Family Resources, Gender, and Immigration: Changing Sources of Hong Kong Educational Inequality, 1971–2001*

Despite repeated attempts to integrate competing perspectives (Szelenyi and Kostello 1996; Nee and Matthews 1996), the ongoing market transition debate has shown no signs of resolution. Instead, the 1996 AJS market transition symposium seems to have created more controversy than it settled (Nee 1996; Xie and Hannum 1996; Oberschall 1996; Parish and Michelson 1996; Walder 1996; Fligstein 1996; Szelenyi and Kostello 1996). And subsequent studies continue to reach nearly opposite conclusions (cf. Bian and Logan 1996; Gerber and Hout 1998; with Brainerd 1998; Nee and Cao, in press). When arguments become polarized, it often signals that divisions are falsely drawn (Bates 1997). Although originally made in another context, this observation is applicable here. As principals in this lively debate, we believe that clarification and reevaluation are essential for moving toward a reconciliation of competing viewpoints. In this comment we therefore identify the central issues in the controversy and provide an overall assessment of existing empirical evidence

To explore the mediating roles of family resources (at the individual [parental self-efficacy], family [family resilience] and social level [social support]) and parental problem-solving skills in the association between family functioning and family adaptation in families of children with cancer. A cross-sectional study. This study recruited 318 parents of children with cancer from three tertiary hospitals in mainland China. Self-report questionnaires were used to collect data on key variables, including family functioning, parental self-efficacy, family resilience, social support, parental problem-solving skills and family adaptation. Data analyses were carried out using descriptive analysis, univariate analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, hierarchical linear regression and bootstrapping. Family functioning was significantly and positively correlated with family adaptation. Family resources (parental self-efficacy at the individual level, family resilience at the family level or social support at the social level) and parental problem-solving skills both independently mediated the relationship between family functioning and family adaptation. Additionally, family resources at all three levels mediated the relationship through their effects on cumulatively parental problem-solving skills, constructing a chain mediating model. The study underscores the significance of family functioning, family resources at the individual, family and social levels and parental problem-solving skills in promoting adaptation in families of children with cancer. It highlights the need for family-centred interventions targeted at these factors to improve family adaptation. This study extended related theories and previous studies to confirm the mediating role of family resources and parental problem-solving skills, both independently and sequentially. Moreover, parental problem-solving skills were confirmed as key elements that can be incorporated into future interventions, suggesting that problem-solving skills training may serve as a highly promising program for families of children with cancer. This study was reported according to the STROBE checklist. No Patient or Public Contribution.

Educational attainment remains one of the most powerful mechanisms through which social stratification is reproduced or challenged across societies. This study critically examines how socio-demographic profiles: comprising age, sex, household structure, ethnicity, migration background, socioeconomic status, and occupation; systematically shape educational trajectories and outcomes across diverse contexts. Drawing on comparative sociological literature and longitudinal evidence, the analysis moves beyond individualistic explanations of educational success to foreground the structural, cultural, and institutional mechanisms that condition access to learning opportunities. The findings demonstrate that disparities in educational attainment persist not merely between individuals, but across clearly patterned socio-demographic groups, with cumulative advantage operating across generations through family resources, cultural capital, institutional knowledge, and policy environments. Migration background, parental education, and socioeconomic positioning emerge as particularly salient determinants, influencing not only graduation rates but also field of study selection, credential accumulation, and long-term occupational mobility. Importantly, the study highlights substantial within-country heterogeneity, revealing that regional, cohort-based, and institutional variations often rival or exceed cross-national differences. While educational expansion has increased overall participation, it has not eradicated inequality; instead, it has reshaped stratification by redistributing advantage within increasingly differentiated systems. The analysis underscores critical gaps in current research, particularly the limited integration of cultural, institutional, and policy mechanisms within unified analytical frameworks and the scarcity of comparative data beyond high-income contexts. By synthesizing evidence across demographic, structural, and policy dimensions, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of educational inequality and emphasizes the necessity of equity-oriented, system-level interventions. Ultimately, the findings reaffirm that educational attainment is not simply an outcome of merit or effort, but a socially structured process deeply embedded in broader patterns of inequality.

Landownership concentration and the expansion of education

This essay reviews current research on the relationship between economic inequality and social stratification. Stratification, that is, the intergenerational reproduction of the distribution of incomes and socioeconomic advantage, is likely to be related to the level of economic inequality because parental incomes and wealth are important resources in families' investment in children's earnings capacity. The relationship is likely to be moderated, however, by the fact that monetary resources are not the sole family resource of importance, and by counterbalancing effects of progressive policy, notably as far as educational policy is concerned. Also, the relationship between inequality and stratification is likely to exhibit considerable time lags, and empirical analyses of contemporaneous correlations are unlikely to be informative in consequence. Owing to the substantial data requirements, few convincing empirical studies on the inequality–stratification relationship are available at present. More reliable evidence is available from studies of the relationship between inequality and educational attainment, arguably the key interim process in stratification. Here, empirical results suggest rising inequality to cause rising inequality of educational achievement, notably because well‐off families are able to increase children's attainment in the face of rising economic incentives, whereas lower income families are less able to do so. The essay concludes by suggesting key areas of future research, likely to be spurred by the increasing sophistication of analytical models and the increasing quality of available intergenerational data on earnings, incomes and socioeconomic standing.

