Social, structural and individual factors that learners are exposed to influence the achievement of desired educational qualifications. In order to enable society, politicians and individuals to exert a targeted influence on the achievement of desired educational qualifications, this work aims to identify whether essential factors can be defined which, depending on their direction of action, are responsible both for the positive course of educational careers - specifically for educational advancement in relation to the previous generation - and for the negative course of educational careers - i.e. for dropping out of education.