Education and social cohesion: lessons from a comparative international approach

Developments of the last decades (rising income inequalities, an increasing proportion of respondents to regular surveys expressing a feeling of ‘disaffiliation’, rising electoral abstentions and the rise of populist parties) have led to a renewed interest in the concept of social cohesion. Hence the quest to identify the main determinants of social cohesion. 

Education naturally comes to mind as a possible ‘candidate’, but work to date has struggled to identify the ways in which education might directly affect social cohesion. Intergenerational social mobility emerges as a major determinant of social cohesion, ahead of the other determinants identified so far in the literature. We can thus identify “cultural areas” which, because of the structural characteristics of their education systems, present structural weaknesses in terms of social cohesion.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in social cohesion, social inequality, education systems, social mobility and policy.

Links

• Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES)
• Department of Education, Practice and Society

Image: "Social mobility" from astrid westvang via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)