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European Universities and Educational and Occupational Intergenerational Social Mobility

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Facing Trajectories from School to Work

Abstract

European higher education systems have been in a period of intensive quantitative expansion. Are the chances of young people from poorer backgrounds actually increasing, relative to increasing chances of young people from higher socioeconomic classes? Are both overall social mobility and relative social mobility of underrepresented classes increasing at the same rate? Social mobility in increasingly knowledge-driven economies is powerfully linked to equitable access to higher education. To study access, higher education research may increasingly use theoretical insights from the capabilities approach (CA). One of the major obstacles to develop further the CA in higher education research is the current construction of national and European datasets (underlying theoretical concepts leading to specific social research vocabulary in data-driven studies). If the CA is to be applied further to higher education, it has to highlight not only the need to measure different things but also the need to measure them differently. The paper presents strong support for the “education for all” agenda: as our analyses based on the EU-SILC (European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions) data show, for young Europeans from poorer and low-educated backgrounds, the chances to get higher education credentials and to work in highly skilled white-collar occupations are drastically low. A major recommendation for EU strategies is to introduce more effective mechanisms to enable new routes of access to more differentiated higher education.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Research Council (NCN) through its MAESTRO grant DEC-2011/02/A/HS6/00183 (2012–2017). The work on the statistics in this paper would not be possible without the invaluable support of Dr. Wojciech Roszka.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Public Policy Studies and UNESCO Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy, University of Poznan, Poznan, Poland

    Marek Kwiek

Authors
  1. Marek Kwiek
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Correspondence to Marek Kwiek .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bielefeld Center for Education and Capability Research, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Hans-Uwe Otto

  2. Linz, Austria

    Roland Atzmüller

  3. Bordeaux, France

    Thierry Berthet

  4. Milan, Italy

    Lavinia Bifulco

  5. Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jean-Michel Bonvin

  6. Pavia, Italy

    Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti

  7. Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Valerie Egdell

  8. Gothenburg, Sweden

    Björn Halleröd

  9. Copenhagen, Denmark

    Christian Christrup Kjeldsen

  10. Poznan University Center Public Policy Studies, Director, Poznan, Poland

    Marek Kwiek

  11. Brussels, Belgium

    Regine Schröer

  12. Marseille, France

    Josiane Vero

  13. Warsaw, Poland

    Marianna Zieleńska

Annex

Annex

Table 6.1 Relative risk ratio for persons from ISCO-88 highest occupational group (“legislators and senior professionals”) in relation to their father’s occupation (shadowed: “legislators and senior professionals”)
Full size table
Table 6.2 Relative risk ratio for persons from ISCO-88 lowest occupational group (9. “elementary”) in relation to their father’s occupation (shadowed: (9) “elementary” to (9) “elementary”)
Full size table

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Kwiek, M. (2015). European Universities and Educational and Occupational Intergenerational Social Mobility. In: Otto, HU., et al. Facing Trajectories from School to Work. Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11436-1_6

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