Merit or birth? Social origin and performance in access to higher education
Keywords:
School Performance , Meritocracy, Socioeconomic Level , Social ReproductionAbstract
This paper discusses the association between social origins and academic performance on the probability of access to higher education in Brazil. The data derives from a sample of high school graduates in 2012, followed for five years after completing basic education, from cross-checks with Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira data. It was observed that, for access to the public sector, performance is the most important predictor, regardless of the socioeconomic level of the applicant, reinforcing a merit dimension in access. The same cannot be said in relation to the private sector which, besides having a strong socioeconomic gap, allows the most privileged social strata to have higher chances of accessing it, even if their school performance is worse.
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