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This comparative study examines patterns of inequality in participation in two different types of adult learning and education (ALE)–job-related formal ALE (JFALE) and job-related non-formal ALE (JNFALE)–as related to social origins at the micro-level and three categories of social inequality at the macro-level at the macro level (economic, education, and skill inequality). Using data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), two methods are used to analyse 19 selected OECD countries: multivariate binary logistic regressions to explore the extent to which individuals’ social origins are associated with ALE participation and two-stage multilevel analysis to examine the relationship between social origins’ advantages in ALE participation and social inequality. Statistically significant advantages in ALE participation of social origins were observed in some countries. Additionally, statistically significant positive relationships between social inequality and social origins’ advantages in JNFALE participation are found, which implies that increases in social inequality strengthen advantages associated with social origins.

We present an analysis of the social composition of the UK scientific elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, in terms of Fellows' social class origins and type of secondary schooling. From various sources, we have assembled data for 1691 Fellows, representing 80% of our target population of all Fellows born from 1900 onwards whose scientific careers were spent predominantly in the UK. We find that while these elite scientists come largely from more advantaged class backgrounds, it is professional rather than business or managerial families that are the main source of their recruitment—and, increasingly, such families where a parent is in a STEM occupation. Recruitment from working‐class families has declined and for most recent birth cohorts almost ceased. The scientific elite is thus now more homogeneous as regards the social origins of its members than it was in the second half of the twentieth century. At the same time, little change is evident in the secondary schooling of Fellows. In all birth cohorts, between two‐fifths and a half of all—and over two‐thirds of those from more advantaged class backgrounds—were privately educated, although the proportion attending Clarendon schools would seem low compared with that in other elites. A further finding of interest is that some variation in Fellows' class origins and type of schooling exists across different research fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aim to bring together two current strands of research into inequalities in individuals' educational attainment that are associated with their social origins: that concerned with the "primary" and "secondary" effects of social origins in creating inequalities, and that concerned with the relation between these inequalities and different components of social origins, taken to represent different forms of parental resources. Our main findings are the following. The secondary effects of social origins—their effects via the educational choices that young people make given their prior academic performance—are clearly operative across five key educational transitions within the English educational system. More specifically, we estimate that 35% of the total effect of social origins is secondary in the earliest transition that we consider, and from 15% to 20% in the subsequent four. Furthermore, mediation analyses reveal that secondary effects are most strongly associated with parental education and then, to a lesser degree with parental status, while little association exists with parental class and none at all with parental income. Primary effects are also at all transitions most strongly associated with parental education and status but in this case both parental class and parental income do retain some importance. We suggest an explanation for our empirical findings as resulting largely from the concern of highly educated, professional parents, and their children to avoid the occurrence of downward intergenerational mobility, especially in terms of education and status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to identify the moderating effect of the stratification of education systems (especially the extent to which the first selection is based on student ability) on the association between social origins and destinations, while holding the effect of education constant. Two hypotheses are formulated. The first hypothesis expects a negative moderating effect of the stratification of education systems on the direct effect of origins on destinations, while the null hypothesis argues for no moderating effect. Individual-level data from the European Social Survey (round 1–5) are complemented with new contextual indicators measuring various education system characteristics. Apart from employing these new indicators, another contribution of this article is the use of a more comprehensive measurement of social origins, simultaneously accounting for social class and parental education. Findings show that the direct effect of social origins on occupational attainment is not moderated by the extent to which the first selection is based on student ability. The null effect holds against several robustness checks employing different measurements, sample selections and model specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research into educational inequalities has shown the importance of decomposing social origins into parental class, status and education, representing economic, socio-cultural and educational family resources, respectively. But we know little about how inequalities in educational attainment at the micro-level map onto institutional characteristics of educational systems at the macro-level, if we treat social origins in a multidimensional way. Drawing on the rich over-time variation in educational systems in four European countries – Britain, Sweden, Germany and Italy – this paper develops and tests a number of hypotheses regarding the effects of various components of social origins on individuals’ educational attainment in different institutional contexts. It is evident from our results that a great deal of similarity exists across nations with different educational systems in the persisting importance for individuals’ educational attainment of parental class, status and education. But our findings also indicate that changes in the institutional features of educational systems have, in some instances although not in others, served to reinforce or to offset the social processes generating educational inequalities at the micro level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Empirical studies have repeatedly shown that in Germany educational success still strongly depends on the social origin of individuals. Using the National Educational Panel Study, we analyse the effects of fathers’ and mothers’ education levels on their sons’ and daughters’ educational attainments across three successive birth cohorts in West Germany. We calculate the predicted probabilities of reaching low, medium or high education levels on the basis of the level of education of the mothers and the fathers. Our results show: a persistence of the status maintenance model, with very few exceptions; a growth in the educational level of women via medium-level education connected to segregation in the labour market; and finally that the first transition of girls to medium-level education has been completed, leaving space for daughters to attempt to outnumber sons in tertiary education, mainly due to the pressure of mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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This paper is based on two independent studies conducted by Rodrigues (2009) and Guimarães (2010). These studies examined intertemporal changes with respect to two educational dimensions: academic achievement and grade progression probability, in Brazil. They employed two distinct databases (SAEB and PNAD) and also two distinct methods (counterfactual decomposition and school transitions models). In both studies, the year of 1999 drew attention because of a throwback in terms of average achievement and low chances of progression. The results show that the effects of student social origins explain a large amount of the low educational outcomes (both achievement and inequality of opportunity) observed in this period and suggest the existence of an interrelationship between achievement and school flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational achievement has increasingly replaced ascriptive social background as a factor structuring marital choice and generating homogamous unions. Analyzing data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we examine a particular aspect of this larger phenomenon by focusing on the extent to which institutional stratification across colleges contributed to social inequality through spousal selection for individuals who completed college by the mid-1970s. We demonstrate that one-third of college graduates who married/cohabitated with an individual with similareducational attainment marriedlcohabitated with someone who attended colleges with identical institutional characteristics. We also find that college stratification structured marital choices regarding the social and economic resources partners bring to marriage or cohabitating unions: women's more elite college attendance was associated with marrying/cohabitating with a man with higher subsequent annual income; while men's more elite college attendance was associated with marrying/cohabitating with a woman from more privileged social origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]