CHER 28th Annual Conference
Panel Proposal
Title: High participation systems of higher education: Disentangling the generic and the particular of
system dynamics when participation approaches universality
Track: 5
Panel Convenors:
Simon Marginson, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, United Kingdom; and
Anna Smolentseva, Institute of Education, National Research University, Higher School of Economics,
Moscow, Russia
Corresponding convenor: Simon Marginson
Corresponding convenor’s email: s.marginson@ioe.ac.uk
Presentation of the topic: Over the last century, the expansion of the reach of higher education has been
one of the most crucial social and economic trends across the world. Expansion affects all dimensions of
higher education and society. Though enrollment rates vary between countries, in a large number of
countries a clear majority of the school leaver age cohort now participates in higher education (including
both 5A and 5B programmes), a level of enrolment that was tagged by Martin Trow as ‘universal’ in his
seminal 1973 essay on the transition from elite to mass to universal higher education (see Trow 2007),
and in some countries participation approaches or exceeds 90 per cent. The high participation group
includes many middle level countries in terms of national income, and some poorer countries are also
undergoing very rapid growth of enrolment in higher education. High participation countries have varying
political, economic and educational configurations. The group includes contrasting systems such as
market oriented USA, Canada and Australia; the highly developed egalitarian countries of Nordic Europe;
the fast growing East Asian systems in which family commitment and investment play a central role; and
transitional Post-Socialist nations in Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
International policy agencies and national governments mostly focus on the level of participation, i.e. the
distinction between participation and non-participation, and in that framework the common trend towards
high participation could be celebrated as a triumph. It might be presented as a sign of the ascendance of
knowledge societies, and even of the universalisation of opportunity, and the advancement of a social and
economic model based on shared prosperity. But with the partial exception of the egalitarian Nordic
counties, such societies have not materialised. High participation systems (HPS) have proven to be
heterogeneous in financing, organization, governance, and the extent to which they have achieved
equitable outcomes. In many systems—though by no means all—the vertical stratification of institutions
may be increasing, with sharp distinctions in the material quality and social value attached to on one hand
‘world-class’ research universities, on the other hand mass institutions. Yet there are also generic
commonalities shared by HPSs, in the nature and roles of HEIs, in policy and governance, in coordination,
and in relations with labour markets. The broad uplifting of the level of education also has shared social,
economic and cultural implications, and changes the common conditions for cross-border relations.
This panel assembles an international team of researchers to report on a 2013-2015 collaborative
conceptual and empirical inquiry into the dynamics of HPS. The guiding questions include:




What happens to value and value creation in universal higher education systems—value as in
labour market returns to degrees, and value as in social status and opportunity (positional value)?
How is value stratified? What are the conditions and resources entailed in lifting the value of
mass education?
What are the social, economic and political drivers of growth in universal systems? What
mediates what Trow called the adaptation of the wider population to social and technological
change?
Do the political and social compacts entailed in higher education change as high participation
systems develop? How are the effects of higher education mediated by other sectors?
What is a ‘high participation society’? What are the longer term social, political, economic, cultural
and educational implications of the rapid worldwide spread of HPS?
A key issue in this inquiry is to specify (a) those dynamics of HPS that may be common to all HPS, (b) the
elements that condition national/local variations in these dynamics, and (c) factors that are specific to
particular national contexts.
The panel will present draft papers in four overlapping areas:
(1) Competition, segmentation, and vertical stratification in high participation systems - Brendan Cantwell,
Isak Froumin, Simon Marginson and Rómulo Pinheiro
(2) Governing high participation systems – Brendan Cantwell, Rómulo Pinheiro and Marek Kwiek
(3) Diversity and differentiation in high participation systems - Dominik Antonowicz, Isak Froumin, Glen A.
Jones, Rómulo Pinheiro
(4) Equity in high participation societies - David L. Konstantinovskiy, Simon Marginson, Anna
Smolentseva, Jussi Valimaa.
Each paper combines an essay on the common dynamics of HPS, with national case studies. Country
coverage includes Finland, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Korea, United States, Canada and Australia
Keywords: Massification, national higher education systems, participation, enrolment growth, equity,
globalisation
Reference:
Trow, M. (2007). Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access: Forms and phases of
higher education in modern societies since WWII. In International handbook of higher education (pp. 243280). Springer Netherlands.
