Incomplete equalization: The effect of tracking in secondary education on educational inequality

In the 1960s, educational reforms have been initiated in Germany to make the rigid stratified school system more permeable. While maintaining between-school tracking in secondary education, several second-chance options have been introduced that established alternative routes to higher education. This study aims to evaluate whether these alternative routes were successful in reducing the levels of social inequality in both higher education eligibility and higher education attainment. We draw on life-course data from the German National Educational Panel Study and conduct simulation analyses. We conclude that it is very unlikely that the reforms had any substantive influence on the level of inequality in both outcome variables.

We describe changes over time in inequality in postsecondary education using nearly seventy years of data from the U.S. Census and the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth.We find growing gaps between children from high-and low-income families in college entry, persistence, and graduation.Rates of college completion increased by only four percentage points for low-income cohorts born around 1980 relative to cohorts born in the early 1960s, but by 18 percentage points for corresponding cohorts who grew up in high-income families.Among men, inequality in educational attainment has increased slightly since the early 1980s.But among women, inequality in educational attainment has risen sharply, driven by increases in the education of the daughters of high-income parents.Sex differences in educational attainment, which were small or nonexistent thirty years ago, are now substantial, with women outpacing men in every demographic group.The female advantage in educational attainment is largest in the top quartile of the income distribution.These sex differences present a formidable challenge to standard explanations for rising inequality in educational attainment.

Income inequality in educational attainment is a long-standing concern, and disparities in college completion have grown over time. Need-based financial aid is commonly used to promote equality in college outcomes, but its effectiveness has not been established, and some are calling it into question. A randomized experiment is used to estimate the impact of a private need-based grant program on college persistence and degree completion among students from low-income families attending 13 public universities across Wisconsin. Results indicate that offering students additional grant aid increases the odds of bachelor’s degree attainment over four years, helping to diminish income inequality in higher education.

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to examine the nature and extent of gender and spatial inequalities in educational attainment in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses the education Gini coefficient, computed on the basis of years of schooling of individuals, to assess education inequality in Ghana.FindingsThe paper finds evidence of gender and spatial inequality in education in Ghana. In particular, the three northern regions have lower education attainment as well as higher education Gini coefficients compared to the rest of the country. The paper finds evidence of intra‐gender and intra‐spatial inequalities in education attainment in Ghana, with females contributing proportionately more to the within‐inequality component of the education Gini. The paper also finds a positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality.Research limitations/implicationsThe research finds a positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality but requires an econometric analysis to make inferences regarding causality.Practical implicationsThe findings call for the design and implementation of policies not only to address between‐gender and spatial inequities in education in Ghana, but also to tackle within‐gender and within‐spatial inequalities. The positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality implies the need to create greater equity in educational opportunities across the country.Social implicationsThe need for changes in attitudes, values and cultural practices that put girls at a disadvantage when it comes to education.Originality/valueOne important and new finding of the paper is the existence of intra‐gender and intra‐spatial inequalities in education attainment in Ghana, with females contributing proportionately more to the within‐inequality component of the education Gini.

Using recent data for 2017/2018 the article provides empirical evidence on the persistence of the traditional inter-caste inequality in higher educational attainment—enrolment rate being much low for low castes than the high castes. The educational attainment of middle caste is lower than high castes but better than low caste untouchables, indicating a graded inequality in education attainment, unique feature of caste system. Between the income group the low income groups suffered the most from low education attainment than the high oncome groups. The inequalities in ownership of wealth and income and caste discrimination faced by low caste untouchables are the main reasons for low education attainment among the low caste and low income groups. The shift in the government policy towards privatisation of higher education also has taken the education beyond the reach of low income household. The caste discrimination result into high drop out among the scheduled castes. In the end based on the empirical results relevant (caste) group specific and income group specific policies are proposed to promote higher education among the low castes and low income groups. JEL Codes: 123, J24, D63, J71

Scholars have consistently found that inequalities in educational attainment are most pronounced along social origin and gender dimensions, but urban–rural inequalities have also been evident in recent years. A spatial gradient in educational attainment reflects how rural students are consistently less likely to gain higher education (HE) credentials than their urban peers. By drawing on full-population administrative data on the Norwegian birth cohorts from 1965 to 1989 (n = 1,419,406), followed from age 16 to 30, this article analyses how urban–rural differences in HE have changed over the last 25 years, and furthermore, whether urban–rural disparities have developed in distinct ways based on students’ social origin and gender. The results show that urban–rural disparities in higher educational attainment have become more pronounced for recent birth cohorts and particularly evident for post-1980 cohorts. This applies to students originating from both privileged and less privileged families. However, urban–rural inequalities are more evident for men than women, which over time has led gender differences to become considerably greater in rural areas. The results demonstrate that spatial inequality requires further attention in educational and stratification research, as the outcomes suggest that the urban–rural educational gap is not necessarily consistent over time.

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.

This study uses five series of demographic and health surveys to answer the question: 'Is horizontal inequality in education and wealth increasing or decreasing in the 20-year interval between 1991 and 2010?'. Horizontal inequality in education attainment has been moving in waves; however, there was an invested U-shaped trend where inequality increased between 2004 and 2007 before a declining trend in recent years. Unlike the fluctuating trends of the overall horizontal inequality in education, gender inequality in educational attainment has consistently been declining over time. The same consistent decline in education inequality is observed between urban and rural areas, and between the business city of Dar es Salaam and other subnational regions. However, Tanzanian society is becoming more unequal in wealth with rising wealth inequality between geographical zones, gender, and also between rural and urban areas. This implies that, sub-national regions in Tanzania, men and women, and rural and urban areas are disproportionally benefiting from the impressive economic growth rates that Tanzania has experienced over the past decade.

