Obstacles to the social mobility of higher education graduates: the persistence of gaps in access to opportunities

Abstract

Higher education, from an ideal perspective, is considered a means to generate social mobility. However, this usually does not come about without being inevitably conditioned by educational aspects in terms of knowledge and skills or prevailing economic conditions in the environment, but rather by social aspects strong enough to inhibit such a transition. We conducted abibliographic review with the aim of delving into issues of social mobility as an idealistic current to achieve educational progress, equality and justice, with which we sought to determine the obstacles faced by graduates of higher education to achieve theirpurpose. To this end, we analyzed the concepts of educationism, intelligence racism and meritocracy, as well as their relationship with social mobility, the capital theory, and the experiences of first generation students in universities. We found that having a university education does not guarantee climbing the socioeconomic ladder of a country, and that the main obstacles to social mobility have their origin in the social and institutional field, so that, in addition to educating, it is necessary to achieve changes in other spheres of public life.