Higher Education Quarterly, 09515224

Volume 61, No. 2, April 2007, pp 136154

Exploring Access and Equity

in Higher Education: Policy
and Performance in a
Comparative Perspective
Patrick Clancy, University College Dublin and
Gale Goastellec, University of Lausanne

Abstract
A comparative analysis of how access and equity are defined and how policies
have evolved reveals a number of commonalities and differences between
countries.The overall trend is a movement from the priority given to inherited
merit in the admission process through a commitment to formal equality,
towards the application of some modes of affirmative action for selected underrepresented groups. This overall convergence, which is accompanied by a
growing appreciation of the complexity of social identities, is complemented by
significant national specificity in respect of the social categories which are used
to define social diversity. In the absence of appropriate comparative measures of
participation a Higher Education Participation Index is developed to facilitate
cross-country comparisons. A review of current attempts to measure equity in
access to higher education points to the need to develop a programme of
comparative research which focuses on the social characteristics of students who
are currently enrolled in higher education.
Introduction
One of the defining features of the closing decades of the 20th century
has been the massive growth in post-compulsory education. Between
1970 and 2000, globally, average enrolments in secondary education
increased by 180 per cent while over the same period, enrolments in
tertiary nearly quadrupled (Gradstein and Nikitin, 2004). By 2000, the
number of tertiary students had grown to 100 million, and the World
Bank (2000) predicts that this will rise to 150 million by 2025.
This increase cannot simply be explained by demographic pressure
but reflects the impact of concerted government economic and social
2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600
Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148,
USA.

Access and Equity in Higher Education

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policies. Expansion in enrolments has been driven largely by economic

priorities, linked to technological change, globalisation and increased
international competition. Analytically separated from the issue of the
scale of expansion, the social agenda is concerned with social justice and
ideals of democratisation. The concern here is less with the issue of
expanding participation but with widening access to higher education to
previously under-represented groups. This distinction is central to this
paper, which is based on comparative research across a range of contrasting countries.1 It addresses two interrelated questions: how are
access and equity defined, nationally and globally; and how are access
and equity measured nationally and globally?
The paper is divided into two main sections. The first analyses some
commonalities and differences in national policies of access and equity.
The overall trend is a movement from the priority given to what we term
inherited merit in the admission process through a commitment to
formal equality, towards the application of some modes of affirmative
action for selected under-represented groups. This overall convergence,
which is accompanied by a growing appreciation of the complexity of
social identities, is complemented by significant national specificity in
respect of the social categories which are used to define social diversity.
There remains a continuing tension between merit and equality norms.
The second part of the paper is concerned with measuring achievement
in a comparative perspective; we look separately at the problems of
measuring levels of participation in higher education and measuring
equity, that is, the extent to which this enrolment expansion has resulted
in widening participation to previously under-represented groups. We
identify the challenge and potential of comparative research in this area.
Access and equity policies
The social agenda of access to higher education is not a stable one. By
looking at the history of access in several countries, we can identify
common trends.These trends do not emerge simultaneously, nor do they
reach the same conclusion. The common evolution of access norms
reflects a broader understanding of social diversity, which is shared by
many countries notwithstanding the continuing significance of national
cultures and diverse education structures.
Common patterns regarding access
Historically, we can identify three successive organising principles which
dominated the framing of access policy: inherited merit; equality of
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rights; and equity, defined as equality of opportunity. The concept of

