13/10/21 0:08 Education is not the answer

Quaderni di Sociologia
81- LXIII | 2019

Bonolis Sabetta Sparti Tusini Amaturo Aragona

note critiche

Education is not the answer

Lessons from social mobility research on Britain

Camilla Borgna
p. 121-129
https://doi.org/10.4000/qds.3538

Abstract
Education is often seen as the key instrument to promote social mobility. Yet, sociological research
has shown the ambivalent nature of education in social stratification processes. In Social Mobility
and Education in Britain (2019), Erzsébet Bukodi and John H. Goldthorpe address some
misrepresentations of intergenerational mobility common in the British political debate. The book
effectively conveys to a non-specialist readership some of the key insights of mobility research:
notably, that, without a significant expansion of the class structure, equality of opportunity is a zero-
sum game. However, this article argues that the authors fail to appreciate the subjective
understanding of socio-economic progress and the political salience of declining upward mobility.
While concurring with the thesis that excessive expectations have been put on educational policy to
readdress societal problems, this article additionally warns against the risks of disinvesting in
educational policy and undermining the usage of qualifications in human resources management.

Testo integrale

Education is not the answer. Lessons

from social mobility research on Britain
1 «Education is the key instrument to promote equality of opportunity»: instances of this
argument abound in both the public and the academic discourse. Yet, what are the
empirical groundings for such statement? In their recent book Social Mobility and
Education in Britain. Research, Politics and Policy (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2019), Nuffield-based sociologists Erzsébet Bukodi and John H. Goldthorpe address

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this question and the reasons why it is so seldom asked. The book moves from the
observation that ever since Tony Blair’s New Labour, British governments – no matter if
progressive or conservative – have put forward an alleged decline of intergenerational
social mobility as central political concern and have pushed for a political agenda that
relies on educational policy as main instrument to counter such decline. In so doing – the
authors claim – British politics has (conveniently) ignored 40 years of sociological
research on social mobility. In fact, in light of the historical evidence, we should
acknowledge that education is not particularly effective in equalizing mobility chances.
2 To substantiate this argument, Bukodi and Goldthorpe report on a number of recent
studies of their own: these are mostly (but not exclusively) based on British birth cohort
data (1946, 1958, 1970), which trace representative samples of individuals born in a given
year throughout their entire lives. Beyond containing relevant information on individual
childhood, upbringing, and early characteristics (e.g. cognitive and non-cognitive traits),
these data allow researchers to analyze individual “destinations” not only in terms of first
jobs, but also of subsequent job mobility trajectories. Far from being a summary of already
published articles, the book makes a considerable effort in embedding the research
conducted by the authors and their collaborators in the larger body of national and
international literature on social mobility. While not sparing sharp critique to data and
operationalization choices that they deem inappropriate, the authors engage in a frank
dialogue with both sociologists and economists in the field. For example, as one can
expect, they vigorously defend social class – understood as ordered occupational groups –
as the most important metric of advantage for social mobility studies (Chapter 1).
However, throughout the book, one finds several references and acknowledgements to
works that prefer to focus on income (Nicoletti and Ermisch, 2007; Jerrim, 2017a) and
that, as such, (implicitly) opt for an attributional, rather than relational perspective on
social inequality (Goldthorpe, 2010). As a matter of fact, in the past years several
sociologists have gone even further, advocating a combination of income-based and
occupation-based measures in the study of inequality (DiPrete, 2007). Such
multidimensional approach, moving beyond the “measurement wars” that characterize
much of social stratification and mobility research, holds the promise of offering new
insights on the different mechanisms that come into play in the transmission of privilege
from one generation to the next, as recently shown by the cross-country comparative
endeavor coordinated by Bernardi and Ballarino (2016). Overall, Bukodi and Goldthorpe
make a praiseworthy effort in integrating research traditions and methodologies that are
not so common in the standard social mobility literature. Another example is the use of
case-study boxes at several points of the book. These exemplary (and sometimes atypical)
stories come from a qualitative add-on to the 1958 birth cohort study: in-depth interviews
were conducted with 50-year-old survey respondents in order to collect subjective
accounts of their life histories (Elliott et al., 2010). Such case studies put the quantitative
findings into perspective and stimulate the imagination of the reader for possible micro-
founded mechanisms of the macro-level regularities documented in each chapter.
3 Drawing on such a thorough review of intergenerational research, the book aims at
demystifying some widespread misrepresentations and misunderstandings about social
mobility processes and about the role that education can play therein. Indeed, the authors
argue that the political neglect of sociological research is partly unintentional and can
therefore be remedied: on the one hand, politicians have deliberately indulged in the
reassuring slogan of “more opportunity for all” for fear of losing the support of the more
well-off; but on the other hand, they have failed to understand some fundamental
concepts, techniques, and established findings of social mobility research1. The first part of
the book intends to clarify such key aspects.
4 The authors start with an examination of rates and patterns of absolute and relative
social mobility in Britain over the period from the mid twentieth to the early twenty-first
century (Chapters 2-4). The conceptual distinction between absolute and relative social
mobility, often blurred in the public discourse, is crucial to understand such trends.

