ABSTRACT

An educational system structured along the lines in a stratified society–Soviet or non-Soviet–has a strong tendency to transmit economic and social inequalities across generations even when all levels of schooling are tuition free. The completion of the eighth grade of the general-education school marks the attainment of an "incomplete secondary education" in the Soviet Union. The policy of implementing "universal" secondary education since the mid-1960s, although not yet wholly successful, has obviously operated to reduce inequalities in the amount of schooling received by youngsters of differing social origins. Soviet reactions to the problem of social inequalities in access to higher education have reflected a clash between "egalitarian" and "meritocratic" orientations. The "social regulation" of the student population–justified in earlier years–was inappropriate in a developed socialist society which "had attained full equality of rights for its citizens whatever their social position and social origin".