Full Description
Dramatic expansion of access to higher education has been one of the most significant educational developments of the last fifty years. Politicians, educationalists and the public have seen higher education as offering a ladder of opportunity to social mobility, but this promise has not materialised. Increasingly, access to advantaged positions in the labour market and society depends not only on having a degree, but on having a degree from a more prestigious university. At the same time, there are striking inequalities of access to high-status institutions on the basis of social class and race/ethnicity. In this book, sociologists Vikki Boliver and Paul Wakeling focus on the case of the UK as a particularly interesting example of these processes of social and institutional stratification. Drawing on extensive research evidence about access to higher education and graduates' outcomes, they identify three distinct groups of universities which differ in power, status and wealth: `elite' universities, `good' universities, and the rest. The re-emergence of these cleavages has direct consequences for social mobility and social justice and this shows the capacity for resistance to the use of education as an antidote to inequality.This book is essential reading for academics, policy analysts and students interested in the growing differentiation of universities and the role higher education plays in the reproduction of social inequalities. It will be a core text for specialists in the fields of sociology of education and education policy, and of interest to social scientists in general because of its key themes of social stratification, educational inequality, and social mobility.
Contents
Foreword, Anthony Heath Part 1institutional stratification in secondary and higher education 2. The `elite', the `good' and the rest 3. Talking about `top' universities: institutional inequalities in public and policy discourse Part 2: Origins 4. Stubborn inequalities: access to undergraduate study 5. Higher degrees of distinction: access to postgraduate study 6. Paths to the professoriate Part 3: Destinations 7. Welcome to the club? The domination of prestigious occupations by elite graduates 8. The dividends of distinction: institutional status and graduate earnings 9. Elite universities and entry to The Establishment Part 4: Conclusions.
