Jesper Fels Birkelund

Short presentation

The purpose of my PhD project is to investigate the role of education and the educational system in processes of social inequality. I investigate to which extent educational attainment is the key to understanding processes of social mobility and social reproduction, and I examine the role of the organization of educational systems in maintaining or reducing social inequalities.

The PhD is part of the international LIFETRACK project – funded by the European research collaboration NORFACE – which aims to answer how and why different educational systems, and in particular their various modes of sorting students into educational tracks, influence social inequalities over the life course. My supervisor is Kristian B. Karlson.

Primary fields of research

Social inequality, intergenerational mobility, sociology of education, social marginalization, applied microeconometrics