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Dr. Melanie Olczyk

Short CV

since 2021: Research Associate (Postdoctoral Fellow) in the junior research group "Educational Integration of Refugee Children and Youth in Germany" (EDIREG), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

2019-2023: Fellow at the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (CIDER), an initiative of the Leibniz Education Research Network (LERN) and the Jacobs Foundation

2019-2021: Research Associate (Postdoctoral Fellow) in the project "The Development of Inequalities in Child Educational Achievement: A Six Country Study (DICE)", funded by Open Research Area (ORA)/German Research Foundation (DFG)

2017-2019: Research Associate (Postdoctoral Fellow) in the project "Educational Aspirations of Migrants and their Descendants in the Educational Path: Migration-Specific Explanatory Approaches and Their Empirical Examination" “, funded by DFG

2017-2019: Research Associate (Postdoctoral Fellow) at the Chair of Sociology, particularly Social Structure Analysis, at the University of Bamberg

2017: PhD (Dr. rer. pol.) at the University of Bamberg

2016: Full-time scholarship from the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS)

2014-2016: Research Associate at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), NEPS

2010-2013: Research Associate in Pillar 4 (Education Acquisition of Persons with Migration Background) at NEPS, at the University of Bamberg

2010: Research Associate at the Chair of Sociology, particularly Social Structure Analysis, at the University of Bamberg

2008-2010: Research Associate in the Free Floater junior research group "Ethnic Educational Inequality" (established as part of the University of Göttingen's Excellence Initiative, under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Cornelia Kristen)

2008: Research Associate in the project "Social Capital and the Dynamics of Migration Movements: The Case of Polish-German Migration", funded by the DFG

2001-2008: Magister in Sociology, East and Southeast European Studies and Polish Studies at the University of Leipzig

