Educational stratification in 21st century Brazil

Abstract

This article focuses on educational stratification in Brazil in the first decade of the 21st century. It discusses the main approaches and empirical models for the theme in Brazil and the world in general. With effectively maintained inequality as the principal reference, the study tests hypotheses for the Brazilian case using multinomial logistic regression models that analyze the odds of finishing secondary school and entering the university (government or private), based on data from the National Household Sample Surveys (PNADs) for the years 2001, 2004, and 2007. The main results point to the persistence or even increase in the impact of social origins on access to higher education as compared to secondary school, in addition to the recrudescence of such inequalities in the early 21st century. Although the private university system is more unequal than the public system, the latter has shown a considerable increase in educational stratification. Inequalities based on geographic region, race, gender, and social capital are also present.