Equity, Differentiation and Affirmative Action in Higher Education

• In Event: 67.014 - Higher Education in Its Policy Contexts— Issues for Research Worldwide (WERA@10)

Abstract

When participation rates in tertiary education rise all over the world the problem of inequality is addressed from the perspective of the double-side differentiation. At the supply side, Higher Education Landscape (HEI) is differentiated: disparities now manifest themselves through uneven redistribution of chances in the context of single-purpose/multiversity mission, private/public, online/traditional, world-class/mass absorption characteristics of HEIs. At the demand side, the spread of higher education advances boundary of inclusion into higher education in most of the countries, moving down the socio-economic hierarchy and taking in geographical regions and members of groups that were previously underrepresented or excluded. States has to more actively adjust access to HE by matching requests of a growing number of social groups with new species of universities. We review in cross-country comparison how states reinvent affirmative actions and act as “catcher in the rye”, matching two complexities, the social and the market one.

Author

• Sergey Malinovskiy, National Research University, Russia