Equality of Opportunity

The term equality of opportunity means different things to different scholars, policy makers, and popular audiences. This article explores the concept equality of opportunity with a focus on how it is used by students of stratification and social mobility, particularly in sociology. I suggest that a narrow definition of the concept equality of opportunity is the most fruitful one to adopt. Such a definition will lead students of inequality the opportunity to focus their analyses on inequality of results and conditions, rather than debating the conditions under which inequality can be legitimated. After all, equality of opportunity is partly determined by equality of conditions, whereas equality of results is much more visible and less elusive than equality of opportunity in its many interpretations.