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Inequality in Higher Education

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Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions

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The sociology of higher education (HE) tends to be dominated by a focus on inequality, meaning an analysis of disparities in access and resources across social groups. Throughout the years, this primary topic of analysis has been complemented by studies of organizations and other social processes in education. Below we describe two main strands of research on inequality within the sociology of HE, along with an emerging alternative strand, and then outline prominent theoretical statements and empirical studies from each.

The first strand consists of research that takes individual students as its level of analysis, examining upward and lateral flows of students within HE. Scholars studying “maximally maintained inequality” (MMI), for example, have focused on inspecting disparities among types of students in their ability to gain entry into credential tiers (Raftery and Hout 1993). Meanwhile, research on “effectively maintained inequality” (EMI) examines more lateral types of student...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Study of Canadian & International Higher Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, M5S 1V6, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Roger Pizarro Milian

  2. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. W., 6th floor, M5S 1V6, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Scott Davies

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  1. Roger Pizarro Milian
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  2. Scott Davies
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Correspondence to Roger Pizarro Milian .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Jung Cheol Shin

  2. CIPES, Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro Teixeira

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Milian, R.P., Davies, S. (2016). Inequality in Higher Education. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_41-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_41-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

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