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Education and social cohesion: lessons from a comparative international approach
20 October 2021, 1:00 pm–2:00 pm
In this webinar, Professor Jean-Paul Lambert will discuss how unequal compulsory education systems result in lower intergenerational social mobility, thereby weakening social cohesion.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Kiran Dhillon
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)
About the Speaker
Professor Jean-Paul Lambert
Honorary Rector at University Saint-Louis, Brussels
Professor em. Jean-Paul Lambert holds a PhD in economics from UCLouvain. After teaching and research stays in the Netherlands and France, he spent most of his academic career in Belgium. His main area of research, initially in macroeconomics, later shifted to education economics and policy. For ten years, he was Rector of the University Saint-Louis – Brussels. He is frequently called upon by the Belgian public authorities to provide advice and expertise in the field of education. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.