TY - JOUR

T1 - Conditions and Consequences of Unequal Educational Opportunities in the Life Course

T2 - Results from the Cross-National Comparative eduLIFE Project

AU - Blossfeld, Hans-Peter

AU - Kulic, Nevena

AU - Skopek, Jan

AU - Triventi, Moris

AU - Kilpi-Jakonen, Elina

AU - Vono de Vilhena, Daniela

AU - Buchholz, Sandra

N1 - Funding information: This chapter presents selected results from the Education as a Lifelong Process (eduLIFE) project, supported by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (2012–2016). The aim of this cross-national project was to study how individuals’ educational careers unfold over the life course in different societies. The project concentrated on conditions and on (short-and long-term) consequences of unequal educational opportunities over longer spans of the life course. In this chapter, we limit ourselves to three educational life phases: (1) the age of “early childhood education and care” (ECEC) before starting school, (2) the phase when pupils in secondary school are confronted with different models of school differentiation, and (3) lifelong learning in adulthood. Our leading research question is: How does social inequality influence educational careers and their outcomes in these three life phases?1

PY - 2019/6/3

Y1 - 2019/6/3

N2 - Using longitudinal data, this chapter studies the development of educational inequalities over the life course in 12–17 different industrialized societies. By comparing highly-standardized country case studies in specific phases of the educational career, it provides evidence of major communalities in modern societies. First, the cross-national findings show that educational inequalities are created and perpetuated in family settings, early in a child’s life, long before children start school. Children from less privileged families are the ones who are least likely to attend high-quality institutions, and if they do, their gains are only moderate and generally too small to effectively counteract the family influence. When children are in school, the comparative analyses demonstrate that socioeconomically-advantaged families manage to secure the “pole positions” in education for their children, regardless of the organizational specificities of the school system across different countries. They always succeed in strategically exploiting various opportunities provided by different school systems. Finally, the cross-national comparisons of adult learning over the life course show a strong cumulative advantage: Adult learning tends to reproduce and reinforce the outcomes of initial formal education in the later adult life course.

AB - Using longitudinal data, this chapter studies the development of educational inequalities over the life course in 12–17 different industrialized societies. By comparing highly-standardized country case studies in specific phases of the educational career, it provides evidence of major communalities in modern societies. First, the cross-national findings show that educational inequalities are created and perpetuated in family settings, early in a child’s life, long before children start school. Children from less privileged families are the ones who are least likely to attend high-quality institutions, and if they do, their gains are only moderate and generally too small to effectively counteract the family influence. When children are in school, the comparative analyses demonstrate that socioeconomically-advantaged families manage to secure the “pole positions” in education for their children, regardless of the organizational specificities of the school system across different countries. They always succeed in strategically exploiting various opportunities provided by different school systems. Finally, the cross-national comparisons of adult learning over the life course show a strong cumulative advantage: Adult learning tends to reproduce and reinforce the outcomes of initial formal education in the later adult life course.

KW - Methodology of the Social Sciences

KW - Personality and Social Psychology

KW - Philosophy of the Social Sciences

KW - Social Sciences

KW - general

KW - Sociology

KW - Adult education

KW - Comparative life course research

KW - Comprehensive schools

KW - Early childhood education

KW - Educational inequality

KW - Matthew effect

KW - Standardized country case studies

KW - Tracking

KW - Variations in institutional configurations

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065659409&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11577-019-00595-w

DO - 10.1007/s11577-019-00595-w

M3 - Article

VL - 71

SP - 399

EP - 428

JO - Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie

JF - Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie

SN - 0023-2653

IS - 1

ER -