Higher education expansion, system transformation, and social inequality. Social origin effects on tertiary education attainment in Poland for birth cohorts 1960 to 1988

Abstract

This paper analyzes the development of social inequality in the Polish higher education system during its expansion after 1990 using data from the Polish General Social Survey. Focusing on the special case of a former socialist society, where higher education expansion has been very rapid and achieved mainly through marketization, this paper highlights the micro-level mechanisms that underlie the inequality dynamic. It shows how actor preferences embedded in the specific historical context shape educational behavior, producing moments of equalization and de-equalization. Class inequality regarding access to tertiary education decreased in the early 1990s and then increased again, as participation in the working classes stagnated at a low level in the later phases of the expansion. In contrast, no equalization has been observed between children of different educational origins. The analysis shows a persistent intergenerational reproduction of educational disadvantage in spite of the expansion. Lastly, consistent with the Effectively Maintained Inequality thesis, this paper provides evidence for underprivileged strata being diverted into second-tier, lower-prestige educational opportunities in the private sector.

Does State Allocation of University Funding Moderate Effectively Maintained Inequality?

“…Furthermore, one of California’s two public university systems has recently set its focus on undergraduate persistence (University of California System 2019), so state funding may uniquely affect persistence at these universities. When it comes to countries other than the U.S., it is clear that many countries have socioeconomic inequalities in who attends the most prestigious universities (Ayalon et al 2008; Davies et al 2014; Kopycka 2021; Shavit et al 2007; Thomsen 2015), but what are the implications of these attendance inequalities in terms of persistence? What role does differential public funding play or not play in this problem?…”

“…Thus, it is unsurprising that Andrew (2017) finds support for EMI in what is, to my knowledge, the only explicit test of EMI at the postsecondary level. While formal tests of EMI at the postsecondary level are scarce, some studies include initial enrollment —rather than persistence—in postsecondary education as the final transition in their analyses (Byun and Park 2017; Lucas 2001), and researchers often assess who attends the most coveted postsecondary institutions without formally testing EMI (Davies, Maldonado, and Zarifa 2014; Kopycka 2021).…”

Proces demasyfikacji uniwersytetu a obecność młodzieży wiejskiej w jego strukturze

“…Łączyło się to z osłabieniem mechanizmów reprodukcji edukacyjnej, a tym samym zwiększeniem dostępności szkolnictwa wyższego dla studentów pochodzących ze środowisk marginalizowanych (Herbst, Rok, 2014, s. 14). Proces ten jednak związany był ze wzmacnianiem się nierówności horyzontalnych i różnicowaniem się sektorów szkolnictwa wyższego w zależności od posiadanego kapitału kulturowego (Kopycka, 2020;Zawistowska, 2012). Z szacunków GUS-u wynika, że w roku akademickim 2018/2019 niemal jedna trzecia wszystkich studentów to osoby zamieszkałe na wsi.…”

Implementation of the Social Component of Higher Education: Bottom-up Approach

“…This actualizes the need for urgent compensation of the worldview-forming and social-integrative function, which is traditionally delegated to the institutions of higher education. Kopycka (2021) writes about the historical and national context of outlining the social side of higher education by exploring the mutual influence of Polish society and tertiary institutions in the diachronic dimension. However, it is safe to say that the values of development and leadership are transcendent for higher education since modernity, and especially today.…”