Do vocational pathways improve higher education access for women and men from less privileged social backgrounds? A comparison of vocational tracks to higher education in France and Switzerland

Imdorf, Christian; Koomen, Maarten; Murdoch, Jake; Guégnard, Christine (2017). Do vocational pathways improve higher education access for women and men from less privileged social backgrounds? A comparison of vocational tracks to higher education in France and Switzerland. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, LVIII(2), pp. 283-314. Società editrice il Mulino 10.1423/87310

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Educational policy developments in France and Switzerland have increased eligibility for higher education. This paper explores the extent to which vocationally orientated pathways to higher education reduce social inequalities in France and Switzerland. More specifically, we analyse how the vocational pathway facilitates access to higher education for male and female students from lower cultural capital backgrounds. We refer to gender theory to link young people’s subjective self-image and its corresponding institutional fit with different educational pathways. We use panel data from France (panel DEPP) and Switzerland (panel TREE) and multinomial logistic regression to analyse the accessibility of different institutional pathways to higher education for male and female students separately. Our results show different consequences of the two national educational systems with regard to social reproduction and gender inequalities. An intersectional analysis highlights that, in France, vocationally oriented programmes foster higher education access for young women with lower cultural capital. In Switzerland, the vocational pathway to access higher education is primarily used by young men from privileged educational backgrounds as a compensation for their underrepresentation in the traditional general education pathway to higher education.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Sociology

UniBE Contributor:

Imdorf, Christian (A), Koomen, Maarten (A), Murdoch, Jake, Guégnard, Christine

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 370 Education

ISSN:

0486-0349

Publisher:

Società editrice il Mulino

Projects:

[1036] Transitions from Education to Employment (TREE) Official URL

Language:

English

Submitter:

Sandra Hupka-Brunner

Date Deposited:

17 Nov 2017 11:14

Last Modified:

27 Jun 2024 09:41

Publisher DOI:

10.1423/87310

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.105461

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/105461

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