Acknowledgments: This cross-country research programme was initiated in a meeting held at the Higher
School of Economics, Moscow in September 2013, convened by Anna Smolentseva. It has received no
specific research project funding, and the research and writing work has been carried by the selfsupported contributions of the members of research team, who see the topic of High Participation Systems
as important in taking forward the field of higher education studies.
Biographical Details:
Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education,
University College London, where he has worked since 2013. He was previously Professor of Higher
Education at the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is Joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Higher
Education and a member of the CHER Board of Governors. In 2014 he received the Research
Achievement Award from the US-based Association for Studies in Higher Education (ASHE).
Anna Smolentseva is a Leading Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, National Research
University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. She has been a Fulbright New Century Scholar
(2005-2006), and Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow (2011, 2012). She is Vice-Chair and Program Chair of
the Council for International Higher Education (CIHE), Asssociation for the Study of Higher Education
(ASHE), in 2014-2015.
CHER 28th Annual Conference
Paper and Poster Proposal
Note: Please fill in the information between squared brackets [ ]. Delete when not applicable.
This whole document should not have more than 1,000 words.
Title: Competition, segmentation, and vertical stratification in high participation systems
Track: 5
Type of proposal: Panel Paper
Authors:
Brendan Cantwell, Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI,
USA
Isak Froumin, Institute of Education, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow,
Russia
Simon Marginson, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Romulo Pinheiro, Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Norway
Corresponding author: Brendan Cantwell
Corresponding author’s email: brenwell@gmail.com
Structured Abstract:
Purpose of this paper: This paper addresses qualitative changes associated with the massification of
HPS. As systems expand they necessarily involve a larger part of society and become entangled in a
wider set of social relations. One common consequence of such system expansion is a tendency to
increased vertical stratification: stratification in the value of different kinds of participation, stratification
(segmentation) of the student body on a hierarchical basis, and stratification in the form of a hierarchy of
institutions. Typically, the stratification of institutions takes the form of bifurcation. A bifurcation is a binary
division into two separate and opposing sub-groups that together constitute an interdependent system. In
this paper the first sub-group of HEIs is designated as the ‘artisanal’ sub-sector, consisting of high
demand, high value, student selecting HEIs. The second group of HEIs is the ‘demand-absorbing’ subsector, consisting of lower demand, low value, accessible mass education HEIs. These categories, which
function as ideal types, are further explained and explored below. In the real world, some HEIs are close to
pure examples of one ideal type or the other, while a third group of HEIs combine features of both types.
Design/methodology/approach: The tendency to elite/non-elite bifurcation within systems is associated
with the absolute scarcity of socially valued places; or in other words, the zero sum character of positional
competition (Hirsch 1976; Marginson 1997). In mass systems, and more so in universal systems, some
student places do not carry advanced social distinctions and/or high economic value. Social stratification in
HPS can be understood in two modalities: economic and cultural. Economically, the levels of taxation
required to offer universal access to research universities are prohibitive in most nations; leading to
unequal ranking of the HEIs available to students. Culturally, following Bourdieu (1983; 1988), both student
selection, and competition for status among institutions, tend to differentiation between on one hand
social-cultural elites, on the other non-elites. Both economic and cultural factors generate stratification,
including bifurcation, and mediate the social outcomes. Yet bifurcation is likely not a compete processes
and in most HPS a large sub-segment of middle-standing HEIs is likely to persist.
The above-summarized model is examined empirically through three national case studies: (1) Australia;
(2) Norway; (3) USA. Each case study draws upon the existing base of research and secondary data,
largely drawn from official national sources.
Findings: The conceptual model predicts that all HPS are characterized by some level of vertical
stratification, even though the height and slope of the mountain, and the space at the summit, have many
possible permutations. Above all there is a universal tendency towards bifurcation in HPS, the outcome of
positional competition, with an elite segment distinguished from the rest of the system. The advent of
world-class universities and global competition for elite university status, as well as the need for space and
identity in complex systems, have accelerated the tendency to vertical stratification in HPS. This tendency
is only thinly disguised by mission drift, which has little purchase on the binary dynamic, though it can add
to the clutter in the middle ground between the two primary sub-sectors. The extent to which stratification
occurs, and the precise configurations of artisanal, middle and demand-absorbing HEIs, is dependent on
system context. National polices and social dynamics can either accelerate or buffer against the tendency
towards bifurcation. In Norway national polices have tended to buffer against tendency towards bifurcation,
yet even in this remarkably “flat” system tendencies to vertical stratification can be observed. Australia and
the USA are highly stratified systems, albeit in different forms: the US maintains formal vertical
segmentation through its classification system; Australia manages a single system of HEIs with nominally
identical missions that are differentiated on the basis of status, research intensity and resources. In both
countries, public policy, though uneven in its effects, has tended to reproduce and promote stratification
primarily through quasi-market resource allocation. Even so, these systems have not become fully
bifurcated and there is a large and divers middle sector of HEIs.
