Beyond the Degree: Horizontal Stratification and Unequal Returns to Education

Vertical educational attainment remains central to social stratification and mobility, but inequalities are also shaped by differentiation within educational levels and by the pathways individuals follow through education. This session examines how horizontal educational distinctions — including field of study, curriculum composition, institutional sector, skill formation, school-to-work linkages and culturally valued academic resources — influence occupational destinations, earnings, status attainment and mobility chances. We invite papers that analyse how educational credentials, skills and pathways are evaluated and rewarded in labour markets, and how these processes vary by social origin, gender, migration background, race/ethnicity and other axes of inequality. Contributions may focus on secondary or tertiary education, incomplete educational trajectories, school-to-work transitions, early-career experiences, overeducation, occupational mismatch or changing returns to educational specialisation. We particularly welcome comparative, longitudinal, administrative-data, survey-based, computational or mixed-methods studies that connect horizontal educational differentiation to broader processes of social reproduction and mobility.