A Comparative Study of UK and France: The Impact of Education Inequality on Social Mobility in the Two Countries

Abstract

In the practice of all countries committed to educational equity, the policies and measures of educational equity are not only affected by the population composition, ethnic type, religious belief and other factors, but also more easily restricted by the political system, economic system, social and cultural development level of a country. Education has become widely associated with ending social inequalities by facilitating the upward mobility of people who obtain a high level of education, no matter their current social class or family background. This paper presented a comparative analysis of education inequality between the UK and France and how does it negatively influence social mobility. After analyzing policy documents and researches from scholars, several hypotheses have been justified. There are not only economic and social factors, but also intelligence level, non-intelligence factors, scale control and quality requirements of the education system, curriculum content, teaching methods, and allocation policies of the education administrative institutions that contributed to social inequality.