Educational Inequality Based on Social Origin

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Sociology - Social System, Social Structure, Class, Social Stratification, grade: 1,7, University of Würzburg, language: English, abstract: The text deals with the topic of 'educational inequality due to social origin'. In the first chapter, I will first delineate the terms 'educational inequality' and 'social origin' in the sociological sense. The next chapter introduces the consequences of educational inequalities before I present the causes of these educational inequalities in the third chapter and briefly explain each in order to give an overview of the situation today. The fourth chapter then deals with some theoretical approaches that try to explain educational inequalities based on social background. Here, too, my main aim is to give an overview of this complex topic and to elaborate the points that are most important to me. I would like to conclude my introductory remarks with a quote from Max Weber, the content of which unfortunately still corresponds to the facts, if not more so than ever: 'Differences in education are today (...) undoubtedly the most important class-forming difference (...). Differences in education are - no matter how much one may regret it - one of the very strongest purely internally acting social barriers.'