Selected publications

• Olczyk, Melanie, Birgit Heppt, Oliver Winkler, Stefan Schipolowski, Aileen Edele (2025): Academic achievement of refugee students at the end of primary school in Germany. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-025-01315-1   
• Volodina, Anna, Melanie Olczyk (2025): Socioeconomic status and well-being in elementary school: an evaluation of different indicators of socioeconomic status. Child Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-025-10258-2   
• Dräger, Jascha, Thorsten Schneider, Melanie Olczyk, Anne Solaz, Alexandra Sheridan, Elizabeth Washbrook, Valentina Perinetti Casoni, Sarah Jiyoon Kwon, Jane Waldfogel (2024): The relevance of tracking and social school composition for growing achievement gaps by parental education in lower secondary school: a longitudinal analysis in France, Germany, the United States, and England. European Sociological Review 40(6). 964-980. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad076   
• Gentrup, Sarah, Melanie Olczyk, Georg Lorenz (2024): Teacher stereotypes and teacher expectations at the intersection of student gender and socioeconomic status. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie 56(1-2). 87-102. https://doi.org/10.1026/0049-8637/a000291   
• De la Rie, Sanneke, Elizabeth Washbrook , Valentina Perinetti Casoni, Jane Waldfogel, Sarah Jiyoon Kwon, Jascha Dräger, Thorsten Schneider, Melanie Olczyk, Césarine Boinet, Renske Keizer (2023): The role of energy balance related behaviors in socioeconomic inequalities in childhood body mass index: a comparative analysis of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Social Science & Medicine 317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115575   
• Olczyk, Melanie, Sarah Gentrup, Thorsten Schneider, Anna Volodina, Valentina Perinetti Casoni, Elizabeth Washbrook, Sarah Jiyoon Kwon, Jane Waldfogel (2023): Teacher judgements and gender achievement gaps in primary education in England, Germany, and the US. Social Science Research 116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102938   
• Olczyk, Melanie, Sarah Jiyoon Kwon, Georg Lorenz, Valentina Perinetti Casoni, Thorsten Schneider, Anna Volodina, Jane Waldfogel, Elizabeth Washbrook (2023): Teacher judgements, student social background, and student progress in primary school: a cross-country perspective. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaften 26. 443-468. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-022-01119-7   
• Schmaus, Miriam, Melanie Olczyk, Sebastian Neumeyer, Gisela Will (2023): High realistic aspirations – Do normative pressures overthrow rational calculations? Applying the model of frame selection to the educational aspirations of immigrant and majority students in Germany. Rationality and Society 36(1). 34-65. https://doi.org/10.1177/10434631231208989   
• Waldfogel, Jane, Sarah Jiyoon Kwon, Yi Wang, Liz Washbrook, Perinetti Casoni, Valentina, Melanie Olczyk, Thorsten Schneider, Lidia Panico, Anne Solaz, Sabine Weinert, Anna Volodina, Sanneke de la Rie, Renske Keizer, Kayo Nozaki, Jun Yamashita, Yuriko Kameyama, Hideo Akabayashi (2023): Inequalities in resources for preschool-age children by parental education: evidence from six advanced industrialized countries. European Journal of Population 39, 37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-023-09685-0   
• Heppt, Birgit, Melanie Olczyk, Anna Volodina (2022): Number of books at home as an indicator of socioeconomic status: examining its extensions and their incremental validity for academic achievement. Social Psychology of Education 25. 903-928. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-022-09704-8   
• Neumeyer, Sebastian, Melanie Olczyk, Miriam Schmaus, Gisela Will (2022): Reducing or widening the gap? How the educational aspirations and expectations of Turkish and majority families develop during lower secondary education in Germany. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialforschung 74. 259-285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-022-00844-5   
• Olczyk, Melanie, Thorsten Schneider, Elizabeth Washbrook und das DICE-Team (2021): National context and socioeconomic inequalities in educational achievement. An overview of six high-income countries: France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and United States. INED Working Paper 267. https://www.ined.fr/en/publications/editions/document-travail/national-context-and-socioeconomic-inequalities-in-educational-achievement/   
• Olczyk, Melanie, Gisela Will (2019): Measuring knowledge about the German education system in NEPS. NEPS Survey Paper Nr. 56.
• Olczyk, Melanie (2018): Ethnische Einbettung und schulischer Erfolg. Zur Bedeutung ethnisch segregierter Lebenswelten für den Bildungserwerb von Kindern mit Zuwanderungshintergrund. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Kristen, Cornelia, Melanie Olczyk, Gisela Will (2016): Identifying immigrants and their descendants in the National Educational Panel Study. In Methodological issues of longitudinal surveys. The example of the National Educational Panel Study, eds. Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Jutta v. Maurice, Michael Bayer, Jan Skopek, 195–211. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Olczyk, Melanie, Julian Seuring, Gisela Will, Sabine Zinn (2016): Migranten und ihre Nachkommen im deutschen Bildungssystem: Ein aktueller Überblick. In Ethnische Ungleichheiten im Bildungsverlauf: Mechanismen, Befunde, Debatten, eds. Claudia Diehl, Christian Hunkler, Cornelia Kristen, 33–70. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Olczyk, Melanie, Gisela Will, Cornelia Kristen (2016): Immigrants in the NEPS: identifying generation status and group of origin. 2nd ed.. NEPS Survey Paper No. 4.
• Wenz, Sebastian E., Melanie Olczyk, Georg Lorenz (2016): Measuring teachers´ stereotypes in the NEPS. NEPS Survey Paper No. 3.
• Kristen, Cornelia, Melanie Olczyk (2013): Ethnische Einbettung und Bildungserfolg. In Bildungskontexte. Strukturelle Voraussetzungen und Ursachen ungleicher Bildungschancen, eds. Rolf Becker, Alexander Schulze, 353–404. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Press releases

Press release: Study on teacher assessments and performance development: Are boys better at math than girls?

05.03.2024: Link to the press release: https://pressemitteilungen.pr.uni-halle.de/index.php?modus=pmanzeige&pm_id=5704

Peer reviewer

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; European Sociological Review; Frontiers in Sociology; Gender Issues; Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie; Research in Social Stratification and Mobility; Social Inclusion; Social Science Research; Soziale Welt; Sozialpolitik.ch; Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft

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