Understanding the mobility chances of children from working‐class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control?
Research in social stratification has shown that children from working‐class backgrounds tend to obtain substantially lower levels of educational attainment and lower labor market positions than children from higher social class backgrounds. However, we still know relatively little about the micro‐l...
| Publicado en: | British Journal of Sociology Vol. 71; no. 2; pp. 349 - 366 |
|---|---|
| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Wiley-Blackwell
Mar2020
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=142101270&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 142101270 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00071315 BJS jtl: British Journal of Sociology issn: 00071315 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Mar2020 vid: 71 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 142101270 10.1111/1468-4446.12732 ppf: 349 ppct: 17 formats: tig: atl: Understanding the mobility chances of children from working‐class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control? aug: au: Betthäuser, Bastian A. Bourne, Mollie Bukodi, Erzsébet affil: Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Department of Social Policy & Intervention, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom EngineeringUK, London, United Kingdom su: Social stratification Social classes Educational attainment Meritocracy Locus of control sug: subj: Social stratification Social classes Educational attainment Meritocracy Locus of control keyword: cognitive ability inequality of opportunity intergenerational social mobility locus of control meritocracy cognitive ability inequality of opportunity intergenerational social mobility locus of control meritocracy ab: Research in social stratification has shown that children from working‐class backgrounds tend to obtain substantially lower levels of educational attainment and lower labor market positions than children from higher social class backgrounds. However, we still know relatively little about the micro‐level processes that account for this empirical regularity. Our study examines the roles of two individual‐level characteristics—cognitive ability and locus of control—in mediating the effect of individuals' parental class background on their educational attainment and social class position in Britain. We find that cognitive ability mediates only about 35% of the total parental class effect on educational attainment and only about 20% of the total parental class effect on respondents' social class position, net of their educational attainment. These findings contradict existing claims that differences in the life chances of children from different social class backgrounds are largely due to differences in cognitive ability. Moreover, we find that although individuals' locus of control plays some role in mediating the parental class effect, its role is substantially smaller than the mediating role of cognitive ability. We measure individuals' social class positions at different points in their careers—at labor market entry and at occupational maturity—and find that the mediating roles of cognitive ability and locus of control are remarkably stable across individuals' working lives. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|