Commentary: A Perspective on Inequality and Education From the United Kingdom

• In Event: Economic Inequality and Educational Opportunity: International Perspectives on Research and Policy Options

Abstract

The United Kingdom, like the United States, has relatively high levels of inequality in both incomes and educational attainments. Both have lower rates of social mobility than several highly developed countries - as one might expect given that income distribution and social mobility are closely related across countries (Esping Andersen, 2005) - and intergenerational mobility has declined in recent years with rising income inequality (Blanden et al, 2005). Low social mobility in Britain is partly explained by the strong relationship between parental income and educational attainment, which has been growing stronger in recent decades in terms of access to higher education. However, if we look across a wider range of countries, the relationship between income inequality and educational equality appears more complex. Across OECD countries income inequality and adult skills inequality (as measured in tested literacy skills, for instance) are strongly correlated (Green, Preston and Janmaat, 2006). However, at the school level the relationship is less clear. The OECD, for instance, find no significant correlation at the country level between inequality of outcomes in PISA tests and income inequality. What is more, during the 2000s, when income inequality has been rising in many countries, the variance in tested scores in PISA has reduced across the OECD generally, as it has to a small extent in the UK. This does not mean that income inequality has no effect on educational inequality. But it does suggest that the effect varies across countries and that education system characteristics have a significant impact on the degree to which income inequalities translate into educational inequalities at the school level (Green and Mostafa, forthcoming). This gives some grounds for optimism in that it suggests that education policy makes a difference. This paper uses OECD PISA data to explore some of the characteristics of school systems which exacerbate or attenuate the effects of income inequality on inequalities of educational outcomes. It finds that wider distributions of scores in PISA tests are associated across countries with, amongst other system characteristics, early academic selection to differentiated school/tracks, regionalisation of funding and control, and high differentiation between schools in the social mix of their intakes.


References

Blanden, J., Gregg, P. And Machin, S. ‘Intergenational Mobility in Europe and NorthAmerica, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, 2005.

Esping-Andersen, G. (2003) Unequal Opportunities and Social Inheritance. In Corak, M. (ed) The Dynamics of Intergenerational Income Mobility, Cambridge University Press.

Green, A., Preston, J. And Janmaat, G. (2006) Education, Equality and Social Cohesion, Palgrave.

Green, A. And Mostafa, T. (forthcoming 2013) ‘The Dynamics of Education Systems: Convergent and Divergent Trends, 1990 to 2010.’ in Janmaat, J-G., Duru-Bellat, M., Green, A. and Méhaut, P., (eds) The Dynamics and Social Consequences of Education Systems, Palgrave, 2013.

Author

• Andy David Green, Institute of Education - London