Education Policy and Equality: Some Evidence from Europe

Objective. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the European educational reforms of the past three decades have had the intended effect of reducing the impact of social class on educational achievement. Methods. Data from a variety of sources on the social origins of students in higher ed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science quarterly 1999-09, Vol.80 (3), p.437-456
Main Authors: Ambler, John S., Neathery, Jody
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Access to Education
Children
Class Differences
Classes, stratification, mobility
Cross-national analysis
Crossnational studies
Education
Education policy
Education reform
Education, Higher
Educational attainment
Educational Change
Educational Inequality
Educational Opportunities
Educational Policy
Educational Reform
Equal Education
Equality
Europe
Factors
Federal Republic of Germany
Foreign Countries
France
Germany
Great Britain
Higher Education
History
Manual labor
Of General Interest
Policy
Policymaking
Post-secondary education
Relationship
School enrollment
Secondary Education
Secondary schools
Social aspects
Social Class
Social classes
Social equality
Social organization. Social system. Social structure
Social research
Social sciences
Sociology
Student Characteristics
Sweden
United Kingdom
Universities
Western Europe
Working class
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Summary:Objective. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the European educational reforms of the past three decades have had the intended effect of reducing the impact of social class on educational achievement. Methods. Data from a variety of sources on the social origins of students in higher education in France, Sweden, Britain, and Germany, from the 1960s to the 1990s, are examined and compared, using, when data allow, a simple odds ratio. Results. We find that the expansion of secondary and higher education enrollments contributed to a modest decrease in the effect of social class of origin upon access to higher education when measured by the odds ratio. We find no clear evidence that comprehensivization has contributed to this trend. The trend disappears entirely when it is measured by the percentage difference between the participation rates of children of upper and lower classes. Conclusions. The modest decline in class inequality suggested by the odds ratio is largely offset by continuing social selection within the increasingly diverse structure of post-secondary education. In Europe, as in the United States, children of the working class are drawn disproportionately to the "less noble" tracks, thereby nullifying much of the effect of expansion on educational inequality.
ISSN:0038-4941
1540-6237