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What are the effects of decreasing social mobility? How does education help - and hinder - us in improving our life chances? Why are so many of us stuck on the same social rung as our parents? Apart from the USA, Britain has the lowest social mobility in the Western world. The lack of movement in who gets where in society - particularly when people are stuck at the bottom and the top - costs the nation dear, both in terms of the unfulfilled talents of those left behind and an increasingly detached elite, disinterested in improvements that benefit the rest of society. This book analyses cutting-edge research into how social mobility has changed in Britain over the years, the shifting role of schools and universities in creating a fairer future, and the key to what makes some countries and regions so much richer in opportunities, bringing a clearer understanding of what works and how we can better shape our future.
Volumes have been written about the value of more and better education. But is there sufficient evidence to support the commonly held belief that we, as individuals and as a community, should be investing more in education? This book explores that question in unprecedented detail, drawing on empirical evidence from an impressive array of sources. While much of the focus is on the educational system in the United Kingdom, the book offers lessons of international applicability. A state-of-the-art compendium on education policy and its impact on educational attainment, the book examines numerous large-scale data sources on individual pupils and schools. The questions the book considers are far-...
Featured in the Financial Times Best Books of the Year 2020 The evidence is rigorously marshalled and the...solutions equally clearly illuminated. A definitive study. - Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times In this vital new book, Britain′s first Professor of Social Mobility Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin, reveal the causes of the UK’s low social mobility, explain why it′s getting worse, and outline how we reverse this worrying trend, before it’s too late. It covers the history of social mobility in the UK, explores international comparisons, analyses the recent ‘dark age’ of declining absolute mobility, and investigates issues such as how family traits affect inter-generational mobility. The authors then outline what it is we should do about this pressing issue. Calling for a fundamental shift in debates about social mobility and arguing that only by establishing general principles of fairness in society can we agree the major policy reforms that can make Britain a more mobile and just society for all.
The story of the revolutionary transformation of the British educational system in the second half of the 20th century from a rigid hierarchy for a minority, to a fundamental right of all citizens, one of the most valued and enduring features of the welfare state - and the crisis of the meritocracy that this has entailed.
A short, innovative book that outlines what we know about the declining state of social mobility in the UK and proposes what we should do to reverse this downward trajectory and make Britain a more mobile and just society.
From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated,...
Filling a major gap in social policy literature, this book looks at the history of debates over the poverty cycle and their relationship with current initiatives on social exclusion. The book uses Sir Keith Joseph's famous "cycle of deprivation" speech in 1972 as a backdrop to explore British New Labour's approach to child poverty: initiatives such as Sure Start, the influence of research on intergenerational continuities, and its new stance on social exclusion. Making extensive use of archival sources, private papers, contemporary published documents, and oral interviews with retired civil servants and social scientists, John Welshman provides the only booklength treatment of this important but neglected strand of social policy history.
. . . is a voluminous and timely collection of 18 essays that addresses a number of core issues on the economics of education. . . An exhaustive survey of the literature on the role of universities as multi-product firms at various levels and disciplines identifies the nature of the economies of scope and scale. This enriches the volume further. Economic Analysis & Policy . . . the endeavour of bringing together very knowledgeable contributors, including some of the leading contributors to the literature in the UK and beyond, to write a handbook on the economics of education is highly appreciated. The Handbook contains 18 substantive chapters, encapsulated by a brief introduction and an exte...