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Education, Social Mobility and the Enduring Nature of Class

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Youth and Social Class

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Abstract

In recent decades, the ‘massification’ of education and training has seen young people’s pathways into adulthood dramatically changed, with the ‘school-to-work’ model of transition being reconfigured. The question remains, however, whether or not the expansion of post-compulsory education provides the means for social and personal enhancement and increased opportunities for social mobility, or if instead it promotes the status quo, maintaining and reinforcing inequalities through a process of social reproduction. In this chapter we suggest the latter, in that a range of evidence, including that influenced by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, shows that even with such high levels of social change the post-compulsory sub field still serves to perpetuate inequality rather than alleviate it. Class therefore remains a critical feature of how young people experience post-compulsory education and training.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Though not without complications; see Gillborn 2010 for details.

  2. 2.

    In fact, after a downturn in 2012, UK student numbers bounced back strongly and increased in 2013 and 2014.

  3. 3.

    G08 universities are those (self) defined as the ‘top’, research intensive universities in Australia.

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  1. School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Alan France

  2. Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    Steven Roberts

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France, A., Roberts, S. (2017). Education, Social Mobility and the Enduring Nature of Class. In: Youth and Social Class. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57829-7_3

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