Snedrekryteringens dimensioner : En kartläggning av forskningstraditioner inom studiet av sociala gruppers ojämlika deltagande i nordisk högre utbildning

Sammanfattning: The following study categorises, summarises and analyses research on unequal participation of social groups in Nordic higher education. While it does not give an exhaustive account of all research, the ambition has been to capture the main strands of contemporary literature and its results. I categorise the literature into three main research traditions, as well as into studies that may best be characterised by their object of study. This typology forms the structure in which research is presented in the study. The summary of research results show that in parallel with the efforts to expand higher education and include larger parts of the population, the relationship between family background and children’s years of education has weakened and the rate of participation in higher education has increased among underrepresented groups. At the same time, however, patterns where students tend to study different study programmes or at different higher education institutions depending on gender and social or national background have remained largely intact, and in some cases even grown stronger. These differences in participation rates and enrolment patterns can be traced to inequalities in school achievement, unequal access to knowledge and information, differences in family support and expectations from the social environment, different horizons of opportunities, as well as different preferences regarding the length of the study programme, its degree of labour market connection and the importance placed on the geographical proximity to family and friends. One of the contributions of the analysis is showing how questions and methods in different research traditions generate different types of results, which at first glance may seem incompatible. Upon closer inspection, however, the research results in fact paint a highly congruent picture. A consistent theme throughout is how more detailed, multidimensional or intersectional indicators and classifications of education, social background or other social groupings often reveal important differences and inequalities that are invisible in studies that use more aggregated or linear indicators and groupings.