Conference Agenda

Explaining social inequalities in higher education (HE) participation is a highly relevant and popular research topic. In Germany, despite increasing participation in HE, the share of HE students from educationally advantaged parental homes has remained at a consistently high level since 2006 (Middendorff et al., 2017). Several studies show that these origin-specific inequalities in access to HE are largely due to students' educational decision-making (e.g. Daniel & Watermann, 2018; Becker & Hecken, 2007). The secondary effects of social origin according to Raymond Boudon (1974) make the largest explanatory contribution in these rational choice models, which include the social class differences in the valuation of study costs, study benefits and the probability of success in completing a degree (Schindler & Reimer, 2010). Components of social capital and cultural capital are often added as an auxiliary concept to factor analyses of educational decisions (e.g. Spangenberg et al., 2017; Lörz, 2012). Their direct effect on the intention to enrol in HE has not yet been sufficiently researched. This state of research is just one example of an international trend in quantitative education research that has emerged in recent years. Rational choice approaches are usually used to explain differences in social origin, supplemented by peripheral aspects of Pierre Bourdieu's (1986, 1977) theory of social reproduction (Hopf, 2014). In this way, Bourdieu's general concept is truncated and distorted when translated into empirical constructs (Lareau & Weininger, 2003; Sullivan, 2002). Apart from the continuing difficulty of translating Bourdieu's theoretical concepts into empirical evidence (Sullivan, 2001), there is no clear rationale for this preference for the rational choice paradigm. Both research paradigms have certain advantages and disadvantages (Vester, 2006) and it is first necessary to determine which one is appropriate for which research question. A comparative study of educational inequalities using both research traditions is still a research gap, which is why the topic is scientifically essential. The study presented in this article is based on the first wave of the 2015 "Studienberechtigtenpanel", a German panel study of school leavers with HE entrance qualifications. Linear regression analyses (N=25,195) were used to compare the theoretical assumptions of Boudon's rational educational choice with those of Bourdieu's theory of social space and capital. They confirm that both concepts, rational choice and social reproduction, cause social differences in study intention and can explain part of its variance. Overall, rational choice items have a higher explanatory contribution than social reproduction items, so that more than half of the effect of social origin on study intention can be explained by rational choice. Book-reading activity seems to be a suitable indicator of incorporated cultural capital, as it explains 5% of the variance in study intention. However, for an adequate measurement of the possession of cultural and social capital, it seems essential to complement the operationalisation with other factors. The findings suggest that rational choice constructs are products of complex socio-cultural processes that remain a black box in the study of educational inequalities. Future studies should work towards disentangling the primary and secondary effects of social origin by incorporating further aspects of socio-cultural process characteristics into models of rational educational choice. An adequate measurement of the mechanisms underlying educational inequalities allows for a more robust explanation and thus more precise policy implications for reducing social inequalities in access to HE.

High participation rates in higher education entail issues about its institutional diversification and stratification, since it is acknowledged that the expansion of higher education does not mean equal opportunities for all to access every institution (Marginson, 2016). The division between public and private or between universities and other types of higher institution (namely within binary systems), as well as the geographical region in which they are located, correspond to lines of stratification of institutions in terms of their social prestige and attributed quality (Bowl et al., 2018; Shavit, 2007; Teichler, 2008).

In Portugal, the policies of expansion of higher education were developed in the 70’s of the XX century, facing a scenario of late democratisation and low enrolment. A network of public organisations was established, covering the entire country, but carrying a policy of territorial differentiation — legislation determined that some regions had different types of organisations, others a mixed type and others only one type (the polytechnic) — which interacted with already existing territorial inequalities.

At the turn of the century a new political framework was introduced on top of this network, designated by some authors as “an agenda of modernisation” (Neave & Amaral, 2012; Nóvoa, 2018). New laws for the governing of institutions and for the teachers' careers were published by the national government and significantly changed the higher education landscape. These changes followed a global script (Gornitzka & Maassen, 2014) of neoliberalism and managerialism, which was appropriated differently by each country. In Portugal it meant a reduction of public financing, the implementation of a logic of cost-sharing and revenue diversification (Cerdeira, 2009) that exposed even more organisations to their institutional profile and territorial context.

These problems raise the question not only about the diversification of each organisation by itself, but also about the diversification within the system. The assumption that the changes following a global script, based on principles of neoliberalism and managerialism, must be confronted with research about the various possible interconnections between state, society and higher education in various national contexts, drives the proposed paper that aims at exploring the Portuguese case. The main question guiding the research is: do the policies of differentiation promote diverse organisations, or do they risk simply reproducing territorial inequalities?

This paper draws on an investigation of the social characteristics and experiences of commuter students at an elite Scottish university which traditionally has had a relatively low proportion of commuting students, but is now experiencing a significant increase in this group (Donnelly & Gamsu, 2018). The 'boarding school' model characterises elite higher education institutions in the UK and the US, but many European countries have a stronger tradition of local universities, where students live at home for the duration of their undergraduate education.

The central research question addressed in this paper is the following: In the context of an elite Scottish university, what are the social justice implications of commuting to university from home rather than living in university accommodation? Some recent literature on the lives of commuting students has argued the need for a more positive focus on students’ experience of mobility, focusing on the positives as well as the negatives aspects of liminality and mobility (Christie, 2007; Holton & Finn, 2020). These researchers argue that much work on university commuting tends to normalise the ‘boarding school’ aspects of traditional and elite higher education, instead of recognising and valuing the more local aspects of undergraduate higher education in newer universities where students are likely to live at home but still experience a range of mobilities. This paper argues that there is also a need to understand the experiences of commuting students at elite universities, where living in university accommodation continues to be a normative expectation, reflected in timetabling, emphasis on face to face teaching and access to university social events and support services. At our case study university, the decision to commute was not random but reflected and reinforced existing social divisions. In terms of these disproportionalities, we argue that it is important to understand the negative as well as the positive aspects of commuting students’ lives, as well as considering the mitigating actions which the university could take in order to improve commuters’ lives. Commuting students' suggestions for change included timetabling that reduced large gaps between lectures; more choice of tutorial groups; and the expectation that all lectures would be recorded and available on-line. Daytime social events that did not involve a drinking culture would help to engage this group of students and enable them to form stronger ties to the university. Additional questions arise in relation to the need for a more redistributive and progressive student funding system in Scotland, which would reduce the financial imperative to live at home for students from less affluent backgrounds (Riddell & Weedon, 2018).