Intergenerational Educational Mobility: The Role of Noncognitive Skills

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: College Access, Outcomes, and Stratification

Abstract

While it has been shown that university attendance is strongly predicted by parental education, we know little about why some first-generation students make it to university and others do not. This paper explores the role of non-cognitive skills in the university participation of this disadvantaged group. We find that conditional on national, high-stakes exam scores and various measures of socioeconomic background, having higher levels of locus of control, academic self-concept, work ethic, and self-esteem in adolescence is positively related to intergenerational educational mobility to university. Higher non-cognitive skills help potential first-generation university students to compensate for their disadvantage, especially for boys. The most important channel of this relationship seems to be through educational attainment at the end of compulsory schooling.

Authors

• Anna Adamecz-Volgyi, UCL Institute of Education

• Morag Henderson, UCL Institute of Education

• Nikki Shure, University College London