Academic kinship refers to the relationship between teachers and students and academic factions in education and scientific research. Intuitively speaking, it means which academic school you teach in and which university you study in, that is, the source of academic qualifications.

Academic marginal structure, that is, academic marginal composition, refers to the proportion of people who have obtained the same (or similar) academic qualifications (or degrees) from different schools or scientific research units in an educational unit (mostly departments, teaching and research departments and research institutes of colleges and universities).