Sorensen, 1970

Sorensen, A. B. (1970). Organizational differentiation of students and educational opportunity. Sociology of Education, 43, 355-376.

Organizational differentiation is the division of a school's student body into subgroups of a permanent character. Structural characteristics of the school as determinants of learning. Direct and indirect effects. Dimensions: 1) Assignment of students to groups for instructional purposes to reduce variation either relative to learning capacity (vertical or tracks) or between class variation relative to transmitted knowledge (horizontal); 2) Inclusiveness, the number of opportunities assumed to be available at different educational levels, 3) Electivity, the degree to which students' own decisions are allowed to be a determining factor in the assignment to groups, 4) Selectivity, the amount of homogeneity that educational authorities intend to produce by the assignment procedure, 5) Scope, the extent a given group of students will be members of the same classroom over time.

"The pattern of organizational differentiation also may influence the teachers to whom a student gets exposed and the behavior of these teachers." Teaching a high selectivity classrooms full of students with the same non-cognitive characteristics: career goals in science, positive attitudes, and college goals, would set the context for setting high goals.