Beyond Universities: Structural Stratification in Canadian Tertiary Education.

Area of Science:

• Sociology of Education
• Higher Education Studies
• Organizational Stratification

Background:

• Existing research on tertiary education stratification primarily focuses on universities.
• This overlooks significant sectors like community colleges, private career colleges, and theological institutions.
• Cross-sectoral analyses are historically limited by data availability and methodological challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To re-examine structural stratification across diverse Canadian tertiary education sectors.
• To compare stratification levels between universities, community colleges, private career colleges, and theological institutions.
• To identify potential mechanisms driving observed stratification patterns.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a custom web-scraped dataset of over 600 Canadian tertiary education organizations.
• Employed social media followings as a proxy for organizational social status.
• Conducted a cross-sectoral analysis of structural stratification.

Main Results:

• Private career colleges demonstrate the highest level of structural stratification.
• Stratification levels in community colleges and universities are nearly identical.
• Theological institutions exhibit the lowest levels of structural stratification.
• Observed stratification patterns vary significantly across the four analyzed sectors.

Conclusions:

• Structural stratification in Canadian tertiary education is sector-specific and more complex than previously understood.
• Factors such as mission drift, sector straddling, market exposure, and community embeddedness may influence stratification.
• Findings necessitate a broader, cross-sectoral approach to understanding higher education organizational fields.