inherited merit captures more precisely than the concept of ascription
the characteristics of access in the first phase. Although access is then the
preserve of academically selected students, and is thus merit based, this
merit is inherited, dependent on circumstances (Roemer, 1998), principally the good fortune of being born within certain favoured social
groups or categories. Mainly, it is about being male, coming from an
upper class family and living in an urban area. As a result, students are
academically selected only if they belong to certain dominant groups
in society. For example, in South Africa, the first colleges, built in the
Cape Province (18301870), initially registered the children of British
migrants. In Indonesia, the Dutch created the first faculties in the capital
in order to provide access to their offspring and those of the Priyayi, the
Indonesian elite subordinated to the colonisers. In France, the first
faculties, located in Paris, mainly served the interest of two professions,
law and medicine, and served to reproduce the hierarchical social
structure. Similarly in the USA, the children of the White Anglo-Saxon
Protestant community from the East Coast were the first to gain access
to the private Colleges.
Progressively, during the 20th century, and as a consequence of
demographic, economic, political and ideological pressures impinging
on access (Goastellec, 2006), inherited merit is being abandoned and
replaced by the norm of equality of rights. Increasingly it was felt that
higher education should be accessible to larger numbers, and, more
especially, to individuals regardless of their social origin. It should thus
represent the national diversity, and, in fine, testify to the democratic
dimension of the legitimacy of the state. This norm was first invoked in
respect of the principle of equal access for women. Progressively formal
barriers regarding gender and later ethnic/racial and social groups are
eliminated. But although higher education systems have been diversified
institutionally and geographically to enlarge and widen access, pure
merit still prevails. However, even when access is massified, inequalities
are reproduced within the higher education structure, which becomes
differentiated by sector, college and field of study. For example, in
France, the democratisation of access to university comes with an
increasing social hierarchy of the different tracks (Duru-Bellat, 2005,
p. 21). As a result, the principle of equality of rights, whether formalised
through open access to universities for all high school graduates (e.g.
France, Germany and Israel) or by a national admissions test (e.g. USA,
Indonesia, and Vietnam), is being challenged with the stubborn persistence of social background determining both the extent of access and the
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139

type of higher education to which access is being accorded (see e.g.

Bourdieu and Passeron, 1985; Euriat and Thlot, 1995; Bowen and Bok,
1998). No access regime based on pure merit ever achieved Conants
dream of identifying the capable students regardless of their culture
(Conant, 1940).
Over the past few decades, the dominant norm governing access has
been characterised by an emphasis on equality of opportunity. Increasingly it is recognised that it is necessary to go beyond formal equality of
rights and take account of differences in the opportunity structure. It is
acknowledged that merit-based admission needs to be augmented by
some form of affirmative action. The rationale is that since access to
higher education is, to varying degrees, competitive, it will always privilege those with superior economic, social and cultural resources. One
response is to redefine merit as the distance between the academic levels
reached by students and the diverse handicaps faced by them, whether in
terms of their personal characteristics, family, community or schooling
experiences. This expanded definition of equality of opportunity also
applies to the nature of the higher education to which access is granted.
The goal here is to organise access so that the student body is not only
widened in the higher education system as a whole, but also within the
most prestigious institutions, those which provide students with the
greatest advantage and educate the national elite. The drive to ensure
that the national elite should be drawn from all social classes reflects an
assumption that talents are randomly distributed among all social groups
and places a responsibility on higher education institutions to be proactive in searching for this talent from across the social spectrum.While the
more nuanced understanding of equality has led to a more holistic
process of admission, it is here that national traditions are evident.
Equality of opportunities and identities: national policies converging?
Traditionally, each society has one legitimated category, which is dominant in framing the way in which social diversity is defined and equality
of opportunity is assessed. These categories are idiosyncratic of nations,
each one defining those that make sense in the context of national
history. For example, in Indonesia, geographical origin is critical and the
provinces are the main categories used to classify the population. In
the USA, the imagery of the melting pot is centre stage and hence the
ethno-racial dimension is the main category used to measure social
inequalities. In France, the republican model defines the human being as
a universal category: the measurement of social inequalities relies on
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socio-professional categories, which serve as a proxy for social classes.

