New Modes of Reproducing Social Inequality in Education: The Changing Role of Parents, Teachers, Schools and Educational Policies

Abstract

This article is based on the Keynote Address to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Crete, Greece, 21-25 September 2004. One of the most consistent results in sociology of education research has been the existence of inequalities in school results and educational trajectories related to social factors. Despite an important increase in number of years of schooling for all children in most European countries in the post-war period, research still shows important differences between social and ethnic groups and even a widening of the gap between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged in some countries. Factors shown by previous studies to account for these differences are still at work, but many of them are influential in new ways. In addition to this, new factors have to be taken into account. Using available sociological literature on European countries, while focusing specifically on France as an exemplary case, this article presents some of the new constraints on and opportunities for action by parents, teachers and schools that result from both economic, cultural and educational changes and recent policy orientations.

“I do not want to poach pupils from other schools” – German primary schools and their role in educational choice processes

“…Head teachers thus find themselves in a situation where their educational values collide with the need to succeed in the market (Jennings, 2010). Consequently, by attracting the most advantageous students and avoiding the more demanding ones, schools try to achieve good test scores and to increase their reputation, which is strongly linked to pupil intake (Ball, 1994;Ball et al, 1995;Gillborn & Youdell, 2000;Herbert, 2000;van Zanten, 2005).…”

“…These different logics of action are based on different external and internal conditions, such as schools' intake and their position in the local hierarchy (van Zanten, 2005;Ball & Maroy, 2009). Head teachers exercise their influential roles "on an uneven "I do not want to poach pupils from other schools" -German primary schools a...…”

“…Thus, schools respond in varied ways "that are not simply a function of their short-term incentives" (ibid., p. 229). Moreover, schools are not affected by other schools in the same way; a school's reputation and the competition in the local area determine the surrounding institutional environment's influence on the school (van Zanten, 2005).…”

Elegir la universidad privada en Buenos Aires: espacialización de la elección en contextos de diversificación

“…This reform is key in Feldfeber's (2003) observation on how the definition of public education became a shared field and a matter of jurisdiction when the types of administration (state or private) were outlined under the Federal Education Act [Ley Federal de Educación] from 1993. This set of discussions focuses not only on the economic dynamics in the expansion of private education but also on the ability of different social sectors to impose their values and preferences upon the school ( VAN ZANTEN, 2005) or school's capability of imposing them, and it confirms our remark on the construction of school choices: the importance of the moral dimensions and the relationships between families and education institutions considered at their local level (FUENTES, 2013). It is still pending to assess the mechanisms and meanings accounting for the choices that contribute to segregation and fragmentation of spaces and education circuits in the case of universities as well as the role of institutions' policies on the interaction of higher education's offer and demand.…”

“…Proximity and place are central because they help maintain friends and other activities ( VAN ZANTEN, 2005). When I asked Pedro, who lives in an exclusive private neighborhood in Pilar, why he decided to study at the campus of Universidad del Salvador in the same district, his instant reply was: "because it is nearby."…”