Sociological Analysis of Distribution of High Education Opportunities in Iran (exams from 2001 - 2005)

This article discusses the democratization of access to higher education opportunities in Iran. Access to educational opportunities was studied through exploring the scores the national university entrance exams. The main research question was: "How the inequality in access to higher education opportunities is explained?" To solve this problem, we constructed a theoretical model on the basis of capital theory: Access to higher educational opportunities is the function of modernization of parents’ economic and cultural capital. The results showed that cultural capital weight in access to educational opportunities, is more than that of economic capital.