University access for disadvantaged children: A comparison across English speaking countries

John Jerrim (), Anna Vignoles and Ross Finnie ()
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John Jerrim: Institute of Education, University of London

No 12-11, DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London

Abstract: In this paper we consider whether certain countries are particularly adept (or particularly poor) at getting children from disadvantaged homes to study for a bachelor’s degree. A series of university access models are estimated for four English speaking countries (England, Canada, Australia and the United States) which include controls for comparable measures of academic achievement at age 15. We not only consider access to any university but also admission to a ‘selective’ institution. Our results suggest that socio-economic differences in university access are more pronounced in England and Canada than Australia and the United States, and that cross-national variation in the socio-economic gap remains even once we take account of differences in academic achievement. We discuss the implications of our findings for the creation of more socially mobile societies.

Keywords: : University access; educational inequality; social mobility; PISA. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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