Rob Gruijters

I am a quantitative sociologist working in the field of comparative and international education. My work is characterised by an in-depth engagement with sociological theory and the political economy of development, in contrast to the ‘what works’ approach inherent in much of the quantitative development literature. My research often takes a comparative perspective, using a variety of cross-national and longitudinal data sources. In other projects, I have combined administrative data and qualitative interviews to analyse education policy at the national level, working in close collaboration with partner organisations in the Global South. As an illustration, the recently completed project “What Can We Learn from Ghana’s Free Senior High School Policy” (funded by the British Academy) conducts a mixed-method evaluation of Ghana's secondary school fee abolition. Much of my current research focuses on educational inequality and its relationship with school segregation and the growth of private schooling. For example, a recent publication analyses school segregation by race and class in South Africa, using a combination of school survey and census data. As part of this project, I developed a new method for visualising patterns of multi-group segregation, the ‘segplot’. A second research strand examines young adults’ work-family life courses and the problem of graduate unemployment in low- and middle-income contexts, building on ongoing research projects in Senegal and elsewhere. This work seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of the returns to education in countries characterised by high social inequality and a lack of formal sector jobs. I am also interested in the effects of China’s ‘Great Transformation’ on educational and socioeconomic outcomes. I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students with shared research interests.

[01/03/2026] Young adult life courses in the Global South [20/11/2025] Growth Mindset and Socioeconomic Inequality in Academic Achievement Across Seventy-Three PISA Countries [25/02/2025] The intended and unintended effects of secondary school fee abolition [28/11/2025] Deficit‐Oriented Teacher Beliefs and Student Outcomes in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries [01/10/2024] A lost land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational educational mobility in China