The contribution of tertiary education to social mobility in Malta : a sociological analysis of the contribution of Medicine and Bachelors degree courses to social mobility in Malta

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the extent to which tertiary education in Malta is contributing to the process of upward social mobility. It focuses on two major faculties within the University of Malta- the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Arts. It tries to uncover whether the process of self-recruitment in certain 'prestigious' professions such as the medical profession is still prevalent in Malta. The hypothesis of this study is that although during the last decades, university has opened to the masses, however, 'prestigious' faculties such as the Faculty of Medicine are still characterized by a dominance of individuals coming from an elite background unlike other less 'prestigious' faculties such as the Faculty of Arts which tend to have more participants from the working-class. In order to test this hypothesis, 120 students were interviewed- 60 students who are following a course in Medicine and the other half who are following a Bachelors course. The results suggest that the initial hypothesis of this study are correct since the research shows that the majority of students following the Medicine course have one or more of their relatives in the same profession or else are in a professional occupation. On the other hand, results show that the majority of students following a Bachelors course come from a working-class background.