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In recent decades, the move from an elite to a mass higher education system in many countries and the resulting expansion of the higher education sector has not brought about a noteworthy decrease in social inequalities. An important factor that has contributed to the persistence of social inequalities is attributed to the fact that increased access has been accompanied by a differentiated and stratified higher education sector. In this framework, researchers from many countries argue that students from upper and middle class backgrounds, with higher levels of cultural and social capital, are much more likely to attend high status higher education institutions and departments. By contrast, working class students usually choose to attend institutions and departments with a lower status. Class differentials in relation study completion and retention rates also exist, since working class students have lower retention rates than students from upper and middle class backgrounds. Bearing the above issues into consideration, in this paper, we conduct a short bibliographical review of studies examining the reasons for the persisting social inequalities in higher education and the relationship between social class and allocation in the different departments in higher education. We also present critically the most influential explanatory frameworks employed in the analysis and interpretation of the issue. Research findings provide strong evidence social class, and the students’ cultural and social capital play a major role in the persistence of social inequalities. Implications for policy makers are clear. On the basis of the above, we argue that socio-economic inequalities within higher education cannot be dealt with unless we tackle the issue of differentiated allocation in the different higher education departments.
This chapter investigates the continuing problem of social class in the age of mass higher education. After a brief overview of the history of social class in higher education, it maps out the contemporary landscape focusing on, but also looking beyond, the statistics. The main part of the chapter highlights the actual experiences of working class students in UK higher education, drawing on data from two ESRC projects of classed experiences of higher education in the 21st century (Reay et al 2005; Reay et al 2010). The massification and democratisation of higher education has led to the admittance of far more working class students, but it has also resulted in a steeply hierarchical and stratified system with working class students, for the most part, clustered in the low status, poorly resourced, institutions (Crozier et al 2009; Stich 2012).
British Journal of Sociology of education
Inequality in Higher Education: a study of class barriers1998 •
Palgrave Communications
Rethinking higher education and its relationship with social inequalities: past knowledge, present state and future potential2017 •
The purposes and impact of higher education on the economy and the broader society have been transformed through time in various ways. Higher education institutional and policy dynamics differ across time, but also between countries and political regimes and therefore context cannot be neglected. This article reviews the purpose of higher education and its institutional characteristics juxtaposing two, allegedly rival, conceptual frameworks; the instrumental and the intrinsic one. Various pedagogical traditions are critically reviewed and used as examples, which can potentially inform today’s policy making. Since, higher education cannot be seen as detached from all other lower levels of education appropriate conceptual links are offered throughout this article. Its significance lies on the organic synthesis of literature across social science, suggesting ways of going forward based on the traditions that already exist but seem underutilized so far because of overdependence in marke...
2016 •
Despite all intentions in the course of the Bologna Process and decades of investment into improving the social dimension, results in many national and international studies show that inequity remains stubbornly persistent, and that inequity based on socio-economic status, parental education, gender, country-of-origin, rural background and more continues to prevail in our Higher Education systems and at the labour market. While improvement has been shown, extrapolation of the gains of the last 40 years in the field show that it could take over 100 years for disadvantaged groups to catch up with their more advantaged peers, should the current rate of improvement be maintained. Many of the traditional approaches to improving equity have also necessitated large-scale public investments, in the form of direct support to underrepresented groups. In an age of austerity, many countries in Europe are finding it necessary to revisit and scale down these policies, so as to accommodate other p...
2005 •
Abstract At a time when the rhetoric of the new Labour Government in the UK is celebrating the expansion of higher education, the widening of access and the essential fairness of the meritocratic principle, this paper draws on data that challenges and problematises such comforting notions and argues that the welcome expansion of higher education has been accompanied by a deepening of social stratification within HE.
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