Socio-economic groups are also the dominant categories used in Ireland
to study social inequality; data on the characteristics of higher education
students is compared with the national distribution of socio-economic
groups from the national Census of Population. The identification of a
dominant category does not imply that it is the only category used to
define diversity. All societies acknowledge that gender is an important
indicator of diversity and in some developing countries it may still be
the most critical indicator. Typically, the development of information
systems follows from the identification of critical identities and from the
evolving definition and understanding of social diversity. Thus, we have
much to learn from an analysis of which categories of data are collected
and which are missing from national information systems. It is significant
that, in Israel, student information systems collect data on religion,
geographic origin and school district but the socio-economic background data are missing.
The evolution of admission norms to higher education reveals how
the legitimated categories used to read social diversity are being
diversified. On the one hand, in societies such as the USA and South
Africa, where traditionally, racial identities were dominant, social identities emerge as a new tool to reduce social fractures. This dynamic is
evident in the work of the American scientific community with the
emerging concept of economic affirmative action which is being proposed for use in combination with that of race (Kahlenberg, 2005). It is
aimed to go beyond the traditional opposition between affirmative action
and blind admissions through an admission process considering simultaneously the influence of racial and social identities on access to higher
education. A further example, in the face of challenges to direct racebased affirmative action, is the decision of some states such as Texas to
guarantee a place in the most prestigious state universities to all students
who achieve in the top percentile of their own high school graduating
class. In South Africa, the Department of Education and the universities
are looking for a way to take social background into account, and, more
broadly, the full range of student characteristics.
On the other hand, in societies such as France, Indonesia and Ireland
where historically, the reading of social diversity focuses on socioeconomic background and where ethno-racial identities are restricted to
the private domain, attempts are being made to take ethnic background
into account. In Indonesia, the most elitist institutions have developed a
second path of admission named regional excellence seed which facilitates access for the students coming from ethnic minorities. In Ireland,
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the National Office for Equity of Access to Higher Education has

expanded on the three previous targeted groups (socially disadvantaged,
mature students and those with disabilities) to include two other groups,
members of the Traveller Community, and ethnic minorities. In Vietnam,
foundation courses for ethnic minority groups have been introduced by
some universities, under the supervision of the government, which has
initiated a special policy allowing these students to access universities
without the normal entrance examination (Nguyen, 2006).
We thus observe a shift from racial to social and vice versa, and, more
broadly, a greater consideration of diverse identities. But although this
trend seems to be shared by most higher education systems, the level of
implementation of the identity diversification depends upon several
dimensions. First, who are the main players in the identification of the
identities? In some countries, it is the national state; in other countries,
provincial governments, higher education institutions or other stakeholders play a decisive role. Where the national government is the main
player, its ideological stance in respect of promoting equality of rights or
the recognition and promotion of diversity as the basis of the national
identity constitutes a path-dependency defined as constraints on future
choice (North, 1990) in the role played by the different actors. For
example, in France, with a national philosophy that emphasises equality
of rights, the government is not willing to recognise identities other than
professional categories; nor does it allow universities to do so. Thus,
paradoxically, it is within the selective sector, the Grandes Ecoles, which
have more autonomy than the universities, that we find some initiatives
designed to achieve equality of opportunity. The Grandes Ecoles have
been free to offer a second path of admission, using different strategies to
widen their student body. These practices included building links with
high schools located in poor areas, registering a higher proportion of
former immigrants children, offering scholarships to the best students
from these area, helping them to prepare for the entrance exam and
offering them a different examination from that taken by mainstream
students.
This limited form of sponsored mobility, which finds a counterpart
in the actions of some of the most select Ivy League universities in the
USA that offer a generous aid package to very talented students from
disadvantaged backgrounds, does not fundamentally challenge the stratification within higher education systems. Notwithstanding these limited
initiatives, the more universal pattern is that the lower the prestige of the
higher education institution, the less selective are the admission criteria.
Under-represented social groups, as we noted above, are significantly
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more highly represented in the less prestigious sectors of higher

