SOCIAL MOBILITY AND IMPROVING ACCESS
Milburn pitches in
But are Universities the right target?
Comment
Social mobility is important because it raises aspirations, creates better connections between and within communities (more important now perhaps than for a generation), and reinforces the value of education and skills.
Worryingly for governments, despite huge investment in widening access to education in the last decade or two, research suggests there has been no comparable increase in social mobility – quite the reverse. Social mobility can be thought of in absolute and relative terms. The former refers to processes of adjustment in the income or occupational structure of the economy. The latter, sometimes called ‘social fluidity’, is associated with an individual’s opportunities for progression within the social hierarchy However, trends in social mobility are remarkably resistant to policy interventions. Those in higher social classes appear to have been able to take greater advantage of the opportunities created by policy interventions and more able to use a variety of additional social advantages to maintain their relative position.
The factors involved influencing Social Mobility are thought to be:
• Social capital –A lack of positive role models, negative peer pressure, poverty of ambition and aspiration and risk aversion etc
• Cultural capital – can also help middle-class families to confer social advantages on their children, increasing their potential to move upwards and protecting them from downwards movement in the social hierarchy.
• Early years influences – are seen as key to influencing later life chances. Convincing evidence shows that early experiences such as the quality of the home environment, family structure, pre-school care and relationships with caring adults produce a pattern of development in later life that is hard to reverse even through schooling.
• Education – appears to be one of the most important factors influencing social mobility. However, there is considerable evidence that the introduction and expansion of universal education systems in the UK and Western Europe have , not led to increasing levels of relative social mobility.
• Employment and labour market experiences – substantial levels of worklessness and long-term economic inactivity have emerged in some areas and/or among specific population groups. Second, research has identified the emergence of a prominent ‘low-pay – nopay’ cycle for some groups.
• Health and wellbeing – ill-health results from social and environmental factors identified with lower socio-economic status, and ill-health and caring responsibilities can lead to declining socio-economic status.
• Area-based influences – localised environmental problems appear to combine with socio-economic disadvantage to produce negative area-based influences on potential for social mobility. For example, inequalities in access to private transport combined with poorer quality provision in some important public services in deprived areas may mean that lower socio-economic classes are unable to exercise effective choices over access to these services.
Alan Milburn the access Czar has recently, like many others before, said that universities should do more to encourage greater access to Higher Education, particularly for the most disadvantaged pupils. There is always a simple solution to addressing a complex problem that is wrong. We have seen how many factors actually influence social mobility -education is but one- important though it may be. A report for the Department of Work and Pensions (2007) ‘Factors influencing Social Policy’ said that: ‘while educational attainment remains a strong predictor of future social position, there are strong influences on educational attainment which are outside the scope of formal educational provision. For instance, patterns of development are often set prior to starting formal education, suggesting that early experiences are central to understanding both educational attainment and social mobility. However, many of these early years influences are outside what is normally thought to be the scope of public policy and are heavily associated with family dynamics, parenting and home environment.’
It does seem that social mobility may be very resistant to centrally driven interventions because of the number of factors at play and the multi-faceted dynamics underpinning social mobility. But most experts on social mobility believe that the earlier you address the issue, in education, the more likely you are to achieve the outcomes you want. Many critics believe that pressuring universities to take more with lower grades is not the right answer. Trying to force social mobility at such a late stage is actually counter-productive. True, a pupil at a poor school who achieves an ABB at A level probably deserves a place on a course much more than a privately educated pupil ,going for the same course with equivalent or slightly better grades, although quite where you draw the line is less clear But, A level Grades are set to establish to what degree pupils have acquired the knowledge base, information processing, analytical and communication skills required to succeed at University . There is a big difference in this respect between an A* student and one securing a B Grade. Good GCSEs are also important indicators for admissions tutors. They want to see breadth and consistency across subject areas. Yet a lot of teachers’ work in state schools is focused on getting pupils up to a C grade at GCSE, because that’s how league tables work. Schools are given government incentives to get a certain number of students above a C grade. But there’s no incentive to help them get from a C to an A*, whereas at fee-paying schools students are pushed to go for those top marks and they are the ones who get into the top universities.’ Proper support for our most able pupils in schools remains in short supply, although these are precisely the pupils who have the most potential to be socially mobile. Pupils also are not getting the kind of good, face to face professional advice and guidance and mentoring they need to raise their aspirations and expectations-so crucial for social mobility. Making the right choices at the key decision points in a young person’s education and career can open or close a lifetime of opportunities.
The fact is Governments have not had a joined up policy to aid mobility, and it is not, in any case, a policy area that easily lends itself to top down interventions. There is no reason why this government will be any more able to ease social mobility than any other to my mind particularly given their obsession with Oxbridge.
Montrose42 Blog 