The stratification of universities: Structural inequality in Canada and the United States

Davies, Scott; Zarifa, David

doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2011.05.003

Cited by 116 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Davies and Zarifa (2012) use Gini coefficients, Lorenz curves and other measures of inequality to compare the level of stratification in financial resources across 4-year institutions in Canada and the US over 1971-2006 (p. 143). There is a moderate-to-strong association between resource concentration and selectivity.…”

Section: Effects Of Competitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems

2016

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Worldwide participation in higher education now includes one-third of the age cohort and is growing at an unprecedented rate. The tendency to rapid growth, leading towards high participation systems (HPS), has spread to most middle-income and some low-income countries. Though expansion of higher education requires threshold development of the state and the middle class, it is primarily powered not by economic growth but by the ambitions of families to advance or maintain social position. However, expansion is mostly not accompanied by more equal social access to elite institutions. The quality of mass higher education is often problematic. Societies vary in the extent of upward social mobility from low-socio-economic-status backgrounds. The paper explores the intersection between stratified social backgrounds and the stratifying structures in HPS. These differentiating structures include public/private distinctions in schooling and higher education, different fields of study, binary systems and tiered hierarchies of institutions, the vertical 'stretching' of stratification in competitive HPS, and the unequalising effects of tuition. Larger social inequalities set limits on what education can achieve. Countries with high mobility sustain a consensus about social equality, and value rigorous and autonomous systems of learning, assessment and selection in education.

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Section: Effects Of Competitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems

2016

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mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Germany's higher education system, for example, lacks a steep hierarchy of institutions and has been seen to be more egalitarian than France or Britain (Best et al 2000:175). Likewise, Canada's postsecondary system has been shown to be significantly less stratified, less differentiated, and resources more evenly dispersed compared to the United States (Davies and Zarifa 2012). Sweden has a similar institutional parity; pressures for a more hierarchical system may have been defused by the tendency of many upper-and middle-class Swedes to seek elite credentials from foreign countries rather than from within Sweden itself (Munk 2009).…”

Section: Structural Stratification In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our analyses on Australia's university system suggest it has more parity and less structural stratification than the U.S. and UK systems. Gini coefficients for the total expenditures on continuing operations per equivalent full-time student load (EFTSL) are relatively small (0.19), resembling those estimated for Canada(Davies and Zarifa 2012).6 Moreover, 31 of the 38 political leaders who did not attend university are from countries with less stratified higher education systems (e.g., Sweden [10], Canada [8], Australia [7], and Germany [6]).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Structural Stratification in Higher Education and the University Origins of Political Leaders in Eight Countries

Zarifa

Davies

2018

Sociological Forum

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Are political leaders “educationally representative” of their electorates? Because almost all national‐level political leaders are university graduates, this question increasingly centers on whether they attended a select number of highly ranked domestic institutions. This study examines international variations in the concentration of universities attended by political leaders by analyzing publicly available information on all 524 national party leaders from the past century in eight countries: Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, and Sweden. Our analyses reveal four major findings. First, the university origins of political elites are most concentrated in the UK and United States, whose higher education systems are highly stratified. Second, British and American leaders were most likely to attend world top‐ranked universities than leaders from any other countries. Third, our results uncover a realignment between elite universities and party ideology in recent decades, as leaders of left‐wing parties become more likely to attend elite universities than their right‐wing counterparts. In conclusion, we theorize connections between higher education and elite recruitment, and suggest directions for future research that can utilize a broader range of nations and societal sectors.

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“…A paper that is similar to ours in its goals is Davies and Zarifa (2012), who examine inequality among Canadian and US institutions over a 35 year period (1971 to 2006), focusing on how inequality with respect to the various components of revenue has changed. They find that in both countries, inequality has increased, although the extent of inequality is much greater in the United States.…”

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confidence: 99%

Are Universities Becoming More Unequal?

Lau¹,

Rosen²

2016

The Review of Higher Education

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Observers have expressed concern about growing inequality in resources across universities. But are universities really becoming more unequal? We argue that the typical approach of examining endowment growth alone is not sensible. In line with the literature on household inequality, we focus instead on a comprehensive income measure. We find that although there is considerable inequality among institutions, concerns about the inexorable growth of inequality are overblown. Whether one looks at income, endowment wealth, or expenditure, inequality has been high but stable, exhibiting only negligible increases in recent years. Furthermore, there has been little mobility within the higher education sector.

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The stratification of universities: Structural inequality in Canada and the United States

Cited by 116 publications

References 30 publications

The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems

The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems

Structural Stratification in Higher Education and the University Origins of Political Leaders in Eight Countries

Are Universities Becoming More Unequal?

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