Education, opportunity and the prospects for social mobility

Abstract

There has been renewed policy interest in intergenerational social mobility as a route to a fairer society, but in ignoring the sociological evidence this article will argue that the current policy agenda will fail to achieve its goal. Based on an analysis of ‘social congestion’, ‘social exclusion’, and ‘social justice’, it also argues that existing sociological research on education and social mobility needs to be extended. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, the experiences of working-class and middle-class students and families are not defined by intergenerational social mobility, but by social congestion and an opportunity trap.

Keywords:

• social mobility
• positional competition
• social class
• meritocracy
• merit selection
• social exclusion
• social congestion
• opportunity trap
• deficit model
• social justice

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Chelly Halsey, Ian Jones, Hugh Lauder, and Gareth Rees for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

1. More recent studies by Erikson and Goldthorpe (1993) and by Breen (2004) have extended our understanding of comparative differences in mobility rates; Marshall, Swift and Roberts (1997) reveal the ‘myth’ of an education-based meritocracy; Crompton (1989) and Walby (1997) focused on the importance of gender inequalities; while other sociologists have examined class cultures, identities and lifestyles in shaping inequalities in life-chances (Savage et al. 1992; Devine et al. 2005).

2. Even where there is an over-supply of qualified people it is viewed as a temporary problem as employers seek to take advantage of available skills (Acemoglu 2002).

3. The hypothesis of IMS remains of value despite the limitations examined in this article. It still has a role in assessing neo-liberal models because they claim that market competition is a more efficient way of delivering social mobility than state-managed alternatives.

4. However, there is evidence based on recent income data to show that inequalities in life-chances may be growing (Blanden, Gregg, and Machin 2005; Blanden and Machin 2007), although this is contested by Erikson and Goldthorpe (2010).

5. Even if they could contribute to absolute rates of mobility at times of increased demand for workers in intermediate and professional occupations. For further details about the pupil premium. see ‘Consultation on School Funding Reform: Proposals for a Fairer System’ available online: https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/July%2011%20Consultation%20on%20School%20Funding%20Reform%20FINAL.pdf. For more on efforts to promote fair access to university, go to: http://www.offa.org.uk/.

6. There are also gender differences observed in both studies by Bukodi et al. and Li and Devine, which highlight concerns about the future mobility prospects for males from working-class backgrounds.

7. Performance within global capitalism, moreover, does not conform to the view of an ever-increasing demand for high-skilled, high-waged employees within western economies. Many companies continue to make decent profits based on a low-skilled workforce (Keep and Mayhew 2010). And the ‘boom and bust’ nature of capitalism, exemplified by the 2008 financial crisis, leads to fluctuations in the demand for skilled labour as austerity measures are introduced to reduce budget deficits (created by the nationalisation of private debt in the banking sector). Recent austerity measures have resulted in a decline in public-sector employment, previously expanded in the early 2000s by New Labour in Britain to compensate for weak labour-market demand in the private sector (Buchanan et al. 2009).

8. Social closure (Weber 1945; Parkin 1979; Brown 2000) refers to way social elites define the rules of the game to their own advantage. Although the focus is primarily on exclusionary tactics, it can also include consideration of inclusionary tactics to usurp the power base of privileged classes or social groups. Although ostensibly open to all, market competition primarily benefits those with the assets or capital (financial, cultural, social) to enable individuals or classes to preserve their privileges through restricting or out-performing others (individuals, groups or classes) within the competition for credentials, jobs or incomes. The concept of performocracy draws heavily on Lyotard’s (1984) work on the performativity of knowledge. Within the field of education it also draws on the work of scholars including Ball (2003) and Ollsen and Peters (2007). Here, however, it is used in border societal terms also drawing on the work of scholars including Hayek (1960), and especially Polanyi’s (1944) writings on the self-regulating market. In short, it is akin to the idea of a market-based, commodity-driven ‘achieving’ society dominated by ‘use value’, ‘positional advantage’ and ‘competitive success’.

9. Based on the assumption that intelligence is randomly distributed throughout the population. However, some – including Herrnstein and Murray (1994) and Saunders (2006) – believe that the existing class structure does reflect the distribution of intelligence.

10. As noted above, giving working-class students more of what their middle-class peers had yesterday will do little to improve their chances in today’s labour market, because achievements in education are relative. The ‘deficit’ does not narrowed by giving those from disadvantaged backgrounds access to ‘more’ education. The problem is not a working-class ‘deficit’ but middle-class access to capital (financial, cultural, and social), giving them an unfair advantage in education and the labour market (Bourdieu 1984).