Unequal access to law school: a study of gender and class in Colombia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between the quality of legal education in Colombia and the gender and socio-economic status of law students. This paper shows that women with low economic capital tend to be the most disadvantaged because they can neither afford the best private law programs nor pass the admission tests of the best public programs. By contrast, upper-class women are guaranteed access to high-quality education because they have the economic capital to enter the best private programs without having to overcome major academic filters. Given that most law students have limited economic resources, one could say that the feminization of legal education has been achieved at the expense of lower-class women who are forced to study in low-quality programs. In this regard, Colombian legal education reproduces gender and class inequalities instead of reducing them.