Resources

Abridged

Blossfeld, H.-P. and Y. Shavit (1993). Persisting Barriers. Changes in Educational Opportunities in Thirteen countries. Persistent Inequality. Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries. Y. Shavit and H.-P. Blossfeld. Boulder, CO, Westview.
Abstract: (click to expand)

This study is a comparative analysis that addresses the question: to what extent has the relationship between parental socioeconomic characteristics and educational opportunities changed over time and why? The document suggests six hypotheses regarding change in the effects of social origins on education transitions: (1) modernization hypothesis: the effects of social origin on all transitions decline; (2) reproduction hypothesis: the effects of social origins decline on earlier transitions but not on later transitions; (3) hypothesis of maximally maintained inequality: the effects will only decline at those transitions for which the attendance rates of the privileged classes are saturated; (4) socialist transformation hypothesis: socialist transformations brought about an initial reduction in the effects, that will then be followed by increased effects; (5) life course hypothesis: the effects decline across transitions but are stable across cohorts; and (6) differential selection hypothesis: the effects decline across cohorts, but the effects on later transitions increase across cohorts. The 13 industrialized countries included in the study may be classified according to their basic cultural and economic systems into three major groups: (1) western capitalistic countries: United States of America, (former) Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Israel; (2) non-Western capitalistic countries: Japan and Taiwan; and (3) western socialistic countries: Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Study results show that educational expansion facilitates the persistence of inequalities in educational opportunity. Tables summarize the major findings with respect to educational expansion and attainment, change in the effects of social origins on highest education attained, and cohort difference.

Bordieu, P. and J. C. Passeron (1977). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London, Sage Publications.
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The way in which the ruling ideas of a social system are related to structures of class, production and power, and how these are legitimated and perpetuated, is fundamental to the sociological project. In this second edition of this classic text, which includes a new introduction by Pierre Bourdieu, the authors develop an analysis of education (in its broadest sense, encompassing more than the process of formal education). They show how education carries an essentially arbitrary cultural scheme which is actually, though not in appearance, based on power. More widely, the reproduction of culture through education is shown to play a key part in the reproduction of the whole social system. The analysis is carried through not only in theoretical terms but through the development of empirically testable propositions within the wider framework of the historical transformation of the educational system.

Brown, G., J. Mickelwright, et al. (2005). Cross-National Surveys of Learning Achievement: How are the Findings? S3RI Applications and Policy Working Papers, A05/05. Southampton Sciences Research Institute, Southampton. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/16250
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International surveys of learning achievement and functional literacy are increasingly common. We consider two aspects of the robustness of their results. First, we compare results from four surveys: TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS and IALS. This contrasts with the standard approach which is to analyse a single survey with no regard as to whether it agrees or not with other sources. Second, we investigate whether results are sensitive to the choice of item response model used by survey organisers to aggregate respondents' answers. In both cases we focus on countries' average scores, the within-country differences in scores, and on the association between the two. There is mixed news to report.

De Graaf, N. D., P. M. De Graaf, et al. (2000). "Parental Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment in the Netherlands: A Refinement of the Cultural Capital Perspective’." Sociology of Education 73(2): 92-111.
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Examines how parental cultural capital contributes to children's educational attainment in the Netherlands, emphasizing participation in beaux arts and reading behavior. Explores the claims of cultural reproduction theory and cultural mobility theory on the interaction of parents' educational background and their cultural capital. Discusses the findings.

Prais, S. J. (2003). "Cautions on OECD’s recent educational survey (PISA)." Oxford Review of Education 29: 139-163.
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A new survey of the educational attainments of 15-year-olds was undertaken by OECD in Spring 2000 (the 'PISA survey'). Surprisingly, British pupils appeared to perform in mathematics much better than in an IEA survey carried out only one year previously. This paper examines four main differences in the objectives and methods adopted in the two surveys. (a) Questions in the previous IEA survey were directed to the mastery of the school syllabus by the relevant age-groups, whereas PISA was ostensibly directed to so-called 'everyday life' problems--which provides less guidance for policy on schooling. (b) The IEA survey was based on samples of whole classes including, for example, older pupils who had entered school late, or had repeated a class: PISA excluded the latter pupils as it was based strictly on a 12-months' period of birth; issues of variability of pupils' attainments within a class--important for a class's teachability--cannot therefore be examined in this OECD survey. (c) England's response rate for schools was particularly low (60%, compared with 95% in leading European countries), raising serious doubts as to the inclusion of low-attaining schools. (d) The response rate of pupils (within participating schools in the PISA survey) was lower in England than in any other country, and lower than in the previous IEA survey, suggesting a greater upward bias in reported average scores. The paper concludes that it is difficult to draw valid conclusions for Britain from this survey and planned repeats should be postponed until the underlying methodological problems have been resolved.