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Absolute mobility refers to the actual proportion of individuals switching their class
position with respect to their parents; its upward- and downward components can be
distinguished and are easily observed (and experienced, as I will argue below). Relative
mobility (or fluidity), however, is the proper measure when one is interested in the degree
of equal opportunity of a society: it refers to the relative chances of climbing up or falling
down the social ladder faced by individuals from different social origins and it is
inherently symmetrical. Clearly, the two are connected because fluidity affects the total
amount of absolute mobility; yet the latter also depends on the distribution of available
occupations. Hence, a mobile society is not necessarily an open one: a large number of
intergenerational shifts could be merely the result of a class structure that is rapidly
changing from the parents’ to the children’s generation. This is precisely what happened in
Britain in the after-war period. Cohorts born in the 1940s enjoyed higher chances of
upward mobility than those born in earlier decades. However, this change is not so much
the result of an increase in social fluidity, which in this country has proven to be relatively
stable over time; instead, the growth of upward mobility was mainly driven by an
expansion of the salariat and a contraction of the working class, creating ever more “room
at the top” for all2. The dark side of this “golden age” scenario is an increased risk of social
demotion for the next generation: that is, the children of those who were able to secure a
relatively advantaged position. This could be remedied by a sustained upgrading of the
class structure, which however did not occur in Britain. Since the 1970s, the stability of the
overall level of absolute mobility masks two opposing trends: downward mobility has been
on the rise, while upward mobility has declined, to the point that for the individuals born
in the early 1980s, social ascent and descent have become equally likely.
5 Should education be held responsible for either the increase in upward mobility
documented in the post-war years or its following decline starting from the 1970s? The
lack of change in social fluidity (in both its degree and pattern) throughout the whole
period considered is already a strong piece of evidence against this hypothesis. Not
content with this, the authors directly address this widespread preconception in the
second part of the book (Chapters 5-9). Once again, the starting point is a conceptual
contribution from social mobility research: namely, the scheme known as OED triangle,
which connects social origin (O) and social destination (D) through education (E) and
independently from it. For education to be able to promote social mobility, the following
conditions have to be met: first, inequality of educational opportunity (O→E) should
decline; second, the direct effect of social origin (O→D|E, also known as DESO) should
also decline or at least remain stable; third, crucially, returns to education (E→D) should
increase. Only the first two conditions are met in the British case, while class returns to
education have actually decreased. If we read the latter result as a consequence of
credential inflation, then it is not surprising to discover that the association between origin
and education is essentially stable over time when educational attainment is considered in
relative terms. But the authors further show that the reduction of inequality of educational
opportunity is also less evident once social origin is operationalized in a more
comprehensive way, that is, including parental status and educational level besides class
(Chapter 6). The subsequent chapters, although somehow disconnected from the rest of
the book, deepen the analysis of the components of the OED triangle, by examining the
role of social origin and educational attainment on work-life social mobility trajectories
(Chapter 7), by exploring potential mechanisms behind the DESO (Chapter 8) and by
asking whether certified lifelong learning contributes more to social mobility or
immobility (Chapter 9). Chapter 10 broadens the scope of inquiry: in order to locate the
British case in international perspective, it presents a cross-country comparative analysis
of absolute and relative mobility rates based on recent waves of the European Social
Survey (ESS). The conclusions – which directly address the politics and policies of social
mobility – arguably constitute the most innovative portion of the book, and, despite the
British focus, one that offers several interesting insights to an international audience, as I
will discuss below.

