The article is devoted to the analysis of the problems of inequality in modern education from the point of view of the world-system approach. The authors establish links between educational inequality and in- 153 equality of societies in the «core – semiperiphery – periphery» structure. The authors attempt to consider the mechanism of the formation of educational inequality in peripheral societies in which social contradictions are most clearly observed from the perspective of the world-system approach. The authors use the theoretical constructions of the world-system approach of I. Wallerstein, S. Amin, F. Cardozo, the ideas of the representatives of the world-system paradigm in comparative education of R.F. Arnove, T. Griffiths, and the concept of a closed circle of inequality in education by R. Flecha. The authors believe that changes in the education system of a society that is integrated into the world-system through the specialization of its economy correspond to those specific transformations that are caused in this society by the innovation spread by the global hegemon. The authors of the article show that the reform of the education system proceeds in the general direction of integrating society into the world system of the division of labor, when the elite forms priority consumption patterns in a peripheralized society (including patterns of knowledge and education), borrowing they from the countries of the core and the hegemon of the world system. The formation of priority patterns leads to the displacement of their own educational culture, the imitation of the masses of the elite and the uneven spread of the patterns. Since full compliance with the priority patterns is unattainable for the majority of the population, its imitations are spreading.