The education market and the reproduction of social inequalities in Québec
The purpose of this article is to show how the stratification of the Québec education market contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities in higher education. The results obtained from a sample (N = 2,677) of a cohort of students born in 1984 and observed up to the age of 22, highlight that the influence of social origin operates in large part via mediation of the type of institution attended. Students enrolled in private or public institutions with enriched programs (in mathematics, science or languages) are significantly more likely to access college and university education than their peers who attended a public institution offering only regular programs. The additional analyses reveal that the probability of attending a private or public institution with enriched programs is strongly correlated with the student’s social origin.