Keynote Speaker:

Photo by Fangqi Wen at 2012 RC28 Spring Meeting

Prof Donald J. Treiman
(University of California, Los Angeles)


Biography

Donald J. TREIMAN is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of California at   Los Angeles (UCLA) and is now Research Professor there. He is spending the fall term, 2012, at the   National University of Singapore as Visiting Research Professor. His Ph.D. is from the University of   Chicago (1967). Prof. Treiman’s research interests include social demography and cross-national and   cross-temporal comparisons of systems of social inequality. His keynote presentation will be drawn   from this line of research. His current research is focused on internal migration in China.

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Educational Expansion and
Educational Achievement in Comparative Perspective

從比較角度看教育擴展與教育成就

Abstract

We carry out an analysis of societal variations in the process of educational attainment using a multilevel modeling strategy to assess how societal modernization, educational expansion, educational inequality, a world-wide secular trend toward greater equality of opportunity, and communist educational policies affect the dependence of educational attainment on parental status and the gender gap in educational attainment. Using data from about 50 societies, we define five-year school cohorts ranging from the late 19th century through the late 20th century and carry out our analysis based on the several hundred “contexts” (created by crossing cohort by country) for which we have adequate data. We develop arguments as to why educational reproduction should be reduced by educational expansion but reinforced by educational inequality and as to why the level of education should increase and the gender gap diminish with societal modernization and over time, and we pose several claims regarding the impact of communism on equality of educational opportunity. Our hypotheses are generally confirmed.