Barriers of the Selection to Secondary and University-Level Education
More details
Hide details
1
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology Polish Academy of Sciences
Publication date: 2006-12-29
Polish Sociological Review 2006;156(4):471-488
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
This paper analyses educational inequalities in Poland over the last two decades. Using data
from national surveys carried out during the period 1982–2002 these results provide insight into the
relationship between social origin and transition to secondary schools and university levels. Transition to
both secondary school and universities are unquestionably selective by social class. The only question is
whether these patterns have changed over the last two decades, when the communist regime collapsed and
new inequalities emerged. Previous cross-time analyses for most countries showed a lack of substantial
changes in educational inequalities over long periods of time. The main findings of the investigation can
be summarised as follows. First, it showed that the effect of the class position of the father significantly
increased in the 1990s, and then—until 2002—it declined to the degree of the 1980s, before the communist
system collapsed. Second, in accordance with the findings of all previous studies, secondary school transition
proved to be more selective as compared to that to the university level.