ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on students and the mention of university personnel. It discusses the concepts of differentiation and stratification. The chapter focuses on gender and social class and their interactions. It describes why young people tend to choose fields of knowledge similar to their parents and reproduce similar patterns of horizontal and vertical differentiation. Higher education now encompasses a variety of institutions from polytechnics to centres of excellence, which offer a great variety of courses and study programmes. Geographical proximity to a higher education institution is important for working-class students. In order to attract these students, higher education institutions have been established in smaller cities. Students from higher social classes have always had an advantage in both access to higher education and the choice of studies. The demand from the labour market has changed and the educational system has to some extent accommodated this change.
