In this article we start from Boudon's important, but still surprisingly neglected, distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary' effects in the creation of class differentials in educational attainment. Primary effects are all those, whether of a genetic or socio-cultural kind, that are expressed via the association between children's class backgrounds and their actual levels of academic performance. Secondary effects are those that are expressed via the educational choices that children from differing class backgrounds make within the range of choice that their previous performance allows them. We apply a method introduced by Erikson and Jonsson to represent the relationship between primary and secondary effects in analysing class differentials in one crucial transition within the English and Welsh educational system: that which children make at around age 16 and which determines whether or not they will pursue the higher-level academic qualifications -A-levels -that are usually required for university entry. We then use a development of this method that we have earlier proposed in order to produce quantitative estimates of the relative importance of primary and secondary effects as they operate within this transition. We show that secondary effects reinforce primary effects to a substantial extent, accounting for at least one quarter, and possibly up to one-half, of class differentials as measured by odds ratios. In conclusion, we consider some theoretical and policy implications of our findings.keywords: class origin ◆ educational inequality ◆ England and Wales ◆ primary effects ◆ secondary effects

Social class differentials in educational attainment have been extensively studied in numerous countries. In this paper, we begin by examining class differentials in the progression to higher secondary education among 16-year-old children in England and Wales. As has been shown for other countries, the differentials result both from the primary effects of differing levels of academic performance of children of different class background and from the secondary effects of differences in the educational choices that these children make at given levels of performance. Through counterfactual analyses in which the performance distribution of one class is combined with the choice distribution of another, primary and secondary effects are decomposed and the former are shown to be roughly three times the size of the latter.academic performance ͉ educational choice ͉ logistic regression ͉ counterfactual ͉ social inequality S ocial class differentials in educational attainment have been extensively studied. Children from more advantaged class backgrounds have higher levels of educational attainment than children from less advantaged class backgrounds. Sociological evidence suggests that there has been a relatively high degree of temporal stability in the association between class origin and educational attainment in modern industrial societies (although where change has occurred it has generally been in the direction of a weakening association) (1, 2). Explanations have focused on how class differences in economic, social, and cultural resources lead to differences in academic performance. However, Boudon (3) argued that, in addition to interclass differences in the distribution of academic performance, there are also interclass differences in the educational choices made at given levels of performance. He called these primary and secondary effects, respectively.The distinction between primary and secondary effects has been largely neglected in empirical research, although a notable exception is a study of Swedish students by Erikson and Jonsson (4). In the present paper, we develop their method and apply it to educational choices made by 16-year-old students in England and Wales. At age 16, students complete compulsory education, and then choose whether they will continue in full-time education to take advanced level academic qualifications (A levels) or alternatively enter vocational education or the labor market. We first show that both primary and secondary effects are present in creating class differentials in entering A-level education.To investigate the relative importance of primary and secondary effects, we use a counterfactual analysis implemented by numerical integration. We suppose an idealized process that goes from performance to choice to outcome. In our implied model, therefore, a student achieves a level of academic performance and then makes their choice about whether to continue to A-level education. It is assumed that the choice characteristics of students of one class can be combined with the performa...

Gender differences in perceived quality of employment (achievement, content, job insecurity, time autonomy and physical and emotional conditions) are examined. The study asks whether women's occupations provide better conditions in areas that facilitate their dual role in society, as a trade-off for low monetary rewards. Specifically, it examines the association of women's concentration in broader occupational categories, embedded in particular national contexts, with gender differences in job quality. Utilizing the 2005 ISSP modules on work orientation shows that women lag behind men on most dimensions of job quality, countering the hypothesis that women's occupations compensate for their low wages and limited opportunities for promotion by providing better employment conditions. However, as women's relative share in occupations grows the gender gap narrows in most job quality dimensions. The implications of these results are discussed.

Most studies of the determinants of cultural capital have used taste or participation as interchangeable indicators of embodied cultural capital. In this article, we propose to treat the two concepts separately. Specifically, we argue that participation is constrained to a larger degree by financial resources than by tastes and to a lesser degree by cultural resources (parental cultural capital, father's education, and respondent's education); we further argue that tastes are shaped to a greater degree than participation by socialization processes and through the habitus and, to a lesser degree, by financial resources. This article contributes to two aspects of the literature on cultural stratification. First, it deepens our understanding of the association between individuals' tastes and their cultural participation, an issue that has rarely been addressed before. Second, it raises a discussion of the relative influence of cultural versus economic resources on tastes vs. participation, which have not yet been modelled simultaneously. Data for this research was purposely collected by the authors in a survey that was conducted in 2007 in Israel. As expected, we find that cultural participation is constrained by tastes and economic resources, while tastes are constrained by cultural resources but not by income.