BiPol Workshop #6: Educated Parents, Educated Children?

The education system often seems free and fair – at least that’s how it’s suggested. Differences and grievances therefore often remain unnoticed and hidden.
Education is traded as a valuable asset of society. By individualizing success and failure, structural conditions and mechanisms are obscured and made invisible. Achievements are declared as individual abilities or inabilities. Failure stigmatized as personal failure. At universities, access restrictions and funding problems were and are the main topics of discussion. At the same time, the topics are not very complex. Invariably, the issues are a lack of adequate funding, too many students, and poor support ratios.
Although the level of education has risen in Austria in recent years, equal opportunities still do not exist. Students from non-academic backgrounds remain underrepresented. Education is still “inherited”. There are various reasons for this: School choice and support by parents as well as later lack of financial support.
In the workshop, we want to look at the inheritance of education and the social selection that goes along with it, consider different dimensions, discuss effects and discuss possibilities for action.
Torsten Bultmann is political director of the Federation of Democratic Scientists (BdWi) with a focus on education and science policy. He publishes widely on problems of educational policy and higher education development.

Participation is free of charge and open to all interested persons. Refreshment is provided on site.

Unfortunately, the premises are not completely barrier-free. Please contact us with any further questions: bipol@oeh.ac.at