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6 Although the main aim of the book is openly descriptive, one of its main merits is the
continuous effort to put forward possible generative mechanisms at the micro level and,
where possible, to empirically test their implications, in the spirit of previous work by
Goldthorpe (2000). The agency of social actors is presented and understood in intentional
terms, embracing a bounded notion of rationality. An example is the reference to some of
the key mechanisms of prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), namely
entitlement and loss aversion, according to which individuals are more sensitive to losses
than to gains3. Bukodi and Goldthorpe evoke the loss aversion mechanism in the
explanation of why the educational reforms of the 1960s and 1970s have had no equalizing
effect in terms of social mobility chances (although they might have proven effective in
widening educational opportunities). Loss aversion implies that individuals from all social
classes are more concerned to avoid social demotion than to attain social promotion.
Hence, we can expect that – besides the different kind of resources which they can rely
upon – the efforts that individuals from the upper class make in resisting, undermining,
and circumventing the equalizing policies will be greater than the efforts made by
individuals from lower classes to take advantage of them. The generative mechanism
proposed by the authors is fundamentally in line with the theory of “effectively maintained
inequality” (EMI), which foresees that upper-class parents will individually exploit, and
collectively push for, a qualitative differentiation of educational systems, especially when
access to a given educational level becomes more equal (Lucas, 2001). Over the last
decades, the EMI hypothesis has received large empirical support by studies in the
sociology of education; among the possible parental strategies of differentiation, recent
scholarship has documented the usage of private schooling and shadow education (Jerrim,
2017b for the Anglo-Saxon world; Torche, 2005 for Chile; Lee and Shuouse, 2011 for South
Korea).
7 In my view, a second important merit of the book is its capacity to communicate in a
way that is accessible to a non-specialist readership, although it is not always clear what its
intended audience is. In particular, the book nicely explains some of the key insights of
social mobility research, namely that: (i) education is a tool of both social mobility and
immobility and the idea of “education-based meritocracy” (Bell, 1972) is therefore ill-
advised; (ii) when concerned about the role that education can play for social mobility, and
more generally about its labor-market value, education is best conceived as a positional
good (Sørensen, 1979); (iii) unless significant changes occur in the class structure, social
mobility is a zero-sum game: an increase in social fluidity will increase upward and
downward mobility in the same way. Moreover, the book conveys compelling empirical
evidence that, contrary to widespread views: (i) Britain is not a distinctively low-mobility
society; (ii) neither absolute nor relative mobility are in decline; (iii) endogenous mobility
regimes are powerfully resistant to change.
8 What I find less persuasive is the argument that these findings necessarily imply that
politicians are in the wrong when pursuing a discourse of declining equal opportunities. In
particular, the authors state that «the abiding concern in political circles with change in
social mobility – that is, with a supposed decline – is misdirected. The focus of attention
should not be on change, in any direction, but, to the contrary, on its absence» (p. 86,
italics original). Yet, politics cannot ignore the mundane experience of its citizens, which is
undeniably one of less favorable mobility prospects4. The decline of upward mobility,
although not reflecting rising levels of inequality of opportunity in a strict sense, has de
facto constrained the chances of individuals coming from disadvantaged backgrounds to
attain social positions that, from their perspective, appear increasingly closed. The
authors are perfectly aware that this is a key element in the subjective understanding of
socio-economic progress (ivi, 122, but also Goldthorpe, 1987). However, they seem to
presume that politicians are (or should be) able to set the agenda more or less
independently from the demands of the electorate, if not of the business elite, based on
empirically-grounded and sensible arguments. This technocratic dream – if ever real – is
certainly quite far from today’s world, where the direct engagement of a larger share of

