Differentiation in Higher Education: The Impact of Parental Education

Iakovos Tsiplakides

doi:10.3390/socsci7020028

Abstract

The widening of participation in higher education in recent decades has been heralded as a means toward the reduction of social class inequalities in higher education. Research findings indicate, though, that simply increasing the number of people attending higher education does not mean that social inequalities have been substantially reduced. The mass expansion of higher education has existed alongside a differentiated and stratified higher education. Students from more privileged socioeconomic backgrounds usually study in prestigious higher education institutions and departments which offer more ambitious occupational trajectories, while those from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds usually attend lower status institutions and courses of study. Using official quantitative data, in this article we explore the correlation between familial cultural capital and distribution in higher education in Greece. The research findings show that the Greek higher education sector is differentiated, since students with parents who are higher education graduates are overrepresented in prestigious higher education departments and courses of study. Based on the research findings, we argue that initiatives to reduce social class inequalities in higher education need to tackle the issue of social class stratification in higher education and the unequal representation of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds in prestigious fields of study.

Highlights

Widening participation in higher education has been at the heart of policies and initiatives which have been designed and implemented in many countries
Based on the research findings, we argue that initiatives to reduce social class inequalities in higher education need to tackle the issue of social class stratification in higher education and the unequal representation of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds in prestigious fields of study
On the basis of these data we argue that familial cultural capital is capital at work here

Summary

Introduction

Widening participation in higher education has been at the heart of policies and initiatives which have been designed and implemented in many countries. This means that the latter can only be admitted to institutions and departments with low admissions criteria In countries such as Greece, in which entry to higher education is determined by performance in nationwide university entrance examinations, working class students are often obliged to choose from a very limited array of choices, since they often have lower performance in these examinations in relation to their middle-class counterparts (Sianou-Kyrgiou and Tsiplakides 2009). This means that they often do not choose to study in the higher education institution and department of their preference. The conceptual tools of this theory have been widely used in research that examines social class differentials in educational trajectories

Theoretical Tools

The Research Study

Research Findings

Discussion