Educational Inequality and Social Justice: Challenges for Career Guidance

Abstract

The chapter provides a multiperspective approach to educational careers and describes the potential role that professional guidance can play to reduce social inequalities in educational attainment. In the first section I discuss the theoretical understanding of equal educational opportunities as a central element in social justice, essentially based on the conceptual propositions in Roemer’s Equality of opportunity (Cambridge, MA, 1998). Different conceptions of equal opportunities derive from the (a) conditions and factors one considers to be legitimate determinants of unequal results and (b) those one rejects. More concretely, differences in outcomes are often accepted as legitimate when resulting from different effort, but are judged as non-legitimate when resulting from circumstances beyond the control of individuals. I explain how different normative views of equal opportunity and social justice differ according to how one conceives effort and circumstances. In the second section I summarize core findings of recent international research on processes and factors generating social disparities in educational careers and educational attainment. This chapter provides exemplary evidence for the so-called primary and secondary factors responsible for the generation of social disparities. Primary factors lead to differences in learning performance in school among children of different social backgrounds which then influence the further course of their educational careers. Secondary factors and mechanisms, in contrast, lead children of different social backgrounds and their families to choose more or less advantageous educational paths even though their learning performance is the same. In spite of similar performance, students leave the education system with different attainments and achieve different qualifications and certificates which open access to more or less advantageous work careers. In this section I also discuss how and why primary and secondary disparities emerge; and atwhich junctures in educational pathways they tend to be particularly strong and how their strength depends on institutional features of educational systems. Institutional features especially affect the strength of secondary disparities and the strength of these varies more between countries than the strengths of the primary ones. Thus, whether in sum social disparities in educational attainment are larger or smaller in a given country compared to other countries essentially depends on the secondary disparities. Even though social disparities remain large in most countries, there is evidence that in the long run — from the early to the late decades of the 20th century — educational disparities have declined for both genders in various European countries, contradicting claims of persistent inequalities. Based on this evidence, the third section finally includes suggestions about how professional guidance especially can contribute to further reducing inequalities and increasing social justice. Professional guidance is particularly suited to combating secondary disparities by providing adequate information and motivating students from disadvantaged homes, helping them in recognizing their true potential, finding successful paths through the educational system, and supporting them in mobilizing resources: thus ensuring that able students to not recoil from education at too early a stage.