ABSTRACT
Patterns of inequality within and between countries depend partly on the institutional context of these countries: that is, the internal structure of their educational systems, the relationships between the different parts of these structures, and the connections between education and the world of work. The aim of this chapter is to consider these institutional contexts on a macroscopic level, first classifying educational systems in terms of factors such as the degree of stratification they contain, then exploring the relationship between systemic features and educational opportunity. The chapter concludes by discussing evidence pertinent to an important institutional debate within the English school system: the question of the impact of grammar schools on educational inequality.
