Reproducing inequalities: school curriculum & social mobility
Research published in the British Journal of Sociology of Education gives new meaning to the idea that what you study at school determines where you end up in life.
Using data from the National Child Development Study, Christina Iannelli investigates how much curriculum differences reproduce social inequalities and to what extent they affect individuals’ chances of social (im)mobility.
For example, her research suggests that technical and commercial subjects depress the chances of entering top social classes but also decrease the chances of ending up in the bottom occupations.
Iannelli concludes that taken together, school types and curricula give more than a marginal advantage in reaching the top social classes for those who originated from service-class parents.
Despite the growing importance of education for social mobility, we are still far from the advent of a truly ‘meritocratic’ society and social mobility processes can only be mediated by education in part.
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