Which factors affecting school outcomes consider school children fair?

Attitudes about equality of opportunity are widely studied among adults but we do know little about them among school children. We test which conceptions of equality of opportunity are held by German 15-year-old high school students. We ask how fair they consider the impact of three types of student characteristics on school grades and track placement: (a) characteristics that students can control and that are considered legitimate influences on educational achievement from a non-discriminatory perspective (effort and classroom behaviour), (b) characteristics that students cannot control but that are considered legitimate influences on educational achievement from a non-discriminatory perspective (intelligence and parental support with school work), and (c) characteristics that students cannot control and that are not considered legitimate influences on educational achievement from a non-discriminatory perspective (ethnicity and gender). The influence of the latter on educational achievement is an indicator of ethnic/ gender discrimination.