Stories + Views
Some common sense on social mobility……
It would be interesting if it were not so depressing: the more unequal our society becomes, the more desperate the situation of large numbers of citizens, the more we hear about that illusory concept: social mobility. Almost every week, a prominent mainstream journalist sings the praises of the grammar schools – Mary Ann Sieghart of the Times was the most recent – and urging the government to return us, in essence, to the meritocratic arrangements of the 1944 Act.
And Nick Clegg keeps on making angry sounding noises about restricted access of the poor to Oxbridge colleges, causing one Oxford don to call him a communist! The whole spectacle is ludicruous, and the concentration on Oxbridge itself a perfect example of how narrow and elite the entire debate has become; for the Coalition front bench, at least, it is clear that no other universities have any true value.
So it is refreshing to read two liberal journalists – Suzanne Moore and Zoe Williams – in today’s Guardian question the terms of the entire debate. Moore makes the important point that she and many of her friends became socially mobile thanks not to a private school or a ‘bleedin’ grammar’ but I presume, to a comprehensive education and then further education – a sector that is now being slashed. The fact that many talented and significant figures, like Moore, clearly benefitted from, and prospered as a result of, a non selective education is rarely trumpeted by politicians of any party.
Williams makes the point that the privileged advocate social mobility until the point that the privileged might lose out; after all you can’t increase the numbers of poor children to a top university without restricting the numbers of wealthier children who gain entrance at the same time.
Just as importantly, none of this is going to make fundamental change without tackling the broader problem of income inequality. As Williams says,’Moreover, even if social mobility was achieved, what is so great about a society in which the outliers of each class can move relatively freely up and down the hierarchy? What’s so great about being able to escape the gutter, when the bulk of people are still in it?’
Without that broader project of income and educational equality, social mobility simply becomes a matter of lucky escape from the growing desperation of – and prescribed educational mediocrity – for the masses. Not a worthy project, on either count.
Key LSN themes mentioned
Grammar Schools, Inclusion, Private Schools, social mobility, Stories + ViewsOther tags
Grammar Schools, Mary Anne Sieghart, Private Schools, Social mobility, Suzanne Moore, Zoe WilliamsRelated posts
Comments, replies and queries
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“you can’t increase the numbers of poor children to a top university without restricting the numbers of wealthier children who gain entrance at the same time.”
Well, you could make the university larger, or improve the status of other universities. Thirty years ago what is now The Russell Group were seen as being distinctly second-best alternatives to Oxbridge, whereas now “Oxbridge and The Russell Group” have become at least if not synonymous at least strongly collocated. The number of places in Russell Group universities has increased immensely: there are something like three times as many undergraduates attending them as there were thirty years ago, and although a lot of those are from outside the UK, their intake of home students is far higher than it was.
We must be approaching a point where effectively every child from a privileged background who can scrape an A Level or two is going into higher education of some sort, so their ability to dominate institutions would be diluted if there were simply more places in better (in the sense of “more prestigious” — I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that the standing some universities have over others is actually reflected in the quality of the education on offer or the absolute quality of their graduates) institutions. The policy of universities being able to expand easily provided they can get AAB (or ABB next year) students to attend will have the effect of expanding those institutions: that will make more places available in those institutions to qualified candidates, irrespective of background, rather than there being a shortage of places which encourages discrimination.
I have some sympathy with this posting, but show me a society that does not have a social hierarchy, at least a large modern industrialised one, with unequal distribution of wealth. I don’t think there are any. So if we don’t have social mobility we end up with some sort of caste system. I can’t believe we are headed this way but it seems we are.
Oxbridge universities are the gateway to all the political parties like it or not they have huge symbolic value.
Can we at least try to offer the positions of leadership and wealth to those born in the poorest circumstances through education, rather then just giving up and entrenching the privilege of the rich? If comprehensives are not up to this task (whether or not they are or should be is another thing) don’t parents and children have a right to ask for something different?
What’s so great about being able to escape the gutter, when the bulk of people are still in it?
The bulk of people are not in the gutter.
16% of students qualify for FSM. Which means 84% do not. Indeed, some time ago the middle class became the largest class.