For scholars of social stratification one of the key questions regarding educational expansion is whether it diminishes or magnifies existing inequalities in educational attainment. The effect of expansion on educational inequality in tertiary education is of particular importance, as tertiary education has become increasingly relevant for labour market prospects and life course opportunities. Our article studies the access to tertiary education of students with different social origins in light of educational expansion in Germany. First, we examine inequalities in access to four vertical alternatives of postsecondary education by means of multinomial regression with national data from four school-leaver surveys from 1983, 1990, 1994, and 1999. Second, for those students who enrol at a tertiary institution, effects of social origin on horizontal choices of fields of study are analysed. Results show that unequal opportunities to access postsecondary and tertiary institutions remain constant at a high level. Likewise, social background effects have not changed over time for the choice of field of study. Thus, students from different social backgrounds did not change their educational strategies irrespective of the ongoing expansion of secondary and tertiary education.

The historical foundations of formal popular music education in post-secondary institutions in the United States has rarely been explored. This article provides an overview of the seminal popular music courses and degree programmes at three post-secondary public institutions, from their establishment in the 1920s until the 1950s. Several important music educators responsible for these innovative programmes are profiled, including band director Audre Stong at Pasadena City College, department chair Leslie Clausen at Los Angeles City College and band director Dwight Defty, who introduced the first popular music degree programme, Modern Music, in 1936 at Long Beach City College. Factors that led to the introduction of popular music in the curriculum included the expansion of vocational education in California public schools, softening the boundary between highbrow and lowbrow musical traditions in the Los Angeles music scene, strong local public school music education and the democratic movement towards student- and community-centred education.

The articles published in this issue of the Journal help advance the debate on market reform in former socialist states. In our comment, besides dealing with data analysis issues, we suggest several ways to improve the level of debate about substantive issues. These suggestions include more attention to politics, including path dependence, and more attention to middle-level generalizations from other developing market societies.

Despite ample evidence on the negative association between sibship size and educational attainment, relatively fewer studies have directly addressed the immediate effect of sibship size on children’s family resources. With data from a nationally representative survey in China, this study estimated the effects of sibship size on various family resources for Chinese adolescents between ages 10 and 15, with a particular interest in the possible role of gender on resource allocation. Consistent with prior research on educational attainment, sibship size was negatively associated with the amount of resources a child received from the family. Siblings who were closer in ages had equal or more negative effects on family resources a child received compared with widely spaced siblings. A more rapid decrease was observed in economic resources than in interpersonal resources. Furthermore, brothers showed greater negative effects than sisters. The current findings provided direct evidence for the resource dilution theory.

The LGBTQ community is becoming more active as Mainland China's society starts to reflect a trend toward more diverse growth. People in Mainland China have also paid more attention to the transgender population from a queer cultural standpoint. Under the framework of Dramaturgy, as the mismatch between transgender people’s psychological sex and physiological sex is not consistent with the expectations of gender roles under the usual concepts, it has initially caused the collapse and disappointment of the roles of other groups in the Chinese society, and thus a lot of unfriendly voices have appeared in the society. However, with the increase in the number of mainland images featuring transgender people, there has been an increase in the amount of images of transgender people that people have come across. By examining the public's comments on these images, it is possible to find out how attitudes towards the transgender community have changed and developed in Mainland China in recent years. This paper will focus on the LGBTQ+ group, especially the less focused community of transgender, from the perspective of Gender Roles and Dramaturgy. Through the research method of online ethnography, this study analysed the reviews of queer movies from different periods, and explore whether the queer community and the transgender community, which receives less attention among them, will have more room for survival in the future society of Mainland China. The author hopes that this article will serve as a reference for future transgender studies in Mainland China.

Emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in mainstream schools in Ireland attract much attention and significant resources, yet little research has been conducted in the Irish context about how this concept is understood by practitioners, what influences that understanding nor how that influences provision in schools. This paper is based on the findings of a study which investigated these issues among principals, special education teachers and guidance counsellors in mainstream post-primary schools, employing questionnaires (n = 36) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). Several themes are presented regarding how EBD is conceptualised and responded to. The findings of the study suggest definitions of EBD appear to focus mostly on intrapersonal characteristics of students and suggest a resignation in the attitude of practitioners. The effectiveness of behaviour policies is ambiguous due to an imperative to produce written policies in many areas, traditional views of the homogeneity of the school population and a tendency to rely on SEN policy to address EBD issues. Responses to EBD vary considerably. Responsibility for most aspects of the school experience of students presenting with EBD appears to rest predominantly with special education teachers, even where there is access to guidance counsellors. Gender impacts on several of these issues, particularly in the type of language used in schools when discussing EBD.

