This paper examines the history of the expansion of educational opportunities in the UK, to understand how different generations of ­working-class students managed to access HE. Based on 23 life-story interviews with working-class students, the study highlights how the changing dynamics of the structure of compulsory education and the labour…

College enrollment is on the decline, Gen Z is questioning the cost and value of higher education, and employers face an ongoing struggle to fill jobs with talented candidates. The traditional message that college is the only path to a fulfilling career is outdated. It's time to examine what it really means to be employable--and reimagine the…

Inequality in the United States has been rising in recent decades, while intergenerational mobility remains low. This means that absolute mobility--the extent to which children are economically better off than their parents--is declining, and intergenerational inequality is increasingly entrenched. A long literature suggests large returns to…

This article identifies factors that help Generation Z students succeed in a fully online learning environment for communication skills. Out of a diverse number of learner characteristics, the learners' home institutions significantly impacted their preference for instructional delivery modality. The participants described a flexible schedule and…

In this article, Daysi Ximena Diaz-Strong draws on interviews with Mexican and Central American 1.25 generation undocumented young adults to examine what shaped their access to financial resources in their college-going transitions. Although scholars have demonstrated that school agents and peers are critical to accessing resources and that…

As English skills are being increasingly perceived as valuable human capital, an awareness of inequitable access to the acquisition of this "profitable" language has developed. Although this allegedly unequal access, which can be referred to as the "English divide", is a matter of concern to applied linguists, little research…

The authors analyze survey data from four groups of children (urban children, migrant children, rural left-behind children, and ordinary rural children) to explore their social resource access with respect to educational resources, health resources, and family support. The study finds that urban children are advantaged in all three areas compared…

Educational attainment sits at the core of research on social stratification in the United States. An extensive literature details the inequalities in access to levels of education, the socioeconomic rewards conferred upon those reaching higher levels of schooling, and the prospects for social mobility among those able to attain a college degree.…

This article is an adaptation of the keynote presentation from the NACADA Annual Conference (Minneapolis, MN, October 9, 2014), that was given by Terrell Strayhorn, a professor of Higher Education at The Ohio State University and the director of the Center for Higher Education Enterprise (CHEE). CHEE is a new research and policy center that aims…

Education has until recently promoted social mobility, broad economic growth, and democracy. However, modern universities direct policy and resources toward criteria that exacerbate income inequality and reduce social mobility. Online education can make education more socially, geographically, temporally, and financially accessible, impacting the…

Our study sought to understand changes in gender inequality in education across four generations of rural Chinese women's educational experiences in a small community in southern China. The 24 interviews and numerous informal conversations with 12 women showed that gender-based favouritism for men and against women undergirded family expectations,…

Immigrants are a vital part of America and help form the backbone of the economy and communities. Too often, however, immigrants are not given the same educational opportunities or necessary attention as their native-born peers in high school, leading to lower high school graduation rates and postsecondary attainment. Immigrant students face added…

My apologies to iconic hip-hop artists, De La Soul for I have shamelessly appropriated the title, "Stakes is high" to underscore the importance of the work ahead for educators, students, parents, community members, and researchers as we attempt to develop a generation of what I call "new century" students for a world we can hardly imagine. Through…

This qualitative research explores women's experiences of accessing higher education (HE) in England, through the mother-daughter relationship. Women's pathways to university and their funding histories are presented from both past and recent generations, to contextualise an understanding of funding HE in light of the 2012 tuition fee increase.…

Young Africans born in the 1980s and early 1990s enjoy neither the same education nor the same employment opportunities as their fathers and mothers. In the past 20 years economic inequality between Africa and the rest of the world has increased. In the context of the new economic conditions created in part by economic liberalization, national…