Social Class and Educational Inequality in South Korea

Abstract

This chapter applies log-linear models to investigate the effects of fathers' social class on children's educational attainment in South Korea. It shows that with respect to educational attainment, the middle class is the most privileged class among four social classes: the capitalist class, the petty bourgeoisie, the middle class, and the working class. The middle class has the highest odds of going to a general high school instead of a vocational high school. The ratio of children of the middle class who go to general high school rather than to vocational school is even larger than that for the capitalist class, let alone the petty bourgeoisie and the working class. However, the odds of going to university instead of not going to university or to a two-year college decrease for all social classes imply that fathers' class effect on children's transition after high school is weaker than that during the transition from middle school to high school. Children of the middle class are more likely to advance to university than those of other classes. © Oxford University Press, 2014.