Verso una teoria delle disuguaglianze di opportunità educative

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to stress on the value of the hypothesis of the rational action and of the concept of generating mechanism for the theoretical modelling and for the empirical analysis of educational opportunity inequality. Two theoretical approaches will be examined and compared: on the one hand, the cultural capital theory; on the other hand, the rational educational choice model. The analysis tries to show that the former has a limited congruence degree for many points with empirical data whereas the latter brings to light some essential aspects of statistical structure of educational opportunity inequality. The basic argument of this paper is that the restricted explanatory power of capital cultural theory comes from its main theoretical limits: namely, the underestimation of rational action and the lack of research for generating mechanisms. On the contrary, the rational educational choice model founds its own logic and explanatory structure precisely on these two analytical elements. In conclusion, some theoretical and empirical development of such a model will be outlined.