Educational Stratification

Inclusionary Principles

Modern citizenship policies have evolved to expand the circle of individuals who are eligible for incorporation as citizens. Lineage, property, literacy, religious, gender, ethnic, and racial barriers to citizenship have been challenged for two centuries. Despite many setbacks, the overall global trend is in the direction of greater political inclusiveness. A very similar trend is found in education, where many citizenship battles have been waged. Primary and secondary school enrollment has greatly expanded throughout the world. For lower levels of schooling, the historical debates challenged the educability of peasants, the working class, women, and ethnic and racial minorities. These debates largely have come to an end, as most nations now recognize education as a basic human right. There is no opposition to the World Conferences on Education for All, and those countries that have yet to attain universal educational coverage remain committed to this goal. Basic education is celebrated both as human capital and as a human right at international conferences and in national educational policies. There is a general recognition that, if everyone is to be a citizen, then everyone must be educated. Thus, the core access question today becomes whether everyone has access to quality schooling and, if not, whether the quality access gap reinforces stratification, with those who have fewer resources in general also having poorer quality education at their disposal. In many countries, including the United States, lack of equal access to quality schooling or more academically rich ability groups stems from socioeconomic inequalities.

Higher education has also been transformed. Tertiary enrollment has greatly expanded in recent decades. Women's share of higher education has also sharply increased. Although the gains are more modest, women's share of science and engineering enrollment is also on the rise. Greater access to higher education has also been the case for those classes and status groups that were formally or de facto excluded in earlier eras. While entry into and attainment of higher education continues to be positively influenced by parental background everywhere, this association is weaker in countries where there is greater equality of conditions, for example, in Holland and Sweden. However, even in more unequal societies, expanded access to higher education is the rule, and this is evident even when examining entry into elite universities. For instance, Joseph Soares describes changing patterns of enrollments at Oxford University as evidence of a decline in privilege. However, in Latin America, inequality of access to higher education has actually increased in recent decades as a function of economic crises.

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