This post exemplifies a common tendency on the Left: scorning modest, practical improvements that we actually could make (such as helping more talented poor kids achieve their potential) for the sake of grandiose and impractical schemes (such as income equality across the piece).
You sound just like Ricky Tarr! Hmmm
Ricky Tarr agrees. (Would do an emoticon, if I knew how.)
You have to type the emoticons Ricky. So for example for a smile you type colon hypen right bracket. You can get guidance on more from the wiki for emoticons but they don’t all work as suggested there.
Tarr –
Income equality has been proven to help raise educational standards so exactly what is grandiose and impractical about it? In areas of grammar schools, the evidence is that they lower attainment across the board. I think we are agreed that you prefer segregating a master academic “elite” so they can go on to subjugate the little people. Isn’t this generally how dictatorships work? Not very democratic Ricky
In 1960 there were just 108,000 students in British universities. This doubled to 228,000 by 1970. At the same time, the number of full-time students in Higher Education (HE) also doubled from 200,000 to 430,000. By 2010/11 the number had more than quadrupled – there were 1,367,330 full-time undergraduates in UK HE institutions, and 545,200 part-time. There are also 260,000 students with the Open University (OU) – more than double the number of student places in British universities in 1960.
This huge rise in the number of people studying at university is testament to two things: investment in higher education over 50 years and an improvement in state education. In 1960 very few school leavers went to university – in 2009 43% of 19-30 year olds went to university and a year later 88.7% of first degree students were from state schools.
However, this phenomenal rise in half-a-century is now deemed insufficient. It’s not enough to go to university – the goal must be Oxbridge. Instead of praising UK schools for raising the number of students going to university they are criticised because the majority don’t go to the two placed at the top of the hierarchy despite the fact that degree standards are uniform.
References:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3445962?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=56201360493
http://www.hesa.ac.uk/content/view/1897/239/
http://www8.open.ac.uk/about/main/the-ou-explained/facts-and-figures
http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1004.pdf
This huge rise in the number of people studying at university is testament to two things: investment in higher education over 50 years and an improvement in state education.
The latter assertion isn’t necessarily the case. The bar may have been lowered.
The bar has been changed, not lowered. It no longer requires a check on genitals, for example. The mere fact of women being represented at about 50% in higher education, rather than at about 10% as was the case two generation ago would represent a near-doubling in take-up with no alteration in standards.
Another change is that when people talk about university take-up today, they are including three-year BEd courses, whereas in historic discussion of take-up two-year CertEd courses aren’t included. Complicating this is the fact that CertEd courses were disproportionately female, and indeed it would seem likely that women who today would have done three-year degrees and been counted as university graduates were steered into teaching via a CertEd course.
University attendance is also driven by parents, and people who themselves went to university will obviously expect their own children to at least consider the possibility, and children from second-generation university families face far fewer barriers to entry than those whose parents did not themselves have the opportunity. That’s a virtuous circle, and again will produce an increase in take-up without any particular reason to believe standards have dropped.
In my post above I wrote about the growth in the numbers going to university in the last 50 years. However, it should be noted that over 50% of school leavers don’t go to university yet social mobility is geared to university entry as if this is the only route out of the “gutter”.
Yet the very notion that someone is in the “gutter” just because s/he doesn’t aspire to join the middle-class is offensive. It has a judgemental whiff about it – and that judgement is being made by those who perceive themselves to be better because of their social class and cannot understand why anyone wouldn’t want to join them (this attitude is blamed on “lack of aspiration”).
I’m not talking about poverty – I’d like to see more people rise out of poverty and education is a way out of poverty. But there is a dangerous divide in the UK between vocational and academic education with the former seen as second rate. Yet it is via the former that the 50+% that don’t go to university will earn their living and, yes, if they want to, rise up the social ladder.
And education is more than preparing people for work or rising above a particular class. It is about enriching people’s lives.
Absolutely Janet. And this ties over into our other discussion about children studying less.