This paper deals with the principle of relative risk aversion (RRA), which has been put forward by Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) as an explanation of inequality in educational attainment. While the original idea of the concept is to account for the basic mechanisms that produce educational inequality, this paper argues that RRA can also provide an explanation of dynamic processes related to changes in educational attainment over successive birth cohorts. RRA provides a rationale for educational upward mobility vis-a-vis the parents’ generation whenever educational requirements attached to occupations change. Relatedly, RRA can also account for changes in educational inequality if these processes vary with social origin. The paper elaborates on these implications theoretically and also suggests an empirical analytical framework for testing the explanatory contribution that the RRA principle can make to changes in educational mobility and inequality. The empirical analyses refer to Germany as a test case and utilize data from the German Microcensus and ALLBUS studies. The findings indicate that the RRA principle actually provides a partial explanation of educational upward mobility and also accounts for substantial parts of the changes in inequality in educational attainment.

Secondary education in Israel uses curricular tracking. The academic track is selective on the basis of scholastic aptitude and prepares students for higher education. The vocational tracks maintain low curricular requirements and are said to enhance educational attainment of low-aptitude students. Ethnicity is highly correlated with measured aptitude. Hence, Sephardim are typically assigned to vocational tracks whereas Ashkenazim are more likely to attend the academic track. The investigation concerns the extent to which tracking reinforces the effects of ethnic aptitude differences on ethnic inequalities in educational attainment. An analysis of data on educational histories for a subsample of Jewish men reveals that educational persistence at the secondary level is virtually unaffected by track placement. Academic track placement enhances eligibility for higher education of all but the least able students. The availability of the vocational track does not enhance educational participation of Sephardim. Rather, it inhibits further their already low likelihood of receiving higher education.

This chapter is concerned with changes in the level of educational attainment in Britain. It discusses and evaluates sociology's contribution to understanding class inequalities in educational attainment. It begins with empirical studies documenting the extent of class inequality in education. It then describes methodological work concerned with measuring class differentials in educational attainment. Finally, it explores possible explanations for the persistence of class inequalities.

This study examines ethnic and class inequalities in educational attainment using the 2001 Belgian Census. It analyses the highest qualifications that the 1973 to 1979 birth cohort obtained in 2001. Variation in attainment levels is explained as a function of gender, ethnic and class origins, and other characteristics of the parental household in 1991. Earlier findings of gross ethnic disadvantage, in particular among Turkish and Moroccan youngsters, were largely replicated when ethnicity is identified by ancestry rather than nationality. Looking across ethnic groups, parental resources in 1991 were very powerful predictors of educational attainment in 2001. In order of importance, parental education, accumulated wealth (as measured by ownership and quality of housing), employment and occupational class explain most educational inequality. Ethnic disadvantage is perpetuated from one generation to the next mainly through mechanisms of class disadvantage. In addition, there is evidence of cumulative ethnic and class disadvantage for Turkish and Moroccan minorities. Finally, the largest unexplained ethnic disadvantage is found for the Turkish minority in Flanders. Not only are they most underrepresented in tertiary education, they are also most at risk of school dropout in secondary education.

There is controversy regarding trends over time in the association between social origins and educational outcomes in the UK. An explanation may lie in different methods of analysis. This article provides new evidence about trends in inequality between the 1980s and 2010s and informs the debate about the conceptualisation and operationalisation of social origins. It expands the multidimensional conceptualisation of social origins proposed by Bukodi and Goldthorpe (2013) by adding a separate indicator of family income to those of class, status and education of parents. Results from two UK age cohorts born in 1970 (BCS70) and 1989/90 (Next Steps) show that social class, social status, education and income all have independent effects on educational attainment and can show different patterns of stability or variability over time. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of transitions to upper secondary education for a more comprehensive understanding of inequalities in educational progression and attainment.

The question of whether those who think of themselves as egalitarians really do, or should, value equality has received considerable attention in recent years. Alternative principles have been offered as better capturing those distributive intuitions formerly known as ‘egalitarian’. Some endorse sufficiency—comparisons do not matter; what is important is that all have enough. Others favor giving priority to the worse off. The

Although there is evidence that there was gender inequality in China's education system in the 1980s, the literature in China has mixed evidence on improvements in gender inequality in educational attainment over the past three decades. Some suggest gender inequality is still severe; others report progress. We seek to understand the progress China has made (if any) in reducing gender inequality in education since the 1980s. To meet this goal, we use a meta‐analysis approach which provides a new quantitative review of a relatively large volume of empirical literature on gender educational differentials. This article analyzes differences across both time and space, and also across different grade levels and ethnicities. Our results indicate that gender inequality in educational attainment still exists, but it has been narrowing over time. Moreover, it varies by area (rural versus urban) and grade level. There is nearly no significant gender inequality in the case of girls in urban areas or in the case of the 9 years of compulsory education (primary school and junior high school). Girls, however, still face inequality in rural areas (although inequality is falling over time) and when they reach high school or beyond. (JELI24)