Research limitations/implications: This paper develops a new framework for analysing system
organization with special attention to stratification. This model has implications for research into system
structure and diversity with special importance perhaps for systems that are emerging HPSs.
Practical implications: The practical implications for this study are most relevant to policymakers seeking
to promote excellence, access, and efficiency through competition and quasi-market resource allocation.
The study finds that such efforts appear primarily to accelerate stratification among HEIs, which may or
may not be a desired outcome.
Social Implications: The primary social implication of this paper is to identify the tendency of increased
system stratification to accompany increased higher education participation. This suggests that the social
role of higher education is contingent upon the share of the population that accesses the sector. This is to
say that mass and universal higher education imply a qualitative as well quantitative shift in system
dynamics. Important social questions to ask are who has access to what, rather than who has access.
What is original/value of paper: The paper offers new conceptual insights into the landscape imagined in
Trow’s classic work, including the respective evolutions of elite and mass forms of higher education in a
near-universal era, as well as empirical support through the three original national case studies.
Keywords: Massification, national higher education systems, participation, enrolment growth, stratification,
World-Class Universities
References:
Bourdieu, P. (1983). The field of cultural production, or: The economic world reversed. Poetics, 12(4), 311
– 356.
Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hirsch, F. (1976). Social limits to growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Marginson, S. (1997). Markets in education. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Biographical Details:
Brendan Cantwell is Assistant Professor of Educational Administration at Michigan State University. His
area of research is the political economy of higher education.
Isak Froumin is the Academic Supervisor of the Institute of Education, National Research University,
Higher School of Economics, Moscow.
Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education,
University College London, and joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education. His work is primarily focused on
globalisation and higher education, including international education and cross-border students,
comparative systems, global strategies of institutions, and university rankings.
Romulo Pinheiro is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Agder,
where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of public policy and leadership as well
as organizational theory.
CHER 28th Annual Conference
Paper and Poster Proposal
Title: Governing high participation systems
Type of proposal: Panel paper
Authors:
Brendan Cantwell, Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI,
USA.
Rómulo Pinheiro, Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Norway
Marek Kwiek, UNESCO Chair in Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy, University of Poznan,
Poland.
Corresponding author: Rómulo Pinheiro
Corresponding author’s email: Romulo.Pinheiro@agderforskning.no
Purpose of this paper: Participation in tertiary education has swelled over the past several decades. The
global tendency towards the development of high participation implies a need to better understand the
dynamics specific to high participation systems (HPS). The purpose of this chapter is to discuss distinctive
features of governance in HPS. To be clear, HPS are not converging on a single model. One needs look
no further than to the differences between the market-oriented North American systems and the egalitarian
Nordic systems to conclude that HPS are governed heterogeneously. It is nonetheless possible to identify
commonalities related to the governance of much larger systems with broad social, demographic and
economic reach, and this chapter advances a set of propositions on attributes of governance in these
systems.
Design/methodology/approach: As is the norm for this panel, this paper first develops a conceptual
model regarding governance in high participation systems and then tests the model empirically through
three original national case studies. Drawing on seminal scholarship including Trow (1974) and Clark’s
(1983), as well as more contemporary research (e.g. Gornitzka and Massen 2011; Pinheiro and
Antonowics 2015), a set of propositions about the nature of governance in HPS is advanced. The first
proposition is that HPS are governed by multi-level accountability and coordination mechanisms. HPS are,
necessary, caricaturized by extensive social involvement, resulting in the sector being of interest to many
formal and informal stakeholders. The second proposition is that HPS governance tends to involve the
management of system differentiation. As large and generally complex systems, HPS are necessarily
differentiated. As a corollary, it is further proposed that complex multi-level accountability and coordination
mechanism, coupled with mechanism that shape system differentiation have, in many HPS, resulted in
HEIs adopting increasingly cooperate organizational forms and developing robust internal governance and
management capacities.
Case studies are of Norway, Poland, and the USA. Each case study draws on secondary research as well
as data form national and international sources. The case studies are designed to test the abovepresented propositions.
