Seminar details:
- 🗣️ Jani Erola, Professor of Sociology at the University of Turku, Director of the INVEST Research Flagship Center, and the Mapineq project leader
- 📆 Wednesday, 10 December 2025, 13:00 -14:00 (CET)
Summary:
Education is often seen as Europe’s strongest tool for ensuring opportunity and social mobility. Yet despite decades of expansion in access and attainment, large gaps in outcomes persist across generations, regions, and social groups. What can education truly achieve—and where does its power to equalise life chances reach its limits?
This final online seminar marks the launch of the Mapineq White Paper, a major synthesis of comparative research on social mobility and inequality of opportunity across Europe. The event will explore how education systems shape—and sometimes fail to overcome—social divides from early childhood to adulthood.
The speaker will also discuss what the evidence tells us about the effectiveness of education policies, how family background continues to influence outcomes, and what complementary measures are needed to build a fairer and more resilient Europe.