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Handbook of the Life Course pp 223–247Cite as

Changes in Educational Inequality in Cross-National Perspective

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Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

In the process of educational expansion and reforms, the old sharp divisions between academic and vocational/technical tracks in the secondary school systems of modern societies have greatly diminished and the proportion of young people who have completed at least upper secondary education has risen impressively. Also, the enrollment in higher education has quickly grown in all modern countries and turned their tertiary educational systems into institutions of mass education. Using truly comparative data from the PIAAC study, we analyze how the educational attainment of men and women from families with different educational backgrounds has changed over time in 22 modern societies. The results show that there are great cross-national differences in the development of inequality of educational opportunity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Pia N. Blossfeld & Gwendolin J. Blossfeld

  2. European University Institute Florence, Florence, Italy

    Hans-Peter Blossfeld

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  1. Pia N. Blossfeld
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  2. Gwendolin J. Blossfeld
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  3. Hans-Peter Blossfeld
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Michael J. Shanahan

  2. Life Course Center and Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Jeylan T. Mortimer

  3. Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA

    Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson

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Blossfeld, P.N., Blossfeld, G.J., Blossfeld, HP. (2016). Changes in Educational Inequality in Cross-National Perspective. In: Shanahan, M., Mortimer, J., Kirkpatrick Johnson, M. (eds) Handbook of the Life Course. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20880-0_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20880-0_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20880-0

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