Social Mobility Chance Or Choice

Social Mobility: Chance or Choice?, a sequel to `Born to Fail? Social Mobility, a Working Class View' (October 2017), sets out the current chances and choices available for those considered by the establishment to need social mobility. Revisiting mutuality, Sonia Blandford asks whether we care enough as a society by considering the issues, solutions and impact to the education and social issues that push against the chance or choice of social mobility. Citing the views from interviews with education and business leaders, Social Mobility: Chance or Choice? reflects on the changing skillsets and capacities of workers required by employers, business and industry and the inescapable conclusion that the skillsets and capacities will continue to change in ways that are almost impossible for us to predict. In these contexts, we must question whether the traditional acme and 'recognised journey' of educational achievement – maximising university entrance – is still relevant or useful for working-class children and young people and children facing disadvantage. Apprenticeships, at their best, can offer an updated and forward-facing solution to the providing choice for working-class and all children and young people. Despite current policy developments to encourage meaningful apprenticeships, apprenticeship programmes are experiencing challenges. Social Mobility: Chance or Choice? argues that applied learning and work-based learning should be more accessible and available to all children and young people. If we are serious about unleashing the talent of all children and young people, regardless of their background, challenges or needs, we must consider new and innovative approaches to post-14 education. If we are to unleash the potential of all children and young people, the role of Further Education needs to be respected and understood. Quality Further Education and training in partnership with business is a credible answer to social mobility. Further Education is an underused but ideally placed sector to develop meaningful change for working-class young people, providing real chances and choices. Beginning with Leaders - professionals, practitioners, parents or carers, and members of society have a shared responsibility to ensure that all children and young people have a right to chance or choice and support these opportunities. Building a society that is truly inclusive.

Teaching and Learning to Unlock Social Mobility for Every Child is a topical and insightful text that guides readers through evidence-based practice that will improve outcomes for all involved in education, increasing social mobility and inclusion in every sense. In the past 30 years, how children and young people learn has changed considerably as challenges of social mobility become more apparent. Cultural and social economic disadvantage is evident, as is the need to focus on mutuality in education, whereby all children and young people are valued regardless of their background, challenges or needs. In this context, Teaching and Learning to Unlock Social Mobility for Every Child is the first work to capture and clearly explain practical teaching and learning approaches that can be used in any school. It circles around the creativity and technology of pedagogy, exploring an educational agenda that is genuinely rooted in social mobility for all children. Written accessibly and full of case studies, this book is intended to guide practitioners and stakeholders at all levels of education from school leaders to researchers, students and teachers. It will help them to impart the skills and capacities which children and young people require to drive their future social mobility and address the challenges they will face on their own terms.

This book highlights decisions governments have to make about their public education systems, the options they have before them and the consequences of their decisions. As well as covering issues such as values, curriculum, teacher training, structures and so on, the book addresses education planning for epidemics, pandemics and disasters. Education systems provide the foundations for the future wellbeing of every society, yet existing systems are a point of global concern. Education System Design is a response to debates in developing and developed countries about the characteristics of a high-quality national education service. It questions what makes a successful system of education. With chapters that draw on experience in education systems around the world, each one considers an element of a national education service and its role in providing a coherent and connected set of structures to ensure good education for all members of society. Key topics include: Existing education systems and what a future system might look like Inclusion and social justice Leadership and teacher education Policy options, and the consequences of policy changes This book suggests an education system be viewed as an ecosystem with interdependencies between many different components needing to be considered when change is contemplated. It is a vital book for any stakeholders in educational systems including students, teachers and senior leaders. It would be particularly useful to policy makers and those implementing policy changes.

This book follows the figure of ‘the clever girl’ from the post-war to the present and focuses on the fiction, plays and memoirs of contemporary British women writers. Spurred on by an ethic of meritocracy, the clever girl is now facing austerity and declining social mobility. Though suggesting optimism, a public discourse of ‘opportunity’, ‘aspiration’ and ‘choice’ is often experienced as an anxious and chancy process. In a wide-ranging study, the book explores the struggle to move away from home and traditional notions of femininity; the persistent problems associated with women’s embodiment; the pressures of class and racial divisions; the new subjectivities of the neoliberal era; and the generational conflict underpinning austerity. The book ends with a consideration of feminism’s place as a phantom presence in this history of clever girls. This study will appeal to readers of contemporary women’s writing and to those interested in what has been one of the dominant social narratives of the post-war period from upward to declining mobility.

This unique collection of essays seeks to identify the most pressing needs for policy interventions aimed at extending social mobility and life chances. It provides a valuable synthesis of evidence on the effectiveness of recent policy interventions.

Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves-which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines—typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?