Knowledge and expectations of parents contribute to inequality in education

Educational inequality: it's a regular subject of public and political debate. Sociologist Andrea Foster researched how parents' knowledge of the education system and their expectations play a role in this inequality. She concludes that the socio-economic background of parents relates to their level of knowledge and the level of their expectations and that these factors contribute to unequal educational outcomes. Forster will defend her PhD thesis at the University of Amsterdam on 18 February. Education increasingly determines who gets ahead in society, but the cards are not dealt equally. In many countries, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds consistently achieve lower levels of education than their potential would allow. 'Unfortunately, we see educational inequality occurring everywhere, irrespective of the educational system', says sociologist Andrea Forster. 'It's just that this inequality is not visible everywhere at the same time. In the Netherlands, for instance, we can recognise inequality quite early on due to our early selection.' Forster investigated the role that intra-family dynamics play in educational inequality, specifically parents' knowledge of the school system and families' expectations regarding levels of education. With the help of longitudinal datasets and population register data, she analysed educational pathways of pupils in the Netherlands and Germany going as far back as the 1990s. 'It seems that the knowledge that parents have about the school system and their expectations regarding their children are influenced by their socio-economic background and also contribute to unequal educational outcomes', concludes Forster. Role of knowledge about the education system