Findings: The cases of Poland, Norway, and the USA stand to underline this basic claim that governance
systems are heterogeneous. These cases also stand in at least partial support for the central claim
advanced in this chapter: insofar as high participation constitutes a qualitative as well as quantitative shift
in system dynamics, there are broad commonalities in the governance arrangements of HPSs. Norway
and the USA confirm both propositions and the corollary, although the particular way in which the cases
confirm the propositions and the mechanisms that drive governance in these systems are quite different.
The Polish case stands in partial disagreement with the first proposition in that the Ministry of Science and
Higher Education still plays a singularly dominant role in coordinating the system and holding HEIs to
account. Compared to Norway and the USA, the higher education system in Poland massified recently – in
the 1990s following the collapse of the Communist government – and quite rapidly over a period of less
than a decade. Over the past quarter-century the legacy of the centralized Communist state means that,
relative to Norway and the USA, ministerial coordination plays an outsized role in governing the system. All
that said, there are emerging examples of ways in which the policy system is also subject to multi-level
coordination.
Research limitations/implications: A clear limitation of this paper, like the others in the panel, is the
reliance on only three national case studies to develop generic propositions. What one can conclude is
that the two propositions and their corollary provide a useful generic starting point from which to conduct
further conceptual and empirical analysis into the nature and functioning of HPS governance in specific
contexts. It is impossible to make an a-priori assessment of what governance should look like within a
particular HPS but it is nonetheless possible to have a generic idea about broad elements that are likely
present. Simplistic flat accounts, for example, of total market control, of an omnipotent ministry/state, or of
a unflappable and stable academic profession should be approached skeptically and should be
investigated thoroughly, preferably by looking at historical developments over a period of time.
Nevertheless, additional case research is needed.
Practical implications: If there are certain generic communities in governance conditions, the
policymakers will benefit for understanding governance in other systems. Hence, perhaps the most
important practical implication is that policymakers should (as many do) examine the experiences of other
HPSs. The paper, as the whole programme of work on HPS, might provide a more sophisticated
framework for the observation of, and partial borrowing from, national systems other than one’s own.
Social Implications: One important social implication is that a wide variety of stakeholders should be
aware of ways in which they may be able to influence system coordination and governance.
What is original/value of paper: The paper brings together a group of international researchers to
investigate the nature of governance in contemporary systems, and advances a novel set of propositions
to be tested in future research.
Keywords: Governance, high participation, national higher education systems, multi-level coordination,
management
References:
Clark, B. R. (1983). The higher education system: academic organization in cross-national perspective,
Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.
Gornitzka, Å., and Maassen, P. (2011). University governance reforms, global scripts and the "Nordic
Model". Accounting for policy change? In J. Schmid, K. Amos, and A. T. J. Schrader, (eds.), Welten
der Bildung? Vergleichende Analysen von Bildungspolitik und Bildungssystemen. Baden-Baden:
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, pp. 149-177.
Pinheiro, R., and Antonowics, D. (2015). Opening the gates or coping with the flow? Governing access to
higher education in Europe. Higher Education.
Biographical Details:
Brendan Cantwell is an assistant professor in the department of educational administration at Michigan
State University. His research broadly addresses the political economy of higher education.
Rómulo Pinheiro is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Agder,
where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of public policy and leadership as well
as organizational theory.
Marek Kwiek is Professor and Director, Center for Public Policy Studies, and Chairholder, UNESCO Chair
in Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy, University of Poznan, Poland. His research interests
include university governance, academic profession, and academic entrepreneurialism.
CHER 28th Annual Conference
Paper and Poster Proposal
Title: Diversity and differentiation in high participation systems
Track: 5
Type of proposal: Panel paper
Authors:
Glen A. Jones, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Dominik Antonowicz, Institute of Sociology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland
Isak Froumin, Institute of Education, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow,
Russia
Rómulo Pinheiro, Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Norway
Corresponding author: Glen A. Jones
Corresponding author’s email: gjones@oise.utoronto.ca
Structured Abstract:
Purpose of this paper: This paper analyses changes and trends in diversity and differentiation within high
participation systems (HPS), that might be categorized as “universal” (to use Trow’s 1974 terminology) in
that over 50 per cent of the age cohort is pursuing some form of higher education. The objective of the
paper is to look at the relationships (if any) between the emergence of HPS, institutional diversity and
government policies designed to further differentiation, and to determine whether there are common trends
and challenges in a selection of HPS systems.
Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on detailed case studies of diversity and
differentiation in a selection of HPS in Europe (Norway and Poland), Asia (Russia and Korea) and North
America (United States and Canada) developed by national/regional experts. Our focus is on systemic and
institutional diversity within higher education systems, that is, differences between institutional types or
regulated sectors within a higher education system (Birnbaum, 1983). The issue of stratification within
common institutional categories is taken up in another paper in this panel, though inevitably there is some
overlap. Diversity is defined here as the difference between institutional types or categories, while
differentiation is the movement towards greater diversity, often associated with government policies,
incentive mechanisms, or other external pressures (Fumasoli & Huisman, 2013; van Vught, 2008.
Findings: Our preliminary analysis of the six national case studies suggestions the following:
1.
2.
3.
There were no significant increases in institutional diversity associated with the transition to HPS
in the six systems included in our study. In some cases the level of institutional diversity
decreased through system rationalization and mergers (Norway, Russia) or government
regulation (Poland). In the case of the United States and Canada, there were differences by state
and province; in some cases levels of diversity remained relatively stable, while in others there
has been a gradual decline in institutional diversity.
Government policy played a central role in maintaining diversity in the higher education systems
included in this study, either by maintaining explicit sectoral boundaries within public systems
(California, Alberta, Poland, Russia) or through research funding designed to promote/maintain a
research intensive university sector (Poland, Russia, Korea).
There has been a blurring of boundaries within some binary systems and between sectors in
multi-sector systems. The role of sub-baccalaureate and vocational education institutions has
been expanded in some systems as a mechanism to increase capacity and promote accessibility.
In the US, this shift has included the rise of community college baccalaureate programs (including
quite recently in California). In Canada, six of the ten provinces have now assigned some form of
degree-granting authority to the college sector, and Norway has completed repositioned its
college sector as a component of developing a more unified national system. These shifts have
sometimes led to institutional hybridization as new roles are assigned to existing institutions that
also retained historic programming functions. The new teaching-focused universities in British
4.
Columbia (Canada) now offer a comprehensive range of undergraduate programs while
continuing to offer trade and short-cycle vocational programs.
Differentiation is an explicit policy goal in some, though not all, of these systems. In Ontario
(Canada) recent government mechanisms are designed to increase diversity of mission within the
university sector with the objective of greater efficiencies within the system. Poland has moved to
create a new vocational sector, and Poland, Russia and Korea view research funding as a
mechanism for furthering institutional differentiation and the development of centers of excellence
in university research.
Research limitations/implications (if applicable): There are obvious limitations associated with the fact
that our analysis is based largely on only six detailed case studies. Our analysis at this point is preliminary,
but suggests that while institutional differentiation is directly linked to the transition from elite to mass
higher education, there is a much more complex and nuanced relationship between institutional diversity
and the development of high participation systems, in part because there are major differences between
country in how institutional categories are defined.
What is original/value of paper: The paper contributes to the literature on diversity and differentiation in
higher education, but more importantly it contributes to a growing body of work on the phenomena of high
participation systems in higher education.
Keywords: Diversity, differentiation, higher education systems, system design
References
Birnbaum, R. (1983). Managing diversity in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Fumasoli, T. & Huisman, J. (2013). Strategic agency and system diversity: Conceptualizing institutional
positioning in higher education. Minerva, 51(2), 155-169.
Van Vught, F. (2008). Mission diversity and reputation in higher education. Higher Education Policy, 21,
151-174.
Biographical Details:
Dominik Antonowicz is an assistant professor and policy expert at the Institute of Sociology at the Nicolaus
Copernicus University, Poland. His research interests cover higher education policy in transition countries,
university governance and national systems of research evaluation.
Isak Froumin is the Academic Supervisor of the Institute of Education, National Research University,
Higher School of Economics, Moscow.
Glen A. Jones is the Ontario Research Chair in Postsecondary Education Policy and Measurement and
Professor of Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto,
Canada.
Rómulo Pinheiro is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Agder,
where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of public policy and leadership as well
as organizational theory.
