Tamás Keller

This proposal employs an experimental design and connects it with prior research that aimed to stimulate adolescents’ educational decisions by providing accurate information about further education. Contrary to prior research, the focus is on stimulating pupils’ educational choices to secondary rather than to tertiary education. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the campaign will be enhanced by using information about within classroom network ties, in a way that network-based persuasion will be compared with persuasion coming from randomly assigned peers. If pupils’ educational decisions could be fostered by network-based information that is targeted and of low cost, the results might have important policy implications, especially in case of those students who are talented but come from a low status parental background. Therefore, the results could be particularly important in stratified educational systems – such as in Hungary –, where choosing a vocational secondary track prevents students from enrolment in tertiary education.