Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T22:13:37.730Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Educational Expansion and Social Mobility: The Scottish Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2011

Cristina Iannelli
Cristina Iannelli*
Affiliation:
The Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK E-mail: c.iannelli@ed.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For over a century, the goal of reducing class inequalities in educational attainment has been based at least in part on the belief that this would help to equalise life chances. Drawing upon the main findings of three ESRC-funded projects, this paper reviews the empirical evidence on trends in social class inequalities in educational attainment and the role of education in promoting social mobility in Scotland. The findings show that in the second half of the twentieth century, despite the increase in overall levels of attainment, class differences in educational attainment persisted. Educational policies in Scotland supported educational expansion which allowed larger numbers of working-class children to climb the social class ladder than in the past. However, these did not translate into any break with the patterns of social inequalities in the chances of entering the top-level occupations. The conclusions highlight that educational policies on their own are not powerful enough to change patterns of social mobility which are mainly driven by labour market and social class structures.

Type
Themed Section on Equality and Human Rights in Britain
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 251 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agresti, A. (1990), Categorical Data Analysis, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Benn, C. and Chitty, C. (1996), Thirty Years On, London: David Fulton.Google Scholar
Blossfeld, H. P. and Shavit, Y. (1993), ‘Persisting barriers: changes in educational opportunities in thirteen countries’, in Shavit, Y. and Blossfeld, H. P. (eds.), Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Breen, R. (ed.) (2004), Social Mobility in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breen, R. and Goldthorpe, J. H. (1999), ‘Class inequality and meritocracy: a critique of Saunders and an alternative analysis’, British Journal of Sociology, 50, 1, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobalti, A. and Schizzerotto, A. (1994), La Mobilità Sociale in Italia: L'Influenza dei Fattori di Diseguaglianza sul Destino Educativo, Professionale e Sociale dei Singoli nel nostro Paese, Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Croxford, L. (2001), ‘School differences and social segregation: comparison between England, Wales and Scotland’, Education Review, 15, 1, 68–73.Google Scholar
Erikson, R. and Jonsson, J. O. (1996), Can Education Be Equalized?, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990), The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Forsyth, A. and Furlong, A. (2000), Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Access to Higher Education, Bristol: The Policy Press in association with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. (1996), ‘Class analysis and the reorientation of-class theory: the case of persisting differentials in educational attainment’, British Journal of Sociology, 47, 3, 481–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. and Mills, C. (2004), ‘Trends in intergenerational-class mobility in Britain in the Late Twentieth Century’, in Breen, R. (ed.), Social Mobility in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 195–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. and Jackson, M. (2007), ‘Intergenerational-class mobility in contemporary Britain: political concerns and empirical findings’, British Journal of Sociology, 58, 4, 525–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, J., McPherson, A. and Raffe, D. (1983), Reconstructions of Secondary Education: Theory, Myth and Practice Since the War, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grusky, D. (1983), ‘Industrialization and the status attainment process: the thesis of industrialism reconsidered’, American Sociological Review, 48, 4, 494–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halsey, A. H., Heath, A. F. and Ridge, J. M. (1980), Origins and Destinations: Family, Class and Education in Modern Britain, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hannan, D., Hövels, B., Van Den Berg, S. and White, M. (1995), ‘Early leavers from education and training in Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom’, European Journal of Education, 30, 3, 325–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, A. and Clifford, P. (1990), ‘Class inequalities in education in the twentieth century’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 153, 1, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, A. (2000), ‘The political arithmetic tradition in the sociology of education’, Oxford Review of Education, 26, 3–4, 313–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howieson, C. and Iannelli, C. (2008), ‘The effects of low attainment on young people's outcomes at age 22–23 in Scotland’, British Educational Research Journal, 34, 2, 269–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannelli, C. (2006), ‘Rates and patterns of intragenerational class mobility’, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (unpublished paper).Google Scholar
