**1. Introduction1**

206 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

Taylor, I., P. Walton, and J. Young. 1973. *The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance*.

It is one of the most fundamental and robust result of sociology of education research that the level of education one attains is strongly determined by the socio-economic status and education of his/her parents2. For example, children from industry or farm worker families attain lower education than children from higher social strata in all developed countries (Gambetta, 1987). In other words, education is reproduced from generation to generation.

Thus, for more than half a century, sociologists have posed research questions such as: Why is students' level of educational achievement correlated so strongly with their parents' educational attainment? What mechanisms underlie the reproduction of education from one generation to another? Since educational attainment represents one of the key factors of individual economic status (i.e., occupation, income etc.), the fact that it is strongly influenced by social background is perceived as an instance of social injustice. Therefore, many authors ask one more question apart from the above research and theoretical questions: How can we adapt education policy to ensure the weakest possible relationship between students' educational achievement and their social and economic background? And also, what institutional and organizational obstacles weaken the relationship between educational attainment and individual abilities/efforts?

However, the efforts to disentangle the complex set of factors behind the generation-togeneration education reproduction cannot avoid the questions of how exactly people obtain education and what processes are involved. In order to fully understand the process of education reproduction, we should not "only" analyze the relationship between the education of parents and their children but, unavoidably, we should delve into a vast array of other factors behind educational processes such as the education system's institutional design, parents and peers, teachers and teaching methods, school processes, school climate and many others.

Research evidence suggests that educational achievement is indeed determined by a large number of factors of different strengths. The strength of each factor can be best estimated by

<sup>1</sup> The work on this chapter was supported by the Research Framework of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prague, entitled Visions and Strategies for the Development of the Czech Society within the EU (MSM0021620841).

<sup>2</sup> Different operationalizations of the level of education exist. Primarily, it is distinguished between *educational achievement* such as school grades or test results and *educational attainment* such as receiving secondary or tertiary education certificate.

economic factors seems evidence-based and undisputed (Pfeffer, 2008: 543)5. However, it is subject of argument what specific social and economic factors cause the reproduction. Some theories (e.g., Sewell & Shah, 1967) look for the explanation in individual education aspirations that are formed by one's significant others, including family and close friends, throughout socialization. Other theories (e.g., Bourdieu, 2004; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) find the main cause in the so-called cultural capital and the fact that children from lower social strata lack some of the knowledge and competencies schools evaluate but do not provide. Further authors (e.g., Boudon, 1974) identify the main cause in the insufficient economic resources of lower education families. Another stream of theories (e.g., Gamoran, 1987; Oakes, 2005) approach the issue from a completely different perspective and try to demonstrate that inequality reproduction is built in the education system's

Given the diversity of theories of education inequality reproduction, it is hardly surprising that some authors have attempted to systematize those theories by creating typologies thereof. Based on a classic article by Kerckhoff (1976), two fundamental theory approaches have often been distinguished: the socialization model and the allocation model. While the socialization model represented a dominant theoretical perspective in the mid-1970s, now

Kerckhoff identified the "**socialization model**" in the so-called Wisconsin model (Sewell & Shah, 1967; Sewell et al., 1969). The key factor consists of adolescents' education aspirations that are formed by the family and significant others, including friends and peer groups, during socialization. This model focuses on individual-level education reproduction and builds on the implicit assumption that the sources of one's educational attainment and

While Kerckhoff (1976) admitted that the socialization model was important and both theoretically and empirically justified, he inferred that it was only concerned with one side of the coin. He argued that the approach he called "**allocation model**" had to be added to our explanation. The allocation model holds that the individual is strongly influenced – or even determined – by social institutions; what he or she achieves depends on what those institutions allow. The attainment of a certain level of education or status is subject to structural constraints, selective criteria applied in the education system, and barriers

As Kerckhoff (1976) argued, few social scientists would identify exclusively with either the socialization or the allocation model. Both models are complementary, rather than exclusive. For example, one's life plans and education aspirations are strongly determined by the broader social context and the level of education system stratification. On the other hand, the mere existence of institutional constraints cannot fully explain how inequalities are reproduced. Democratic societies cannot tolerate open discrimination of any particular group, and therefore, any systematic disadvantaging of certain groups has to take place

5 In this chapter we focus upon social and economic factors causing the reproduction of inequalities. Because of space limitation, the discussion of genetic factors is beyond the scope of this chapter (see e.g.

both approaches are considered equally legitimate and complementary today.

status lie in the individual—his or her abilities, ambitions and aspirations.

organization.

individuals cannot influence.

through latent, often social-psychological processes.

Fraser 1995; Jacoby & Glauberman 1995).

means of meta-analysis. For example, Hattie (1993, 2003) reviewed thousands of studies to analyze the influence of more than 30 factors on educational achievement. He ranked those factors by strength, type and percentage of variance explained. He reached an interesting conclusion: about 50% of variance was explained by student-related factors, about 5-10% by parent-related factors, 5-10% by school-related factors and another 5-10% by factors related to peers. The remaining variance, as much as about 30%, was attributed to teachers. Teacher-student feedback was considered the strongest single factor (its effect equaled to 1.133). In contrast, making the student repeat a grade was the strongest single negative factor of academic achievement.

Nevertheless, research effort cannot stop at determining the approximate effect of the different factors behind educational achievement. This is because most factors are not isolated, and instead, they interact with and often determine one another. For example, individual educational aspiration, one of the main empirically identified factors behind one's choice of education track, is itself influenced by other factors like parents' education and socio-economic status. Thus, if we aim to *explain* the process of inequality reproduction, we must formulate the *mechanisms* behind such reproduction4.

Given the large number of factors behind educational achievement and the nearly indefinite number of combinations thereof, a great many different theories of education inequality reproduction have been formulated. A brief review of education sociology literature reveals that researchers have formulated a very broad spectrum of alternative theories of education inequality. While some of those theories are mutually exclusive, most are rather complementary to one another, i.e. the fact that one theory is valid does not preclude the validity of another theory.

In this chapter, we will focus on theories which both (a) deal with the role of school and the education system and (b) have a direct relationship with education policy and the potential ways of addressing education inequalities (we will also focus on the empirical verifications of those theories). Our focus is also based on the fact that those theories have not received as much attention as others (e.g., the socialization theory) in scholarly discourse.
