Continuing Education and Stratification at Midlife

• Published in: Sociology of education 2021-10, Vol.94 (4), p.341-360
• Main Authors: Grodsky, Eric, Doren, Catherine, Hung, Koit, Muller, Chandra, Robert Warren, John
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Academic Degrees; Adults; Advantaged; Advantages; African Americans; At risk populations; Continuing education; Credentials; Educational Attainment; Educational Change; Educational inequality; Educational sociology; Gender Differences; Higher Education; Life course; Life transitions; Longitudinal Studies; Middle age; Midlife; Parent Background; Predictor Variables; Professional training; Racial Differences; Reentry Students; Role of Education; Secondary schools; Social background; Social Stratification; Sociocultural Patterns; Socioeconomic Background; Stratification
• ISSN: 0038-0407; 1939-8573
• DOI: 10.1177/00380407211041776

We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainment are amplified or attenuated when we take a longer view of educational careers. We propose a model of staged advantage to understand how educational inequalities evolve over the life course. Distinct from cumulative advantage, staged advantage asserts that inequalities in education ebb and flow over the life course as the population at risk of making each educational transition changes along with the constraints they confront in seeking more education. Results based on data from the 2014 follow up of the sophomore cohort of High School and Beyond offer partial support for our hypotheses. The educational attainment process was far from over for our respondents as they aged through their 30s and 40s: More than 6 of 10 continued their formal training during this period, and 4 of 10 earned an additional credential. Patterns of educational stratification at midlife became more pronounced in some ways as women pulled further ahead of men in their educational attainments and parental education (but not income), and high school academic achievement continued to shape educational trajectories at the bachelor’s degree level and beyond. However, African Americans gained on whites during this life phase through continued formal (largely academic) training and slightly greater conditional probabilities of graduate or professional degree attainment; social background fails to predict earning an associate’s degree. These results, showing educational changes and transitions far into adulthood, have implications for our understanding of the complex role of education in stratification processes.