Widened Participation and Unequal Access to the System of Higher Education in Denmark: What drives this double pattern?

This paper deals with access to Higher Education (HE), more specifically with social differentiation within Danish university field of studies and institutions. We use Danish register data and investigate choice of field of study and choice of university institution while controlling for a range of student background variables. Theoretically we draw on notions of forms of capital and of channelling, diversion and effectively maintained inequality in the educational system. We find that it is important to differentiate not only between fields of studies, but also between university institutions, in explaining the processes of inequality and differentiation in the Danish University system. Here two dimensions are important: the university institutions degree of social selectivity and whether it is has a ‘classic’ university profile (liberal arts) or a more ‘modern’ applied-oriented profile.This paper deals with access to Higher Education (HE), more specifically with social differentiation within Danish university field of studies and institutions. We use Danish register data and investigate choice of field of study and choice of university institution while controlling for a range of student background variables. Theoretically we draw on notions of forms of capital and of channelling, diversion and effectively maintained inequality in the educational system. We find that it is important to differentiate not only between fields of studies, but also between university institutions, in explaining the processes of inequality and differentiation in the Danish University system. Here two dimensions are important: the university institutions degree of social selectivity and whether it is has a ‘classic’ university profile (liberal arts) or a more ‘modern’ applied-oriented profile