education. Also it should be noted that the open admissions policy of
French and many other continental universities which guarantees a place
to all high school graduates represents a form of democratisation which
is not matched in other more selective university systems.
However, leaving aside the importance of structural features of
national higher education systems, which impinge on policy implementation, there is evidence of convergence in the understanding of equality
of opportunity and a growing appreciation of the complexity of social
identities. Regrettably, as we document in the next section, the problems
of international comparisons of access and equity are not confined to a
resolution of these conceptual and structural dimensions.
Comparative indicators of participation and equity in
higher education
Measuring participation
A recent trend evident in many countries is a heightened interest in
comparative data on participation in higher education. This is partly
explained by the view that in a knowledge society, a countrys competitiveness will increasingly be determined by the quality of education and
training of the labour force. Many countries are anxious to benchmark
their educational achievements against the leading countries, which may
be seen as key competitors. This desire for accurate comparisons is not
matched by the availability of comparative statistics, which facilitate such
a ranking exercise. In spite of the concerted efforts of the OECD and
UNESCO, and more recently of the EU, it remains hazardous to attempt
to make accurate comparisons between countries. This is partly a function of the differences between countries in their higher education
systems. There is variation between countries in the definition of what
constitutes higher education and how this differs from other forms of
post-secondary education. There are also large differences between
countries in the age range of higher education students; in the incidence
and classification of part-time students; in the duration of study programmes, and in the extent to which some countries may regard international comparisons as a political process.2
Three types of measures have been used to study comparative trends
in participation in higher education: entry measures, enrolment measures and output measures. An optimum composite measure might
encompass all three dimensions. In many respects entry measures are the
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143

least ambiguous measures and indeed at national level they provide the
best lens by which we monitor change as evidenced by our own work
over two decades (Clancy, 2001). However, it is no longer possible to use
entry data in comparative studies. The problem arises from the distinction which the OECD makes between Type A and Type B higher
education.The former refers to programmes that are largely theoretically
based and designed to provide qualifications for entry into advanced
research programmes and professions with high skill requirements while
Type B programmes are more occupationally oriented, typically of
shorter duration, and lead to direct labour market access. The OECD
correctly cautions users of their statistics that since some students who
enter Type B may enter Type A at a later period and since it is possible
that the same student may be enrolled simultaneously on both
programmes, the two entry rates cannot be added together to obtain
overall entry rates.Thus, aside from the data provided by three countries
that only make available a single rate (the USA, Australia and Finland),
we have no overall measure of entry into higher education, which we can
use for international comparisons.
Thus, we must rely on enrolment data and output measures to
develop comparative indicators. Following an extensive analysis of these
data, the details of which we cannot report here (Clancy, 2006), we have
selected five indictors, which, in combination, provide a robust measure
of the rate of participation in higher education. Three of these are
enrolment measures and two are output measures. The first enrolment
measure is the Gross Enrolment Rate, based on the number of students
enrolled, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the population
. . . in the 5-year age group following on from the secondary school
leaving age (UNESCO, 2005, p. 149).While still used by UNESCO, this
measure is no longer used by OECD since one of its limitations is that
the age range of the enumerator does not correspond with that of the
denominator. The second enrolment measure, the Sum of Age Specific
Enrolments is the most comprehensive measure, a variant of which is used
by the OECD to calculate higher education expectancy the number of
years a 5-year-old can expect to enrol over his or her lifetime.3 Our third
enrolment measure, Enrolment Intensity, is based on the average enrolment rate for the two years of age with the highest enrolment. This
measure might be thought of as a proxy for entry rates since it takes
particular account of the all those who experience some higher education, many perhaps on short cycle programmes. We also include two
output measures: the percentage of the population aged 2534 and those
aged 3544 with higher education. These data are widely available and
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Higher Education Quarterly