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citizens mistrusting traditional institutions and parties requires a straightforward political

communication, also on inequality issues (Grusky, 2017). In fact, within the rapidly
growing stream of literature on populism, it has been suggested that, at least in the US, the
loss of belief in upward intergenerational mobility and the fear of social demotion are
important determinants of political discontent (Przeworski, 2019). This might be true in
Britain and in other European countries too (including Italy), where the rise of right-wing
populism is most evident not so much in poorer constituencies, but rather in territories in
economic decline, where citizens experience an increasing “fear of being left behind and of
having no future” (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018, 196). A political discourse centered, however
imprecisely, on declining social mobility might therefore prove effective in mobilizing the
support of the least well-off in favor of an agenda addressing the actual mobility problems
of present-day Britain, namely the persisting inequality of opportunity5 and the decline of
upward absolute mobility.
9 But what should such agenda comprise? As anticipated, the conclusive section of the
book takes this question seriously and discusses a number of possible policy strategies.
Not surprisingly, the first and foremost area of intervention suggested by the authors
involves policies aimed at creating room for upward mobility by promoting a growth of
high and of intermediate positions. The authors favor a demand-driven approach to the
creation of such jobs and concentrate on three areas of (renewed) public investment:
innovation, manufacturing, and welfare. This section is especially thought-provoking in
that it introduces the concern for social mobility in the economic policy debate. Secondly,
if the loss aversion mechanism is correct, policies favoring an upgrading of the class
structure could have positive spillover effects on social fluidity too, because as the risk of
downward mobility decreases, resistance against equalizing reforms should decrease. In
addition, inequality of opportunity could be challenged by policies restricting, offsetting,
or counterbalancing the defensive strategies of upper-class parents. However, the authors
are quite pessimistic about the effectiveness of any kind of policy favoring social fluidity.
In societies with capitalist market economies, nuclear families, and liberal democracies –
they argue – fluidity might have reached its lowest limit. While this appears plausible in
light of the existing evidence for Britain and other industrialized countries, I would stress
that the historical period covered by social mobility studies is relatively short. Thus, any
prediction about future developments of this phenomenon is subject to a large amount of
uncertainty. The third set of policies concerns human resources management: given that
educational attainment simultaneously works as equality-enabler and inequality-
reproducer, the authors argue that the social closure mechanisms based on credentials
should be minimized, wherever possible. As an example, they suggest the introduction of
rules or incentives for employers to make internal promotion tracks less based on
educational qualifications and more based on tested abilities and effort. From my
perspective, this type of policies is extremely problematic, because it might unintentionally
promote and legitimize discriminatory and nepotistic behaviors.
10 What is then left for educational policy to accomplish? The conclusion of the authors is
that, instead of charging it with unrealistic expectations about societal problems whose
roots lie outside schools, governments should set the conditions for teachers and other
educational professionals to focus on the intrinsic – rather than instrumental – value of
education, ensuring that children (of all social origin) are able to fully realize their
academic potential. I am prone to second this call and in fact I believe that it applies well
beyond the British case: in many European countries, partly due to the impulse coming
from the EU and other international organizations, educational policy is increasingly seen
as the key strategy to tackle social risks such as unemployment and poverty (European
Commission, 2016; Hemerijk, 2017), neglecting the inequality-reproducing role of
education and the fact that qualifications cannot be simply equated with human capital.
My note of caution in this respect is that the recognition that too much is being asked to
educational policy should not lead to a disinvestment in equalizing efforts in this area.
Indeed, precisely because of the psychological asymmetry implied by the loss aversion

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mechanism, reforms that pursue a greater decommodification or differentiation of the

educational system will probably meet only limited opposition from the larger public; in
contrast, parents in advantageous positions will most likely exploit the opportunities
provided by the reformed system to secure the relative position of their children.

Bibliografia
Bell D. (1972), On Meritocracy and Equality, «The Public Interest», 29, pp. 29-68.
Bernardi F. and Ballarino G. (eds.) (2016), Education, Occupation and Social Origin, Cheltenham,
Edward Elgar.

DOI : 10.4337/9781785360459
Breen R. and Goldthorpe J.H. (1997), Explaining Educational Differentials towards a Formal
Rational Action Theory, «Rationality and Society», 9, 3, pp. 275-305.
Breen R. and Luijx R. (2004), Social Mobility in Europe between 1970 and 2000 in Breen R. (ed.),
Social Mobility in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 37-76.
Chetty R., Grusky D., Hell M., Hendren N., Manduca R. and Narang J. (2016), The fading American
dream: trends in absolute income mobility since 1940, «NBER Working Papers», 22910
(December).

DOI : 10.1126/science.aal4617
DiPrete T. (2007), What has sociology to contribute to the study of inequality trends? An historical
and comparative perspective, «American Behavioral Scientist», 50, 5, pp. 603-618.