Some of our most socially mobile people (and I use mobile to mean they are going where they want to go rather than relating it to any hierarchy) are our parents who’ve taken the time out be be parents. When you live with and parent young children you learn to perceive the world around you in a mature and detailed way. And so many people who’ve done this learn see what needs to be done and what can be done in ways they didn’t before. You also tend to learn to live on much less money and with more uncertainty which makes it easier to become an entrepreneur. And of course people also invest time and energy in that much neglected and undervalued force – community.
I’m really pleased to hear about the move towards allowing more shared parental leave.
Janet – I very much agree.
I particularly like your last point.
The life of upwardly mobile urban professionals is not necessarily one to be envied
Research bears this out:
‘Oddly, increased inequality in the United States has not generated much envy or resentment. The principal opponents of inequality are upper-middle-class liberals rather than poor or lower-middle-class people’
University certainly does not benefit everyone:
‘In gauging the value added by a college education, one has to control for, among other things, difference in both cognitive and noncognitive abilities (IQ illustrating the first, ability to apply oneself to a task the second).’
Thus many would argue that it is the alleviation of poverty, rather than income inequality, that should be the target of reform.
‘The heirs of the rich spend their money on consumption or investment, just like their parents; dissipate it rapidly, if they’re dumb; but in any event do not by virtue of having inherited a lot of money block the upward striving of others.
Poverty is a problem, but if the rich are not a problem, then the problem of poverty is not a problem of inequality……… Inequality should be a non-issue in the United States—and to a considerable degree it is.’
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/01/inequality-in-income-and-wealthposner.html
I’m not sure that American “poor or lower-middle-class people” would agree with the opinion that they don’t feel resentful about inequality. According to reseach from Stanford the reason there isn’t more overt resentment is because many such families rely on two wages (pooled income) which masks inequality, consumer credit (and we saw where that led with the sub-prime scandal) and political apathy. As those at the bottom end of income distribution become more remote from the mainstream “the public sphere shrinks to include just the affluent. The constituency for redistribution vanishes.” In other words, those who would benefit from less inequality disappear below the radar. But they are still there.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/income_research.pdf
Inequality is a problem, not just for the poor but for the affluent as well.
http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why
‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!’ as that famous Grand Mufti once said. ‘China’s economic miracle has been in good measure based on allowing much greater inequality in pay and incomes to motivate greater productivity in both urban and rural areas.’ The equality trust campaigns for more equal societies (and why not, but it isn’t going to provide a balanced view) and your other reference is from the last century. More recent research indicates that the picture is more complex:
‘While the average American college graduate earned about a 40% premium over the average high school graduate in 1980, this premium increased to over 70% in 2000. The good side of this higher education-based earnings inequality is that it induced more young men, and especially more young women, to go to and finish college. The bad side is that many sufficiently able children could not take advantage of the greater returns from a college education because their parents did not prepare them to perform well in school, or they went to bad schools.’
‘Controversy over inequality arises mainly because some types of inequality are not easily classified as good or bad. For example, would an increase in the marginal income tax rate from 35% to 45% on individuals earning over $500,000 have much of an effect on how hard and how long they work, and their efforts to legally (and illegally) reduce the income they report to tax authorities? Those who support this kind of tax increase deny that it would have a big effect; while opponents are just as certain that it would significantly discourage effort. The evidence is far from conclusive, but studies by Edward Prescott, Richard Rogerson (see his “The Impact of Labor Taxes on Labor Supply”: an International Perspective”), and others of the relation among different countries between the amount of work and average tax rates on earnings is convincing that tax rates in general have strong negative effects on effort.’
Reference as above
However, this may be a better summary of the argument:
‘The claim that inequality now matters more because of brands and status competition may turn out to be more robust. Such concerns could seem peripheral compared with global woes such as poverty. But inequality is local. As Adam Smith also once wrote, “if he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep tonight; but provided he never saw them, he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren.”
http://www.economist.com/node/17957381
Aesop’s fable, Goose and golden eggs, also refers.
Interesting ………….
‘As Jonathan Portes points out in this excellent blog, this shows there is indeed social engineering in our education system – but it works in favour of those from independent schools:
“What the data and evidence suggest is that Oxford is already engaging in ‘social engineering’ in favour of private school pupils. It has an admissions process that favours them and admits them even though they are less likely to get good degrees.” ‘
http://tinyurl.com/bqo52vj
….but not necessarily balanced.