Iannelli, C. and Paterson, L. (2006) ‘Social mobility in Scotland since the middle of the twentieth century’, Sociological Review, 54, 3, 520–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannelli, C. (2007), ‘Inequalities in entry to higher education: a comparison over time between Scotland and England and Wales’, Higher Education Quarterly, 61, 3, 306–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannelli, C. and Paterson, L. (2007), ‘Education and social mobility in Scotland’. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 25, 3, 219–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannelli, C. (2008), ‘Expansion and social selection in education in England and Scotland’, Oxford Review of Education, 34, 2, 179–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannelli, C., Gamoran, A. and Paterson, L. (2008), ‘Inclusion versus diversion in higher education: implications of different modes of expansion for equality of opportunity’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility, Florence, 15–17 May.Google Scholar
Jackson, M., Goldthorpe, J. and Mills, C. (2005), ‘Education, employers and class mobility’, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 23, 1, 3–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerckhoff, A. C. (1993), Diverging Pathways: Social Structure and Career Deflections, New York and London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kerckhoff, A., Fogelman, K., Crook, D. and Reeder, D. (1996), Going Comprehensive in England and Wales: A Study of Uneven Change, London: The Woburn Press.Google Scholar
Kerr, C., Dunlop, J. T., Harbison, F. H. and Myers, C. A. (1960/1973), Industrialism and Industrial Man: The Problems of Labour and the Management of Economic Growth, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lucas, S. R. (2001), ‘Effectively maintained inequality: education transitions, track mobility, and social background effects’, American Journal of Sociology, 106, 6, 1642–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCoy, S. (2000), ‘Relative labour market disadvantage among the least qualified in Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands and Sweden’, in CATEWE, A Comparative Analysis of Transitions from Education to Work in Europe – Based on National School Leavers Surveys, report to the European Commission.Google Scholar
McPherson, A. and Raab, C. D. (1988), Governing Education: A Sociology of Policy since 1945, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Müller, W. and Shavit, Y. (1998), ‘The institutional embeddedness of the stratification process: a comparative study of qualifications and occupations in thirteen countries’, in Shavit, Y. and Müller, W. (eds.), From School to Work: A Comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–48.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. (1994), ‘Equality and inequality in modern society, or social stratification revisited’, in Grusky, D. (ed.), Social Stratification: Class, Race and Gender in Sociological Perspective, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 670–85.Google Scholar
Paterson, L. (1997), ‘Trends in higher education participation in Scotland’, Higher Education Quarterly, 51, 1, 29–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paterson, L. and Iannelli, C. (2007), ‘Social class and educational attainment: a comparative study of England, Wales and Scotland’, Sociology of Education, 80, 4, 330–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, G. and Roberts, J. (2002), ‘Opening and closing the gates: recent developments in male social mobility in Britain’, Sociological Research Online, 6, 4, http://www.socresonline.org.uk/6/4/payne.html.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, S. and Whitty, G. (2008), ‘Graduating and graduations within the middle class: the legacy of an elite higher education’, Working Paper 118, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University.Google Scholar
Raffe, D., Brannen, K., Croxford, L. and Martin, C. (1999), ‘Comparing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: the case for “home internationals” in comparative research’, Comparative Education, 35, 1, 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raftery, A. E. and Hout, M. (1993), ‘Maximally maintained inequality: expansion, reform and opportunity in Irish education 1921–75’, Sociology of Education, 66, 1, 41–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saunders, P. (1995), ‘Might Britain be a meritocracy’, Sociology, 29, 1, 23–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shavit, Y. and Blossfeld, H. P. (1993), Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Shavit, Y. and Müller, W. (1998), From School to Work: A Comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shavit, Y. and Müller, W. (2000), ‘Vocational secondary education: where diversion and where safety net?’, European Societies, 2, 1, 29–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E. and Gorard, S. (2002), ‘What does PISA tell us about equity in education systems?’, Occasional Paper Series Paper 54, School of Social Science, Cardiff University.Google Scholar
Thurow, L. C. (1975), Generating Inequality, London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinklin, T. (2000), ‘The influence of social background on application and entry to higher education in Scotland: a multilevel analysis’, Higher Education Quarterly, 54, 4, 367–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, D. J. (1970), ‘Industrialization and social stratification’, in Laumann, E. O. (ed.), Social Stratification: Research and Theory for the 1970s, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, pp. 207–34.Google Scholar
Van de Werfhorst, H. G., Sullivan, A. and Cheung Sin, Yi (2003), ‘Social class, ability and choice of subject in secondary and tertiary education in Britain’, British Educational Research Journal, 29, 11, 41–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, A. (2002), Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, London: Penguin.Google Scholar