reflect the output of the higher education system in recent years and are
preferred to graduation rates, which are not available for many countries.
The distribution of scores on each of these measures for 27 OECD
countries (Canada, Japan and Luxembourg are excluded because of
missing data) is shown in Table 1. To arrive at single summary measure
we standardise the scores on each of the five indicators out of 100 before
being added; the resultant sum is divided by 5, to give a score out of 100.
Korea, Finland and the USA score highest on this index of
participation. Other countries to be included in the top one-third are
Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Australia, Greece and New Zealand. It is of
interest to note that this top one-third is drawn from four continents.The
middle group of countries on this ranking are all European countries,
with the UK occupying the middle position in the ranking, with
Denmark, Spain, France and Ireland having slightly higher scores and
The Netherlands, Iceland, Poland and Switzerland having slightly lower
scores. In our 27-country comparison, Turkey and Mexico have the
lowest participation rates followed by the Slovak and Czech Republics.
Five Western European countries make up the remainder of the bottom
third; these are in ascending order: Austria, Portugal, Italy, Hungary and
Germany. A feature of Table 1 is that in addition to providing an overall
measure of participation, the scores on the separate indicators highlight
distinctive features of the higher education system in different countries.
For example, while the USA scores highly on all indicators, it has the
highest percentage of those aged 3544 with higher education, reflecting
the earlier expansion of higher education. In contrast, the overall ranking
of Poland, Greece and Ireland reflects their relatively high score on
enrolment intensity, pointing to high levels of current enrolment among
the younger age groups.
Measuring equity in access to higher education
One of the most frequently quoted generalisations in research into
post-compulsory education is that expansion has not significantly
reduced social class inequalities in access to higher education. Perhaps
the strongest empirical support for this thesis comes from the comparative 13-country research project reported by Shavit and Blossfeld (1993)
who conclude that only two countries, Sweden and The Netherlands,
have achieved a significant equalisation among socio-economic groups.
This conclusion is based on an analysis of relative chances of different
social groups attaining a specific educational level. While, in most countries, students from working class backgrounds have increased their
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 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

74
49
61
36
67
86
56
51
68
51
55
50
57
85
22
58
74
81
60
53
32
62
76
49
28
64
81

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Korea
Mexico
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Slovak Republic
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

280.8
179.5
267.5
169.5
235.6
334.9
253.3
190.2
362.5
225.8
219.5
233.7
233.1
392.2
104.9
235.8
247.2
262
259.7
229.3
158.9
268.9
264
166.2
90.89
211.7
310.1

Net enrolment:
sum of age
specific
enrolments
36.6
22.2
46.8
29.9
31.5
44.5
40.5
22
53.9
31.8
29.2
41.2
33.9
64.1
16.8
33.1
35.3
34
40.5
30.6
24.2
37.1
33.5
20.7
15.6
35.1
42.9

Enrolment intensity:
average of two
years with highest
enrolment rates
36
15
39
12
35
40
37
22
24
17
29
37
12
47
19
28
32
40
20
16
13
38
40
29
11
33
39

Percentage
aged 2534
with higher
education
32
16
31
15
34
38
23
26
22
16
30
27
11
32
17
26
31
33
13
11
11
27
35
29
8
28
39

Percentage
aged 3544
with higher
education
74.7
42.1
74.9
39.1
69.8
87.5
66.1
51.1
72.6
48.7
60.8
66.0
46.5
96.2
32.5
61.1
70.3
76.8
55.0
46.0
34.3
69.7
76.6
53.5
24.8
65.0
84.6

Index of
participation
in higher
educationa

The scores on each of the five indicators have been standardised out of 100 before being added to arrive at an overall participation score,
which is divided by 5 to give a score out of 100.

Gross
enrolment
rates

Country

TABLE 1
Selected indicators of participation in higher education for 27 OECD countries
Access and Equity in Higher Education
145