‘the Cambridge study found that A-level performance was “overwhelmingly” the best guide to what class of degree an undergraduate would achieve, while gender “did not make a significant difference”.
The overall performance of the school attended also had no bearing on what degree class they received.
“Admissions decisions are made on the basis of students’ ability, commitment and potential.
“While it’s important that we take background into account on a case-by- case basis as part of holistic assessment, this study confirms that we are right to place achievement in public examinations at the centre of our judgments,” Mr Partington said.’
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6077920
I don’t understand why these liberal journalists don’t just self publish on a blog, or even a parish newspaper, rather than the upwardly mobile world of the national press (although the press might be going the way of the coal mines and the shipyards).
Why aren’t they prepared to stop competing with their intellect for spondulicks and status, write for just satisfaction and take a job in the “gutter” – (By the way what is that exactly? A minimum wage shopworker or dementia carer?). They certainly don’t value the idea enough to live it more than being well paid professional writers (I will assume they are well paid).
They achieved mobility through “*** bleedin’ *** further education” rather than the “bleedin’ grammar school” – so it is not selection at 11 but at 18+. Fair enough don’t kind yourself about the principle of selection being in operation at some point in time though”. Even though social mobility is a “relic as an idea” even when you admit you did it!
How much longer do we have to put up with people knocking Gove when he says to teachers I give you the responsibility and autonomy to deliver teaching, including the poor kid who wants to be a doctor or care worker or whatever? But if they have the potential to be a doctor at least encourage that and make that happen more often, especially when the child asks for that and makes the effor.
Or would we rather have gold bricked baby sitting whilst the rich continue to go elsewhere and stay on top?
Once again we see the cavalier abuse of stats to bolster a left wing argument.
There may be evidence that the state school kids who went to Oxford in the past had a higher propensity to get firsts. Not surprising really, they had gone through the equivalent of Darwinian natural selection to get there against the odds.
This does not mean that all state school kids would display the same propensity. It certainly does not mean that if we were to lower the bar to admit state school kids who currently don’t make the cut, they will get firsts too.
Well you won’t see me doing that. Having been at the consultations and discussions on this, the stats are very interesting. For example Kings Cambridge went top of the tables after lowering the bar for state school applicants but it turned out their intake’s parents had higher average income and qualifications than those of other colleges.
My sister got an offer from Oxford despite having weaker A-level grades than normal because she was a norther state school girl at a school in the middle of a massive council estate. She got a first and went on to great academic things and fits your profile Ricky but this is not a clear argument against positive discrimination as she would never have got to Oxbridge without it.
Where schools have good Oxbridge access schemes and are encouraging students in all the right ways there is still a significant problem in getting the students who have no role models to believe they can pass interviews.
Where we have students from backgrounds where no parent has been to university, they are not particularly affluent and there are no ex-Oxbridge teachers or other professionals around them to build there help and support them a little extra help is needed to get them to relax and be themselves at the interview stage.
Interviewing colleges should be contacting the schools to try to ensure that the first part of their first interview is constructed to allow these students to thrive and show themselves well.
If you have schools or areas with no Oxbridge access scheme going on they should put a larger proportion of children into the group who get this support.
This is all that’s needed to overcome the problem Ricky. I’ve seen it time and time again – brilliant students who collapse under interview situations because they simply don’t believe in the process and they aren’t particularly sold on Oxbridge. But because I’m a teacher I can step out of character, get those students to relax and get them to show what they are capable of. But I know this is not happening at the real interviews.
It doesn’t need policy – it just needs a competent person in authority to explain this to the Oxbridge admissions people because it is a solution which makes sense for everyone. Someone might need to commission a research study to prove that what I’m saying is true and to track what happens. The stats are all state school/private school at the minute so the real issue is lost.
But – like Melissa said – social mobility is not about Oxbridge. I totally agree with that. So why can’t we just get this tiny issue done and dusted in the way I’ve described so we can focus on the real issues?