DOI : 10.1177/0002764206295009
Elliott J., Miles A., Parsons S. and Savage M. (2010), The Design and Content of the Social
Participation Study (BCS70), «Centre for Longitudinal Studies Working Papers», 2010, 3.
Erikson R. and Goldthorpe J.H. (1992), The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial
Societies, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
European Commission (2016), A New Skills Agenda for Europe, Brussels COM(2016) 381 final.
Goldthorpe J.H. (1987), Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Goldthorpe J.H. (2000), On Sociology. Numbers, Narratives and the Integration of Research and
Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Goldthorpe J.H. (2010), Analysing Social Inequality: A Critique of Two Recent Contributions from
Economics and Epidemiology, «European Sociological Review», 26, 6, pp. 731-744.

DOI : 10.1093/esr/jcp046
Grusky D.B. (2017), Reducing Inequality in a Populist World, «Revue Française de Sociologie», 58,
2, pp. 199-205.

DOI : 10.3917/rfs.582.0199
Hemerijck A. (ed.) (2017), The Uses of Social Investment, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

DOI : 10.1093/oso/9780198790488.001.0001
Jerrim J. (2017a), The Link between Family Background and Later Lifetime Income: How does the
UK Compare with Other Countries? «Fiscal Studies», 38, 1, pp. 49-79.

DOI : 10.1111/1475-5890.12081
Jerrim J. (2017b), Extra Time: Private Tuition and Out-of-School Study, New International
Evidence, London, Sutton Trust.
Kahneman D. and Tversky A. (1979), Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk,
«Econometrica», 47, 2, pp. 263-291.

DOI : 10.2307/1914185
Lee S. and Shouse R.C. (2011), The impact of prestige orientation on shadow education in South
Korea, «Sociology of Education», 84, 3, pp. 212-224.

DOI : 10.1177/0038040711411278
Lucas S.R. (2001), Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and
Social Background Effects, «American Journal of Sociology», 106, 6, pp. 1642-1690.

DOI : 10.1086/321300
Nicoletti C. and Ermisch J. (2007), Intergenerational Earnings Mobility: Changes across Cohorts
in Britain, «Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy», 7, 2, pp. 1-36.

DOI : 10.2202/1935-1682.1755

https://journals.openedition.org/qds/3538 6/8
13/10/21 0:08 Education is not the answer
Przeworski A. (2019), Crises of democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

DOI : 10.1017/9781108671019
Rodríguez-Pose A. (2018), The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it),
«Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society», 11, 1, pp. 189-209.

DOI : 10.1093/cjres/rsx024
Sørensen A. B. (1979), A model and a metric for the analysis of the intragenerational status
attainment process, «American Journal of Sociology», 85, 2, pp. 361-384.

DOI : 10.1086/227014
Torche F. (2005), Privatization reform and inequality of educational opportunity: the case of
Chile, «Sociology of Education», 78, pp. 316-343.
DOI : 10.1177/003804070507800403
Bell D. (1972), On Meritocracy and Equality, «The Public Interest», 29, pp. 29-68.
Bernardi F. and Ballarino G. (eds.) (2016), Education, Occupation and Social Origin, Cheltenham,
Edward Elgar.

DOI : 10.4337/9781785360459
Breen R. and Goldthorpe J.H. (1997), Explaining Educational Differentials towards a Formal
Rational Action Theory, «Rationality and Society», 9, 3, pp. 275-305.
Breen R. and Luijx R. (2004), Social Mobility in Europe between 1970 and 2000 in Breen R. (ed.),
Social Mobility in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 37-76.
Chetty R., Grusky D., Hell M., Hendren N., Manduca R. and Narang J. (2016), The fading American
dream: trends in absolute income mobility since 1940, «NBER Working Papers», 22910
(December).

DOI : 10.1126/science.aal4617
DiPrete T. (2007), What has sociology to contribute to the study of inequality trends? An historical
and comparative perspective, «American Behavioral Scientist», 50, 5, pp. 603-618.

