Education and social mobility- the evidence?

It’s a pity that both Andrew Neil here and my old chum Thersites here and here  limit their comments on education and social mobility to  their own personal experiences.

Now, I’m not for a minute devaluing these observations, but like most, if not all, anecdotal evidence, its value to policy makers is somewhat limited.

Their argument runs like this.

Both have parents who slaved to provide school fees to give their kids a leg up. Both were able to accept this offer, and both benefited richly. Now, it appears, these advantages have been largely  destroyed or, with the help of the present political élites, are in the process of being destroyed. They conclude that the increase upward social mobility or the “barriers between classes”- Neil seems to neglect “downward mobility”- had begun to “solidify”.

Both are in Peter Hitchens land. There was never a golden age when a significant number of “council house kids” marched to the local grammar or independent schools, whilst their parents, like characters from the Lowry painting- “Home from the Mill” clasped in their blistered hands  wage packets groaning with Dotheboys fees! There were some, as there are today. But the numbers were small.

The question that is not addressed is the extent to which education is linked to social mobility. And there’s no need just to look at anecdotal evidence; there’s loads of research. And that suggests it is not only too easy to overstate the importance of education's  role, but also how that  role could be dwindling. The evidence, both Neil and Thersites neglect, can be found here (pdf) in a No 10 Discussion Paper entitled "Social Mobility", and here (again pdf), in a paper from the L.S.E,  "Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America", funded by the Sutton Trust.

The LSE research shows clearly, “using a variety of identification techniques, that family income in the childhood years does make a genuine difference to educational outcomes, rather than reflecting other aspects, which differ across families”.

As I finished reading the last paper I wondered, perhaps mischievously, whether in a country with such entrenched hierarchies, we really want social mobility at all. Are we not just paying lip service to  breaking down Neil’s “barriers between classes”?

Comments

[EU Serf]

We should accept that whatever system you put in place, the middle classes take advantage of it.

At least if the advantage is implicit (selection) there will be a chance for working class kids as well.

Its the hidden bias (house prices) that is the worst of all worlds.

[Tony Hatfield]

It's the hypocrisy that gets me. Despite the rhetoric the outcomes suggest we are not all that interested in encouraging social mobility.
t

[APL]

TH: "..the outcomes suggest we are not all that interested in encouraging social mobility."

Who are we?

[Tony Hatfield]

Apl,
The same we "who should accept whatever system......"!
t

[Thersites]

Tony: Many thanks for this erudite reply to an imperfect post based upon anecdote. I suppose Andrew Neil's post struck a cord with me, both of us from working-class parents, and how the lack of reliable and quality education led to financial hardship for my parents.

I am in no way looking to deny clever or gifted working-class children from having the opportunities they should have, quite the opposite in fact: I can hardly deny my roots. We have had 60 years of planned State education so why are we in the situation of having some of the highest functional illiteracy rates in the OECD? Why do parents have to pay twice, once through taxes and again through fees, to try to ensure the best education for their children?

I don't deny the evidence you have so helpfully found for us. I also recognise my post was based on anecdote and therefore the least reliable form of evidence, but I hope the points I've raised are worth answering.

[dearieme]

Neil, remember, speaks as a Scot, where the "lad o' pairts" has been a recognised phenomenon for two or three centuries and where going to University was substantially cheaper than in England until, I suppose, the non-Oxbridge Universities opened and expanded. So the effect of a good secondary schooling in an Academy would probably lead more naturally, even for poor boys (and latterly girls), to a good University education. Like Neil, I mourn the end of this phenomenon.

[Dr John Crippen]

Whichever way the learned social scientists may argue, common sense (whatever that is ) suggests that making good education available to all capable of using it has to be the best way forward. God knows I would not want to go back to the tyranny of the 11 plus, but now we are at the other extreme. If your local school is a sink comprehensive and there is not much encouragement at home, you have had it.

And now universities are going to once again be the preserve of the students from middle class backgrounds...

In eight years, we have gone back eighty years.

[Tony Hatfield]

Dr. C,
That point is made today by Simon Jenkins in the Graun.
He concludes his piece with this:
"Whoever runs a school, there are only two equitable ways of admitting pupils to it. One is central to the comprehensive principle, that entry be open to all in the local community as determined by catchment area, warts and all. The task of the state is to make that school as good as can be. The other way sees children admitted to school on some other criterion. In that case the admission must be seen as fair, especially if so critical a decision is to be made at the tender age of 11. There is only one such fairness, a universal examination sat by all. The fairest was the 11-plus. Those who cannot bear catchment areas have no alternative."
Right?
t

[dearieme]

I'm in NZ: the house-for-sale adverts all make a point of the "school zone" that a house is in. Thge problem is universal: you're going to end up selecting by house value, meaning some combination of wealth and income, or by abilities. Since the latter allows the schools to realise all the advantages of specialisation, it's the better bet.

[James Hellyer]

"Right?"

Wrong. The private sector offers admission on many different criteria, and the point there is that the diversity still means people can find a suitable school.

Simon Jenkins is trapped in a false paradigm where everything has be dictated by the state, either in the form of banning selection or enforcing it.

[Tony Hatfield]

James,
What role-if any-do you see for the State in the provision and/or supervision of primary, secondary and/or tertiary education?
t

[James Hellyer]

It's role should be to ensure people have access to services, rather than providing and controlling the services itself.

[Tony Hatfield]

So the provider of last resort?
t