In this article, we analyze how the existence of alternative pathways to higher education, which implies different selection mechanisms, shapes social inequality in educational attainment. We focus on the Russian educational system, in which higher education can be accessed from academic and vocational tracks, but the rules of admission to higher education from these tracks are different. Access through the academic track is highly selective due to obligatory high-stakes testing, which determines secondary-school graduates' eligibility to pursue higher education. The vocational track is generally less selective with regard to student intake and provides less restrictive access to higher education. We argue that this system has nuanced implications for social inequality. On one hand, transitions from vocational education to higher education can promote greater social mobility by offering an affordable and low-risk gateway to higher education for children from less-advantaged families. On the other hand, more-advantaged families might use the vocational track to higher education if their children face a high risk of failure in the more selective academic track. We test this conjecture and provide supporting evidence using data from the longitudinal survey Trajectories in Education and Careers.
In this comment, I explore the assumptions and the implications of the formal (mathematical) model proposed by Holm, Hjorth-Trolle, and Jæger (HHJ) in their article in European Sociological Review, 35(4) (2019). The model links educational decision-making to social background inequality and academic ability and is said to conform to the key propositions of the Relative-Risk-Aversion theory and the Compensatory-Advantage-Model. Its most original component is that it allows for the error in estimating one’s ability, which, once known, impacts on the decision to (dis)continue education. The error is said to have a differential impact on students of different social backgrounds, whereby social inequality in educational decisions is effectively maintained. The model also deserves attention and praise as one of the few attempts in our field to reason formally and provide a mathematical formulation of theoretical arguments. However, I scrutinize the model and show that (i) some of its assumptions may not be defensible; that (ii) the most interesting and original hypothesis proposed by HHJ does not follow from the model; and that (iii) the empirical implications of the model are wrongly interpreted in terms of probability differences. I then show which particular assumption is required for HHJ’s most original hypothesis to hold. The assumption is non-intuitive, and I conclude that the hypothesis, as formulated by HHJ, does not have a sound theoretical basis.
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