Although specifically directed toward the nation's K-12 Brown v. Board also opened wider the doors of postsecondary education for African Americans. The landmark decision has led to increased enrollment of African American students in predominantly White colleges and universities. Still, 50 years after the Supreme Court's ruling, African Americans are still proportionately underrepresented in these institutions, which are frequently unwelcoming and sometimes even hostile settings. Many Americans, especially those of African descent, thought that a new era was dawning when on May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision declaring that racial segregation in the nation's public schools was unconstitutional. The court's pronouncement, along its subsequent declaration that the decision be implemented with all deliberate speed, offered the impression that school desegregation would be swift and certain. The reality has been quite the opposite. Although some progress toward integration has occurred since the Brown v. Board of Education decision, particularly in the South, across the nation, K-12 schools are still significantly segregated by race. More than 70% of the nation's Black students now attend predominantly minority schools, according to a recent report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard (Orfield, 2001). In the last decade of the 20th century, the percentage of White students attending public schools Black students actually decreased since 1988, and the figure was lower in 2000 than in 1970. At the start of the 21st century, the top 27 largest school systems were overwhelmingly non-White and segregated (Williams, 2003). While the text of the Brown decision was about segregation at the elementary and secondary school level, the subtext was about justice and equality throughout the educational arena and the entire social system. So, as the Court decision began to be applied at the postsecondary level, the doors of colleges and universities that had been closed to African Americans were also flung open. As we examine the result of the Court's ruling 50 years later, aggregate enrollment patterns in the nation's colleges and universities appear to show quite a different outcome than in the K-12 schools. At the time of the Brown decision, segregation was as pervasive in the nation's colleges and universities as it was in the K-12 systems, and nearly all African American students received their undergraduate education in the nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). However, by the end of the 20th century, the great majority of these students were enrolled in postsecondary institutions that are predominantly White. On that basis, one could argue that the student enrollment figures suggest that racial integration has been more extensive, and, thus, ostensibly more effective at the collegiate level than at the K-12 level. A dramatic increase in the enrollment of African American students in colleges and universities took place during the second half of the 20th century, and a similar situation occurred for other groups of color, whereas enrollment peaked for Whites in the early 1991. For African Americans, the figures vacillated somewhat in the mid 1980s from the level that had been reached at the beginning of the decade, but, by 1987, their numbers and those of other students of color enrolled in the nation's colleges and universities were moving upward in a steady and consistent fashion, and they have continued to do so. Fifty percent more African Americans were matriculated in postsecondary institutions in 2001, compared to twenty years earlier. Over the last two decades of the 20th century, the rate of growth for African American enrollment was more than double the growth rate of White students, and, specifically, during the last decade of the century, the rate of increase accelerated to a level that was three times higher than that of Whites. …

The aim of the chapter is to investigate the changing structural position of post-secondary schools in Poland, seen from the perspective of the expansion of higher education from one side and the current reform of vocational education from the other. Do post-secondary schools enhance opportunities for those who might not otherwise consider further education, especially when we consider lower cost, open admissions and greater accessibility in comparison with higher education institutions? Or do they play a role of a ‘discounted’ and ‘undervalued’ education for those who could not manage to enter three-year-bachelor cycles in tertiary education and thus were forced to lower their initial educational aspirations? The opening up of higher education to new student populations was done by the rapid expansion of the private (paid for) sector and the fee-paying courses in the public sector. Liberal educational policy not only opened an opportunity for the privatization in higher education, but also expanded the market-driven provision at the post-secondary level. The discussion on the relevance of post-secondary vocational qualifications must be seen within the context of the continual inflation of diplomas/degrees and the unemployment of graduates after finishing higher education. Since 2010, there has been a reverse process initiated at the governmental level in Poland: reform schemes to increase the participation of young people in vocational education and training. However, the structural position and functions of post-secondary schools, as well as their role in the employability of young people, are not subject to any open discussion at the political level. This sort of status quo concerning post-secondary institutions means that their institutional identity issues are resolved and their structural position defined predominantly by market forces.

Based on the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) from 1997 to 2011, this study examines the role of education in expenditure inequality in Indonesia under educational expansion since the 1997 financial crisis. This is achieved using the three decomposition methods: the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition; the decomposition of the Gini coefficient; and the hierarchical decomposition of the Theil index. The expansion of education, particularly basic education in rural areas, appears to have not only lowered educational disparity between the urban and rural sectors but also educational inequality within the rural sector. Due in large part to the declining educational disparity between the urban and rural sectors, the urban–rural expenditure disparity has narrowed since the mid-2000s. On the other hand, the expansion of higher education in urban areas appears to have played an important role in the recent rise in overall expenditure inequality by raising not only disparity between educational groups but also inequality within the tertiary education group. Basic education policies would still serve as an effective means to mitigate expenditure inequality, as they could reduce not only educational gap between the urban and rural sectors but also educational inequality within the rural sector by raising general educational levels. Since the expansion of higher education in urban areas seems to be one of the main factors of the recent rise in overall expenditure inequality, higher education policies would also be crucial.

An analysis of instructional accommodations and assistive technologies used by postsecondary graduates with disabilities