Project description
How grades and degrees impact inequality
Decisions made during school, university, and the job search process can significantly impact individuals’ life opportunities and perpetuate existing inequalities. To address these disparities, it is essential to comprehend decision-making dynamics, including how ability signals are interpreted. The ERC-funded OPPORTUNITY project investigates the role of ability signals (grades, standardised tests, certificates, degrees, or CV information) in shaping inequality within high-stakes decision-making processes. Specifically, the project examines how these signals may reinforce discrimination based on socio-economic background. Overall, the project aims to identify the causal effects of various ability signals on effective sorting and selection processes. OPPORTUNITY also provides policy recommendations aimed at promoting equality of opportunity.
Objective
School track decisions, university or major choice, and initial job finding are all decisive for seizing life opportunities. When individuals from different socio-economic groups make different high-stakes decisions at these critical junctions, this can reinforce existing inequalities and lead to lock-in effects that are difficult to undo later in life. Understanding decision-making at these stages is thus fundamental to analyse and tackle inequality of opportunity.
Individuals and evaluators make critical educational or occupational decisions under imperfect information due to uncertainties about true ability and future productivity. To resolve uncertainty, ability signals and their interpretation both received and sent are crucial components of decision-making, sorting and selection.
OPPORTUNITY analyses the role of ability signals (such as grades, standardized tests, certificates, degrees, or CV information) for inequalities in high-stakes decision-making under uncertainty and inequality-reinforcing statistical and stereotypical discrimination by socio-economic background. To this end, it will draw on i) experimental methods in lab and field to study the role of social environment and ability signals for unequal educational and occupational choices; ii) administrative records to obtain information about absolute and relative ability signals (grades and degrees) awarded at various institutions over time; iii) econometric techniques that help exploit exogenous variation to make causal inference about the role of SES and different ability signals for efficient sorting and selection.
OPPORTUNITY will promote an innovative research agenda providing novel answers on how to mitigate the unfair and inefficient allocation of talent. It will inform about policies that provide resources or changing ability signals to enhance equality of opportunity, one of the most urgent topics in Europes diverse, aging, and increasingly segregated societies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
50931 KOLN
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.