Higher Education and Reproduction of Distinctions: the small and the large door to Greek Higher Education

The aim of the article is to highlight the new forms of inequality observed in higher education, beyond inequalities in access, which are no longer sufficient to explain the unequal opportunities and prospects for young people in terms of educational and professional advancement. The argument put forward here is that as higher education becomes increasingly massified, the offspring of the most privileged social strata succeed in differentiating themselves by developing new forms of educational strategies, thereby securing the most sought-after positions within prestigious schools and programs in higher education.

As a result, new inequalities are added to the well-known educational disparities, this time emerging within the institutions of higher education. These distinctions are observed both within the same level of studies (at the undergraduate level, between universities, fields of study, and academic departments) and between different levels of studies, such as between undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

This study focuses on the latter, making an initial attempt to explore the inequalities that arise between different levels of study—namely, between undergraduate and postgraduate education. It demonstrates that there is a clear relationship between the social background of students and their continuation to postgraduate studies, taking into account both the field of study and the university they attend.