Alex Chow

My research is concerned with the debate on higher education’s role as “the great equalizer” amidst recent events that have subjected the institution’s fairness to increased scrutiny, including criticisms of discriminatory admission processes, over-involved parenting, and credential inflation. As such my research questions include: What is the role of higher education in both alleviating and perpetuating social inequality? What is the effect of educational expansion on social inequality and mobility? Will this relationship play out similarly in the West, where high school education is nearing universality, as it will in other countries currently undergoing educational transformations? How do different educational policies, such as high stakes testing or early stratification and selection, affect this relationship? To answer these questions, I make use of statistical and computational methods to examine longitudinal trends and cross-national comparisons of educational inequality.