Resumo

GARRIGA OLMO, Santiago. The contradiction between statistics and practices: towards new study approaches to analyze inequality in higher education. InterCambios [online]. 2023, vol.10, n.1, pp.65-75.  Epub 01-Jun-2023. ISSN 2301-0118.  https://doi.org/10.29156/inter.10.1.7.

In the last two decades, Latin America has experienced an explosion in student enrollment at the higher education level, which has given rise to an “access revolution”. However, inequalities persist among students according to their social origin, which are mainly reflected in graduation.

In this article we reflect on the need to incorporate new approaches and objects of study to analyze educational inequality. In this sense, we develop arguments that justify the importance of carrying out analyses that incorporate new perspectives to understand, not the reasons why students from disadvantaged social backgrounds drop out of school, but their flip side: the “successful” cases. That is to say, trajectories and experiences of students who, in unfavorable conditions, achieve their degree.

First, we present a description of the last two decades in which the participation of the Latin American population in higher education and the incorporation of “new” students increased. Secondly, and based on secondary statistical sources, we describe the situation in which, despite the improvement of some indicators and upward social mobility, educational inequalities persist in higher education: inequality between countries, within countries and among students. Finally, some concepts from studies with a multidimensional approach to inequality are used to reflect on the conceptual frameworks that contribute to the analysis of this phenomenon in the field of education.

Palavras-chave : inequality; higher education; students; Latin America.

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