OSC Scientific Seminar 2021-2022

Friday 8th April 2022, 11:30 am
Sciences Po, 1 St-Thomas, Room A201 & Online via Zoom

A feel for the game?
A contribution to the analysis of social stratification through higher education

Yann Renisio & Emil Bertilsson

 Associate Scientist, CNRS, Sciences Po - OSC & Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University   

Higher education plays a major role in the social stratification of contemporary western societies. Studies of this influence, generally compare properties of upper secondary graduates who enter higher education with those who do not enter (binary stratification), or, among those who enter, between short term vs long term programs (vertical stratification) or, among those who enter programs with the same duration, between the fields of these programs (horizontal stratification).

We propose three improvements in this research design, using Swedish register-data. First, we recalculate the actual space of reachable programs for all upper-secondary graduates, meaning that we can predict with very high accuracy which programs a given individual could have, or could have not, entered into if she had applied to them. Second, we construct a continuous characterization of programs based on a synthetic measure of their social outcomes (conjunction of average level of study, median income, and rate of upper-class occupations among accepted students to these programs, 10 years after their entrance).

By doing so, rather than relying only on the level and field of programs, we get a better approximation of the relation between higher education stratification and social stratification.

Finally, we decompose the process of entering a program in higher education as a succession of constrained practices, that is, first, the possibility to enter higher education, second, the practice of applying to higher education given the objective chances of success, third, the fact that these applications are oriented towards at least one reachable program, fourth, the fact of registering to this program once accepted to it, and finally, the relative position of this program in terms of outcomes, compared with all the other reachable programs.

We focus on the respective and cumulative influence of gender and level of education of parents on each of these steps.

Registration is mandatory. Thanks! (Zoom users: the link for the videoconference will be sent one day before)