Understanding the mobility chances of children from working‐class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control?

Abstract

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.

Left behind? Over-time change in the social mobility of children from unskilled working-class backgrounds in Germany

“…As illustrated by the well-known 'Origin, Education, Destination (OED) triangle', the total effect of individuals' social origin on their social destination can be decomposed into two parts: one that is mediated by children's educational attainment and one not mediated by education -the so-called 'direct' effect of social origin (see, e.g. Bernardi and Ballarino, 2016;Goldthorpe, 2007: 159;Betthäuser et al, 2019). Past research suggests that in Germany a substantial proportion of the total effect of parents' social class background on their offspring's labour market position is mediated via individuals' educational attainment (Müller and Pollak, 2004: 107).…”

The case for studying the intergenerational transmission of social (dis)advantage: A reply to Gary Marks

“…Cummings further argues that any policy that aims at equalizing educational opportunities and increasing the quality of education would increase the effect of children's social background on their educational achievement, thereby questioning the importance of lowering the effect of children's social background on their educational attainment as a policy priority (ibid.). In our article and our related work, we show that these arguments are unfounded and that equalising educational opportunities can substantially reduce the effect of children's social background on their educational achievement and labour market chances (Betthäuser, 2017; Betthäuser et al, 2020a).…”

“…

Our article "Understanding the mobility chances of children from working-class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control?" examines the role of cognitive ability and peoples' sense of control over their lives in mediating the effects of individuals' social background on their educational attainment and on their labor market position (Betthäuser et al, 2020a). The article takes as its starting point the persistent view in both academic and policy circles that most of the differences in the educational attainment and labor market success between individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds are due to differences in cognitive ability between them (see e.g., Marks, 2014;Murray, 2012).

…”

Pathways from origins to destinations: Stability and change in the roles of cognition, private schools and educational attainment

“…It is sometimes assumed that cognitive scores are a pure reflection of genetic endowment, and strong claims have been made for the role of cognition in mediating the link between social origins and destinations (Marks, 2013). Recent work, however, shows a stronger role of educational qualifications compared to childhood cognitive scores in explaining the link between parental social class and achieved social class (Betthäuser, Bourne, & Bukodi, 2020). In this paper, we conceptualize childhood cognitive attainment primarily as a determinant of educational attainment, though it may also have an independent association with occupational attainment.…”