SocMobility: Education and Social Mobility in Scotland in the 20th Century
Conference on
Education and Social Mobility, 13 June 2005 Abstracts |
Dr Cristina Iannelli, Research Fellow at the Centre for Educational
Sociology in the Moray House School of Education in the University
of Edinburgh |
Scotland in a National and International Context This talk focuses on the analysis of trends in social mobility patterns in Scotland. It starts by briefly reporting findings from empirical research on social mobility carried out at national and international level. The Scottish case is then considered in these larger contexts and the most recent findings drawn from the ESRC project Education and Social Mobility in Scotland in the 20th Century are presented. The talk discusses whether changing patterns of social mobility over time are related to changes in the occupational structure or changing patterns of social inequalities; whether there are gender differences in these patterns; and the role played by education in the process of intergenerational social mobility in Scotland. Finally long-term changes in the association between social class of origin and social class of destination are analysed combining data from the 1974 Scottish Mobility Survey and the 2001 Scottish Household Survey |
Dr Adam Swift, Fellow in Politics and Sociology at Balliol College,
and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Justice at the University
of Oxford |
Social Mobility and Social Justice* This talk explores the key normative issues raised by empirical research into social mobility and meritocracy. Sociologists working in this area are motivated by a concern with matters of social justice and equality of opportunity, but that concern tends to be rather vague and diffuse, which makes it difficult to assess the normative relevance of their findings. Surveying five issues familiar to political philosophers that clarify the significance of sociologists’ results, an explanation is given of why a regime of ‘perfect mobility’ is not an appropriate benchmark for evaluating the extent to which a society offers its members social justice or equality of opportunity. Some mechanisms by which parents transmit advantage – or disadvantage – to their children are unobjectionable and would exist even in an altogether just society. * Dr Adam Swift’s presentation is not available on the web but his relevant works are: 'Would Perfect Mobility be Perfect?', European Sociological Review 20 2004 (1), pp.1-11, and 'Seizing the Opportunity', New Economy 10 2003, pp. 208-12. |
Professor Lindsay Paterson, Professor of Educational Policy
at the Moray House School of Education in the University of Edinburgh |
Policy Issues This talk asks questions about whether and how government policy was relevant to the experience of social mobility in developed societies in roughly the half century from the 1930s to the 1980s. It discusses, first, the plausible reasons why we might expect policy – especially educational policy – to be relevant. It then casts some doubt on these expectations, using in particular the comparative study of Scottish social mobility and Scottish education, and also, within Scotland, the comparative study of different religious groups. Third, it reformulates the question to ask what kinds of social mobility might be affected by policy. It finishes by speculating about the implications for policy of recent trends in social mobility and educational expansion. |
Professor Stephen Baron, Professor of Education at the University
of Strathclyde; Associate Director (Research Capacity Building)
of the ESRC Teaching and
Learning Research Programme; and Co-ordinator of AERS in Scotland |
The Limitations of Social Democratic Educational Policy: Scotland,
Past and Future This paper will reflect on the implications of social mobility research in general, and the Iannelli and Paterson ESRC project in particular, for the social democratic project of meritocracy. It will consider the ‘discrepant’ case of women and higher education in order to reflect on the conditions under which the meritocratic project might be possible. The paper will conclude by applying the themes of the paper to current Scottish Executive policies for education in order to assess the conditions under which they might attain their policy goals. |