EGALITARIANISM VERSUS SOCIAL REPRODUCTION: STRATIFICATION IN EASTERN EUROPE

Abstract

This study examines educational inequalities under socialism in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Russia to assess the extent to which egalitarianism was achieved and whether there was restratification after the common retreat from egalitarian ideology and practices since the 1970s. Exploring the extent of parental influences in three key educational outcomes and their changes in four birth cohorts, the study finds remarkable stability across cohorts and across transitions. Contrary to expectation, the net effect of parental social capital (communist party membership status) is prominent only in the former Soviet Russia and Bulgaria, moderate in Czechoslovakia, and negligible in Hungary and Poland. On the other hand, the effect of parental cultural capital is consistently strong but its influence is somewhat weaker at higher transitions. Its inclusion also dramatically reduces the effect of parental education and father’s occupation, suggesting that a significant extent of intergenerational transmission of educational inequality is mediated through parental cultural capital rather than human capital per se.

Citation

Sin-Kwok Wong, R. (2003), "EGALITARIANISM VERSUS SOCIAL REPRODUCTION: STRATIFICATION IN EASTERN EUROPE", Baker, D., Fuller, B., Hannum, E. and Werum, R. (Ed.) Inequality Across Societies: Familes, Schools and Persisting Stratification (Research in the Sociology of Education, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 139-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3539(03)14007-4