Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies

This research examines educational stratification cross-nationally through the context of German division and unity. Drawing on representative German Social Survey (ALLBUS) data from 1991-1998 on cohorts schooled in the 1980s and 1990s, the analysis explores educational inequality at the secondary school level with respect to social origins and gender in four settings: the late state socialist German Democratic Republic, the immediate pre-unification setting Federal Republic of Germany, and the two halves of a now-united Germany. The paper includes a discussion of possible underlying reasons for the major finding of the descriptive analysis: a lack of variation in the parameters of educational inequality, despite varied and changing institutions and ideologies.