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Higher Education Quarterly

absolute chances of going on to some form of higher education, class

inequalities measured in relative terms have remained relatively stable in
recent decades. This finding is re-echoed by many other researchers
(Halsey, 1993; Kivinen, Ahola and Hedman, 2001). While, with some
exceptions (e.g. Hellivik, 1997), sociologists have insisted that a focus on
relative changes in participation is the only appropriate method of interpreting changes in participation over time, we have argued elsewhere
(Clancy, 2001) that it is necessary to take account of changes both in
relative and absolute levels of participation. The former takes account of
the extent to which education is a positional good while the latter points
to the significance of improvement in participation of any particular
group irrespective of how other groups have fared.
An important forthcoming study will offer a more substantial challenge to the conventional wisdom in respect of the relationship between
expansion and equity (Shavit, Arum and Gamoran, forthcoming). The
principal findings of this 15-country study are summarised in the
lead chapter, where it is argued that expansion has in general been
accompanied by increasing inclusion (Arum, Gamoran and Shavit,
forthcoming). Here the authors argue that in the advanced societies
examined eligibility for higher education has become nearly universal
leading to a related decline in inequality of eligibility for higher education.
Contrary to their predictions, they did not find that the expansion of
secondary education postpones social selection to the tertiary level. On
the contrary in 8 of the 15 countries, the proportionate expansion of
tertiary education exceeded the pace of expansion at the secondary level
and accommodated the growing pool of applicants without tightening
social selection in admissions. As a consequence, expansion of higher
education was associated with an overall decline in inequality of
enrolment.
Arum, Gamoran and Shavit (forthcoming) note that their conclusions
offer a new interpretation to a familiar set of findings. Previous work,
including that of Shavit and Blossfeld (1993), has characterised rising
enrolments and stable odds for educational transitions as persisting
inequality.This conclusion, they argue, misses an important point; when
a given level of education expands we should expect increasing inequality
at the next level due to the increasing heterogeneity of the eligible
population. Consequently, they suggest that when inequality in an
expanding system is stable rather than on the rise, the system should be
regarded as increasingly inclusive because it allows larger proportions of
all social strata to attend. In only one country (Russia) in their sample is
there evidence of increasing inequality; all of the others either exhibit
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Access and Equity in Higher Education

147

stable odds, or in the case of four countries (Israel, Japan, Taiwan and
Italy) declining odds, and thus increasing inclusiveness.
A serious limitation of all the mobility research is a reliance on cohort
analysis which renders this work being primarily historical and hence
not immediately relevant to policy makers in education who require
more immediate feedback on policy initiatives. For example, in the
Shavit, Arum and Gamoran (forthcoming) study, the most recent data
relate to those cohorts who completed higher education in the 1990s and
in a few case the last cohort completed higher education in the 1980s.
Thus there is an urgent need to collect data on access and equity from
those currently in the higher education system and to compare these data
with those from earlier enrolment cohorts. This is a major challenge,
which needs to be addressed in a systematic comparative fashion. Higher
education policy makers in all countries have a keen interest in assessing
what progress is being made in reducing social inequalities in access.
While there is good comparative data available on the elimination of
quantitative inequalities in the access for women to higher education and
also on the extent of (persisting) generational inequalities, we remain
very poorly informed on the changes in social group inequalities and on
changing inequalities by ethnic groups and by disability.
The potential for comparative research is well illustrated by the
EUROSTUDENT (2005) project, which is the only significant comparative project in this domain known to us. This research aims to
generate and present internationally comparable indicators on the social
and economic conditions of student life. Eleven European countries
participated in the project, which covered a range of items such as
student demographic characteristics, accommodation, funding and state
assistance, living expenses, student spending, student employment, time
budgets, and internationalisation. Although this was not the prime objective of the study, we are especially interested in the data relating to the
social make-up of the student body. Data were collected in 2003 on the
occupational status and educational level of students parents (EUROSTUDENT, 2005).
All eleven countries did not produce the full range of data required as
evident from Table 2, which presents a summary of the finding on the
social and educational background of students parents. No data are
available from the UK and Latvia on these variables and data on the
occupational background of students parents are also absent for Italy.
Because of the variability between countries in the coding of occupations
we have followed the practice incorporated in the Synopsis of Indicators
Report (EUROSTUDENT, 2005) and limited our analysis to the
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 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

2.6
3.1
1.2
1.5
2.3
1.4a
NA
NA
1.4
2.8
NA

3.1
2.9
1.7
2.4
2.7
1.1
1.8
NA
2.0
8.2
NA

Relative odds of
participating in higher
education by fathers
education: with higher
education versus
without higher
education
3.1
2.4
1.6
2.2
2.7
1.1
1.8
NA
1.3
6.5
NA

Relative odds of
participating in higher
education by mothers
education: with higher
education versus
without higher
education

Source: Calculated from EUROSTUDENT (2005), The Social and Economic Conditions of Student Life in Europe 2005: Synopsis of Indicators
(HIS, 2005).
a
The rate for Ireland differs from that calculated from the EUROSTUDENT report (1.0). A more comprehensive survey in 2004 suggests
that the best estimate lies between 1.3 and 1.5 (OConnell, Clancy and McCoy, 2006).

