Transmisión intergeneracional y composición social de la población estudiantil universitaria española: cambios y continuidades

Abstract

The article analyzes the changes and continuities of the social composition of Spanish university students taking into account their social and family backgrounds. The central question is whether the significant increase in the number of university students met in Spain in recent decades, and their increasing diversity, would have been accompanied by a deeper democratization of its composition, as well as by a simple or relative mobility. More specifically, we examine the weight of students who come from families with low educational level or occupational status on the one hand, or higher or tertiary education and high occupation of another. Moreover, relative social mobility is analyzed by contrasting the educational or occupational level of student’s parents with the percentage of "potential parent" of the general population. The aim is to determine whether there exists an under-representation of students with low parental education or low occupational levels, on one hand, oran overrepresentation of those whose parents have high levels in both variables, on the other hand. The analysis is based mainly on data from the fourth wave of Eurostudent in 2010 and in its contrast with those obtained in Eurostudent III, referring to 2007. The analysis shows continuities that are linked to the persistence of situations of over-representation and under-representation, although in many cases they have been tempered by the simple or relative social mobility experienced in this area.