Abstract

This research describes the sociodemographic and educational reality of the 2018 admission cohort of the Universidad Catolica del Norte, Chile,in order to identify possible variables associated with the social mobility of these students and lay the foundations for their monitoring from a qualitative perspective.The problem acquires relevance within the framework of current educational trends worldwide and in relation to the characteristics of the Chilean social structure.In this regard, the literature identifies three types of mobility used for the present analysis: structural, relative intragenerational and relative intergenerational. This correlational descriptive, cross-sectional quantitative type study used probability sampling (n = 430) of university students who answered a institutional characterization survey. Among the main findings is a high presence of low-income first-generation students or whose parents do not have university studies, a group made up mostly of women. These variables could be mainly related to intergenerational social mobility. It is concluded that social mobility is a fertile area for research within the university, complementing the information on academic trajectories and allowing the university institutions to be placed with respect to their educational inclusion policies.