Austria
Germany
Spain
Finland
France
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
The Netherlands
Portugal
UK (E&W)

Relative odds of
participating in higher
education by fathers
occupation: all other
occupational groups
versus working class

TABLE 2
Participation in higher education: inequalities by social and education background of parents for selected
European countries

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149

differences in participation between working class (blue collar) and all

other occupational groups. Other occupations principally include professional, managerial, other white collar groups, employers and the
self-employed. In calculating the relative odds reported in column 2 the
enumerator is the percentage of students parents from the Other Occupational groups as a proportion of the percentage of men aged 4060 in
the labour force from these groups while the denominator is the percentage of students from working class groups as a proportion of the
percentage of men aged 4060 in the labour force from these working
class groups. The calculation of relative odds provides a measure of
inequality by social group in access to higher education. Germany,
Portugal, Austria and France exhibit the highest levels of inequality while
Spain, The Netherlands, Ireland and Finland exhibit the lower levels of
inequality. Although not reproduced in Table 2, since their labour force
participation rates are lower, we have also calculated these odds for
mothers occupational group and the same four countries exhibit the
highest levels of inequality.
We make the same calculations with reference to the educational level
of students fathers and mothers. In this case we compare the percentage
of students whose parents have higher education versus those without
higher education. Looking first at fathers with and without higher education we note that Portugal, Austria, Germany and France exhibit the
highest level of inequality in access to higher education. In contrast
Ireland, Spain, Italy,The Netherlands and Finland exhibit lower levels of
inequality. With some minor changes in relative ranking, the pattern of
inequality is broadly similar for mothers education. Again Portugal,
Austria, France and Germany exhibit the highest levels of inequality
while Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Finland appear to have
lower levels of inequality. What is striking about this analysis is the
consistency of findings between those on occupational status and educational attainment of parents. And since there is a great deal of difficulty
in achieving comparability in the measurement of occupational status, it
is not surprising that one researcher has claimed that educational attainment of parents provides an optimum measure of inter-generational
inequality in access to higher education (Usher, 2004).
In the absence of significant comparative research incorporating
data on more recent enrolments, we are forced to rely mainly on
national data sources to assess the extent to which the very rapid
expansion in higher education experienced in most countries has
been associated with any lessening of social group inequalities in
access. Only a sample of these data will be reported here (Table 3). We
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SEG, Socio-Economic Group.

College participation by family income: odds ratio top/bottom income quartile (Mortenson, 2005)
1970: 7.21
1980: 4.59
1990: 6.36
2000: 5.56
2003: 5.75
United Kingdom Higher education by parental social class: odds ratio white collar/blue collar (DES, 2003; ONS, 2004)
1960: 8.9
1970: 8.9
1980: 6.5
1990: 6.3
2000: 4.2
Ireland
Admission to higher education by socio-economic group: odds ratio 6 highest/5 lowest SEGs
(Clancy, 2001)
1980: 6.2
1986: 6.1
1992: 3.2
1998: 3.5
Admission to higher education by parental social class: odds ratio non-manual/manual (OConnell,
Clancy and McCoy, 2006)
1998: 2.2
2004: 1.6
France
Higher education enrolment by social background: odds ratio white collar/blue collar (DEPP, 2005)
1984: 8.3
2002: 7.4
Australia
Admission to higher education by parents social class: odds ratio white collar/blue collar
(Marks et al., 2000)
1980: 2.4
1999: 2.3
Admission to higher education by parents social class: odds ratio with higher education/no higher
education (Marks et al., 2000)
1980: 2.5
1999: 2.5
Finland
Participation in higher education by fathers educational level: odds ratio higher education/primary
education only (MOE, Finland, 2005)
1985: 12.1
1990: 11.3
1995: 9.9
2000: 7.2
Norway
Participation in higher education by parents education level: odds ratio higher education/compulsory
education only (MOER, Norway, 2005)
1992: 8.8
2002: 7.7

United States

TABLE 3
Changing inequalities in access to higher education by social group: evidence from selected countries