DOI : 10.1177/0002764206295009
Elliott J., Miles A., Parsons S. and Savage M. (2010), The Design and Content of the Social
Participation Study (BCS70), «Centre for Longitudinal Studies Working Papers», 2010, 3.
Erikson R. and Goldthorpe J.H. (1992), The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial
Societies, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
European Commission (2016), A New Skills Agenda for Europe, Brussels COM(2016) 381 final.
Goldthorpe J.H. (1987), Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Goldthorpe J.H. (2000), On Sociology. Numbers, Narratives and the Integration of Research and
Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Goldthorpe J.H. (2010), Analysing Social Inequality: A Critique of Two Recent Contributions from
Economics and Epidemiology, «European Sociological Review», 26, 6, pp. 731-744.

DOI : 10.1093/esr/jcp046
Grusky D.B. (2017), Reducing Inequality in a Populist World, «Revue Française de Sociologie», 58,
2, pp. 199-205.

DOI : 10.3917/rfs.582.0199
Hemerijck A. (ed.) (2017), The Uses of Social Investment, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

DOI : 10.1093/oso/9780198790488.001.0001
Jerrim J. (2017a), The Link between Family Background and Later Lifetime Income: How does the
UK Compare with Other Countries? «Fiscal Studies», 38, 1, pp. 49-79.

DOI : 10.1111/1475-5890.12081
Jerrim J. (2017b), Extra Time: Private Tuition and Out-of-School Study, New International
Evidence, London, Sutton Trust.
Kahneman D. and Tversky A. (1979), Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk,
«Econometrica», 47, 2, pp. 263-291.

DOI : 10.2307/1914185
Lee S. and Shouse R.C. (2011), The impact of prestige orientation on shadow education in South
Korea, «Sociology of Education», 84, 3, pp. 212-224.

DOI : 10.1177/0038040711411278
Lucas S.R. (2001), Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and
Social Background Effects, «American Journal of Sociology», 106, 6, pp. 1642-1690.

DOI : 10.1086/321300
Nicoletti C. and Ermisch J. (2007), Intergenerational Earnings Mobility: Changes across Cohorts
in Britain, «Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy», 7, 2, pp. 1-36.

https://journals.openedition.org/qds/3538 7/8
13/10/21 0:08 Education is not the answer
DOI : 10.2202/1935-1682.1755
Przeworski A. (2019), Crises of democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

DOI : 10.1017/9781108671019
Rodríguez-Pose A. (2018), The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it),
«Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society», 11, 1, pp. 189-209.

DOI : 10.1093/cjres/rsx024
Sørensen A. B. (1979), A model and a metric for the analysis of the intragenerational status
attainment process, «American Journal of Sociology», 85, 2, pp. 361-384.

DOI : 10.1086/227014
Torche F. (2005), Privatization reform and inequality of educational opportunity: the case of
Chile, «Sociology of Education», 78, pp. 316-343.
DOI : 10.1177/003804070507800403

Note
1 It seems fair to acknowledge that this lack of understanding also reflects a failure of
communication on the side of sociologists, who have been far less effective than economists in
conveying their findings to the political arena.
2 In fact, we know from previous studies most industrialized countries underwent developments
of this kind at different times during the second half of the twentieth century (Erikson and
Goldthorpe, 1992; Breen and Luijx, 2004). However, for some of them (Sweden and, to a lesser
extent, the Netherlands and France) social fluidity seems to be partially responsible for the increase
of upward mobility (Breen and Luijx, 2004).
3 By referring to loss aversion rather than to the more specific mechanism of “relative risk
aversion”, theorized in Breen and Goldthorpe (1997), the authors are seemingly willing to a reach a
larger audience.
4 Note that this trend is not exclusive to Britain. For the US case, Chetty et al., 2016.
5 The analyses reported in Chapter 4 reveal a major divide between the white-collar and the blue-
collar world: men born in a salariat family are 20 times more likely to stay in their origin class than
to be demoted to the working class compared to men originating from the working class.

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Camilla Borgna, «Education is not the answer», Quaderni di Sociologia, 81- LXIII | 2019, 121-129.

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Camilla Borgna, «Education is not the answer», Quaderni di Sociologia [Online], 81- LXIII | 2019,
online dal 01 juin 2020, consultato il 13 octobre 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/qds/3538;
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/qds.3538

Autore
Camilla Borgna
Collegio Carlo Alberto – Torino

Diritti d'autore

Quaderni di Sociologia è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale
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