IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijlica/v18y2021i4p421-437.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Patterns of inequality in higher education: the case of students' field choice

Author

Listed:
  • Fekadu Mulugeta Asfaw

Abstract

In an expanding higher education system that focuses on access, understanding the dynamics of inequality in the effort to provide educational opportunity to the majority is central. The main objective of this study is to investigate the pattern of field choice and the factors that influence students' field choice in two purposefully selected colleges. A total of 125 first-year students, 45 from the law school in the College of Law and Governance and 80 from language departments (one foreign and one local language department) in College of Humanities, Language Studies, Journalism and Communication (CHLSJC) participated in the study. The result indicated that students in the law school have better socio-economic status and achievement than the students in the language departments. Similarly, students in the law school seem to consider practical factors while students in the CHLSJC consider interpersonal factors as most influential in their field choice. The existing differences in the students' background and the factors they considered in their field choice process are found to be a continuation of prior inequalities and that they further perpetuate inequality in the higher education system in Ethiopia.

Suggested Citation

  • Fekadu Mulugeta Asfaw, 2021. "Patterns of inequality in higher education: the case of students' field choice," International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 18(4), pages 421-437.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijlica:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:421-437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=118406
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijlica:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:421-437. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=86 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.