How characteristics of educational systems produce educational inequalities, i.e. systematic variations in educational attainment, along different axes of inequality (social origin, gender) became a major research issue of comparative educational sociology. This question is also highly relevant for educational policies. There are certain macro factors of education systems under consideration by educational researchers: stratification, vocational specificity, degree of standardisation of schooling, teacher education and educational certificates as well as the existence of programmes to increase permeability into higher education. This conference paper focuses on the most prominent characteristic of education systems: the degree of stratification. This feature of education systems is strongly linked to educational transitions, as stratification degree comprises age of selection in regard to the transition from primary to secondary school and the number of tracks (secondary schooling). Although there is a debate on the consequences of a high stratification level, most studies indicate that highly stratified education systems are characterised by stronger educational inequalities, for example a stronger link between social origin and educational attainment.

Beside the conceptual issue of if and how education system characteristics impact educational inequalities, there is also a methodological issue: How to analyse this link? From a critical rationalist perspective, there is still no ideal strategy to figure out the system-inequalities link. Comparative educational sociology follows two strategies: On the one hand, following a less-is-more strategy (Ebbinghaus 2005) and focusing on a few country cases to take a closer look at different cohorts can provide a holistic picture of stability and change (Breen et al. 2010), but it is questionable if conclusions about the role of system characteristics can be drawn from such results. On the other hand, researchers see a potential in multilevel modelling attempting to receive an insight into the effects of macro characteristics of the education system on advantages and disadvantages in educational attainment on the micro level from large comparative data-sets (cf. Bol and van de Werfhorst 2013; Hadjar and Berger 2011; Griga and Hadjar 2014).

The conference paper attempts to analyse the link between stratification and educational inequalities along the axis of social origin. Dealing with this research issue, results will be derived from the two mentioned strategies using data of the European Social Survey: Study 1 includes a comparison of four European countries with distinct education systems in regard to cohort-specific educational inequalities. Study 2 centers on a multilevel analysis of many European countries to figure out the impact of certain macro variables of the education system on the micro level inequalities related to social origin.

Breen, Richard, Luijkx, Ruud, Müller, Walter and Pollak, Reinhard (2010) ‘Long-term Trends in Educational Inequality in Europe’, European Sociological Review 26: 31-48. Bol, Thijs, and van de Werfhorst, Herman (2013) ‘Educational Systems and the trade-off between labor market allocation and equality of educational opportunity’, Comparative Education Review 57: 285-308. Ebbinghaus, Bernhard (2005) ‘When Less is More: Selection Problems in Large-N and Small-N Cross-national Comparisons’, International Sociology 20: 133-152 Griga, Dorit and Hadjar, Andreas (2014) ‘Migrant Background and Higher Education Participation in Europe: The Effect of the Educational Systems’, European Sociological Review 30: 175-186. Hadjar, Andreas and Berger, Joël (2011) ‘Geschlechtsspezifische Bildungsungleichheiten in Europa‘, in Andreas Hadjar (ed.), Geschlechtsspezifische Bildungsungleichheiten, Wiesbaden: VS, pp. 23-54.