Thursday, June 27, 2013
D1.18A (Oudemanhuispoort)
Inequality processes are present in the access to higher education in Europe. This paper analyses the relations between social class and gender in explaining the success in the transition from high school to college (or university). We use valuable panel data collected during six years about a sample of secondary education students in Catalonia (Spain), as well as surveys to their parents. Students are identified, and we are able to measure the rate of success entering the university. To be admitted to a higher education institution depends from the family social class, the position in the social stratification, household structure, studies and occupation of the parents, as well as the secondary education type of school attended. There are other additional factors (some individual characteristics) explaining success: moral values, addictions, attitudes, interpersonal relationships, and friendships. We analyze the relative weight of all those factors. Women are more discriminated in society, but in spite of that they are in undergraduate studies more than men. Women in Spain begin undergraduate education 30% more than men. But when we control by social class, and study habits, the factor of gender (here women) decreases in its importance, and it turns into being irrelevant. That suggests that parents and the school system rescue some males —mainly from the higher classes— in order to enter the university. Women in the same situation are nor rescued. The regression analysis models demonstrate these hypotheses.
Key words: Social inequality, education, social class, gender, university, students’ success, discrimination, family structure, household income.