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151

present research findings from seven countries (USA, UK, Ireland,

France, Australia, Finland and Norway). While acknowledging that the
categories used vary between countries and the time span covered in
the different studies varies from 10 to 40 years, some generalisations
are possible. For those countries for which we have data for more than
20 years (USA, UK and Ireland), there has been a significant reduction in the odds ratios, suggesting that there has been a significant
reduction in socio-economic group inequalities. In each case the
pattern of change is uneven; over some periods there was no reduction
and in some periods inequalities appear to have increased. While our
data for Finland span a period of only 15 years, the findings reported
testify to a significant reduction in equalities. In only one of the countries on which we report, Australia, has there been no reduction in
social group inequalities in this instance over a period of almost two
decades. This pattern is consistent whether or not we use a measure of
social class of a measure of fathers education. Our data for the
remaining two countries, France (18-year period) and Norway (10year period), suggest only a modest reduction in inequalities.
Conclusion
This paper seeks to set a research agenda for comparative research on
access and equity.The absence of systematic research data does not allow
us to attempt a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between
national policy and performance in respect of access and equity in higher
education. Indeed, as we described in the first part of this paper, national
policies are constrained by the historical definition of legitimated
identities. These identities influence the social construction of inequalities, and, as a result, the corrective possibilities. And although there is an
international trend towards a more complex understanding of identities,
accompanied by a growing consensus on the need for some form of
affirmative action, the evaluation of performance needs to take account
of the structure of the higher education system and its configuration
(Musselin, 2001). Performance needs to be assessed within the different
sub-sectors, and at the different levels of the higher education systems
and at the institutional level. Such focused research at institutional and
sector-level will have the added benefit of nurturing an understanding of
social inequalities.
In the second part of the paper we address some of the difficulties
involved in measuring access and equity from a comparative perspective.
We propose the use of a Higher Education Participation Index, which we
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believe will facilitate cross-country comparison. Following a review of

some attempts at measuring equity we suggest that there is a need to
develop a programme of comparative research which focuses on the
social characteristics of students who are currently enrolled in higher
education. Our analysis of data from the EUROSTUDENT project
illustrates the potential of such a comparative project.
We are conscious that in presenting a somewhat more optimistic
substantive conclusions in respect of recent research on equity we risk
being open to misinterpretation. In concluding that in many countries
there have been some reductions in inequality we are not suggesting that
we are at the end of history. Very large inequalities persist in all countries, even in Scandinavian countries, which have perhaps made most
progress. Our analysis of the research literature does not allow for any
complacency. The persistence of large, and in some countries growing,
disparities in wealth and opportunity will not be cancelled out by the
limited scale of affirmative action that we find in education. However, the
differences evident between countries suggest that it is possible to make
progress and that enlightened educational and social policy is capable of
reducing but not eliminating inequality.
Further caveats are also necessary. Much of our existing evidence is
based on social disparities at the point of entry to higher education.
There are also significant social differential in retention and graduation
levels. Furthermore, as we have pointed out, aggregate analysis of enrolment data may hide the social selectivity that exists between different
forms of higher education. Limited democratisation in access to higher
education is being accompanied by high levels of social selectivity by
college, sector and field of study. The scale of the policy challenge is
enormous and comparative researchers can make a substantial contribution by making available good quality data to benchmark comparative
achievement and invite policy borrowing from those countries which
have made most progress.
Notes
1. This research, undertaken within the framework of the Fulbright New Century Scholars Programme 20052006, is based on a qualitative and documentary analysis of the
situation in selected countries (France, Ethiopia, Ireland, Israel, South Africa, the USA,
UK and Vietnam) and a quantitative analysis of data from OECD countries.
2. There is some evidence that, in an apparent attempt to bolster national pride, some
countries differentiate between the statistics they produce for internal national purposes
and those produced for international agencies.
3. This is based on the summation of age specific enrolments by single years of age for
those aged 1729 and for grouped data for those aged 3034, 3540 and over 40.
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153

This sum divided by 100 is used by the OECD to measure higher education
expectancy.

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