CHER 28th Annual Conference
Paper and Poster Proposal
Title: Economic, social and educational equity in high participation societies
Track: 5
Type of proposal: Panel paper
Authors:
David L. Konstantinovskiy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Simon Marginson, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Anna Smolentseva, Institute of Education, National Research University, Higher School of Economics,
Moscow, Russia
Jussi Valimaa, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Corresponding author: Simon Marginson
Corresponding author’s email: s.marginson@ioe.ac.uk
Structured Abstract:
Purpose of this paper: This paper reviews the inter-connected issues of equality/inequality in economies,
societies and higher education, in the light of the common tendency to high participation systems of higher
education. Part of the context also in many but not all countries is the growth of economic and social
inequality in the last two decades, as indicated by rising Gini coefficients, and especially by
disproportionate accumulation among people in the top 1%, and notably the top 0.01%, of the income and
wealth distribution (Piketty, 2014). The most important single factor in this growing inequality is the pattern
of wages and salaries. Notwithstanding the claims of human capital theory, it is unclear whether and if so
to what extent, higher education is implicated in the ballooning of salaries in financial and business
services. In those countries that are affected, the trend to greater social and economic inequality appears
to be associated with constraints on social mobility, and may or may not be affected also by the growing
stratification of higher education, which again is manifest in many but not all countries (see separate paper
on stratification in this panel session). Thus under some circumstances HPS may reinforce social
inequalities, or at least significantly facilitate the position of the social advantaged. At the same time, the
spread of educational participation also contributes to enhanced social inclusion, all else equal, which is
another aspect of social equity; and in some countries, not only are trends to social and economic
inequality muted or absent, there is a high level of intergenerational social mobility via higher education
(OECD, 2014). In short, both access? and, access to what? and to whom? are important questions of
policy and practice in higher education. The second and third questions are becoming relatively more
important over time. Also, as in the other HPS studies, national variations should be closely examined.
Design/methodology/approach: The analysis combines several elements: (1) a review of the concept of
equality in higher education, and its policy meanings and applications; (2) a review of trends to social and
economic inequality; (3) a review of what the research is now saying about the society/economy/higher
education nexus in relation to social stratification and inequality, in the light of the growth of participation;
(4) identification of the principal implications for higher education, when inquiries (1)-(3) are synthesised;
(5) national cases. The last will include Russia and Australia, where the evolution of both HPS has been
accompanied by a marked degree of marketization, and social and educational stratification, and Finland –
as an example of a Nordic system – where there is a continuing consensus that higher education should
be public, inclusive and of uniformly high quality, and where a high level of social mobility is sustained.
Findings: At the time of submission the paper was still in preparation and it is too early to anticipate its
findings with accuracy on a comprehensive basis. However, it is already clear that HPS differ substantially
in relation to equity. The point is not simply that there are different conceptions of equity, though that is
true and important; comparative studies using objective data indicate there are widely different social
outcomes when common indicators are used. This points to the continuing salience of national policy–
states can make a difference, despite the fact that there are also common elements affecting all HPS.
Research limitations/implications (if applicable): More national case studies would generate a better
study. The more fundamental limitation is that it is difficult to establish causality in relations between on
one hand higher education, on the other hand patterns of social and economic equality/inequality.
Practical implications: There is no single area of higher education policy that has absorbed more
attention in the last fifty years than that of social equity.
Social Implications: The topic of the paper goes to the heart of fundamental issues in the relation
between higher education and society, e.g. to what extent can higher education further social equity?
What is original/value of paper: Most of the recent work on higher education and social
stratification/equality is grounded in multi-variant analyses and is conceptually under-cooked. There is fine
work in some individual studies. However, despite the dramatic social/economic/educational shifts now
taking place in many countries, there has been little recent progress in understanding the broad historical
trends in relation to equity in higher education, and no recent conceptual developments in our
understanding of equity. By applying both a conceptual lens and a comparative lens to the problem the
paper hopes to take the discussion forward.
Keywords: National higher education systems, participation, equity, enrolment growth, stratification
References:
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2014). Education at a Glance 2014.
Paris: OECD.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, Belknap.
Biographical Details:
David L. Konstantinovskiy is Doctor of Sociology, Professor and Head of Department of Sociology of
Education at the Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. His work focuses
on education in a transition society, social inequality in education, and the relationship between the
educational system and the labour market.
Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education,
University College London, and joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education. His work is primarily focused on
globalisation and higher education, including international education and cross-border students,
comparative systems, global strategies of institutions, and university rankings.
Anna Smolentseva is a Leading Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, National Research
University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. Her work focuses on globalization and higher
education; massification, stratification and equity in higher education; research at universities; the
academic profession; higher education policy; and Russian and Post-Soviet transformations.
Jussi Välimaa is Professor of Higher Education at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research in the
University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He is responsible for leading the higher education team and the research
focus area ‘Systems of Education and Society’. He is also president of the Consortium of Higher Education
Researchers (CHER) and joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education.