Intergenerational Inequality of Educational Opportunities in a Cluster of Latin American and European Countries

Abstract

This article analyses the patterns of inequality in absolute and relative intergenerational educational mobility from a comparative, international and longitudinal perspective, which explores its variations between cohorts, welfare regimes and stages of social and educational structures in Latin America (Chile, Mexico and Uruguay) and Europe (Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and Germany). The analysis focuses on contextual and temporal factors in the response to the variations of educational fluidity for the cohort of the young generation.

The transcendence of analyzing social inequality beyond the inequality of conditions is underlined, recovering the relevance of the examines the inequality of opportunities —specifically, that of educational mobility, its structure and patterns in the distribution among individuals and generations. It privileges contextual and temporal factors in the analyses of mobility and educational fluidity, with particular emphasis on discovering how men, women and those born in the youngest cohort (young generation) experience it. The analysis is headed towards the aim of answering questions such as: What patterns of mobility and educational fluidity characterize the selection of Latin American and European countries? What does comparison across cohorts provide? Has intergenerational educational fluidity experienced a slowdown in the young generation cohort? Hypotheses of concentration of educational fluidity at the base and top of the educational structure are tested, as well as, high educational reproduction at the base, constant educational fluidity and uniform difference ones.