making mechanisms, information and educational inequalities
Résumé
This chapter discusses the role of decision-making processes and information barriers as mechanisms of educational inequality. We focus primarily on socioeconomic gaps in academic performance, track choices and higher education enrolment. Moreover, we compare the explanatory mechanisms that can be derived from three different approaches to the analysis of educational decision-making: perfect rationality, bounded rationality and the behavioral approach, discussing trade-offs between parsimony, realism and explanatory power.