Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
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Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
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Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#2Reads like an opinionated piece which is cherry-picking it's stats.
The report he's citing most heavily is indeed about social mobility, but social mobility isn't always "up", social mobility measured by OECD is the state of flux and certainly by itself does not correlate at all with improvements in social class from the lower levels.
The author also talks about "more equal" not equating to "more mobile" and he/she is absolutely correct, however the way it's phrased makes me believe he/she is intending to change the mind of the reader as to whether more equal is a good thing.
Overall I'm not coming to the same conclusion as the author from the source material. Flux is bad if you're middle/working class are ending up in the poor class. Which is happening from what I can tell anecdotally.
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#3It's just really difficult to understand what this means.
The first big caveat is that 1990s to 2010s stops at the financial crisis. Due to austerity the UK has since then seen the greatest period of wage stagnation of all the advanced nations except Greece. But employment has remained high. So whilst the report is a picture of time before the crash its not clear to me what has happened since.
Second - Yes I think I do care more about the overall level of poverty and inequality. I'm not happy if people are moving in and out of destitution.
Third - I really don't understand how to square this analysis with the obvious fact that half as many people own their own home now as in the 80s. For 25-34 year olds its gone from 65% to 27% during the period of this study . What's that downward income mobility? I sthat a good thing? Or does that not count as it's not income?
.. I just don't really know what this is saying..?
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#4The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way.
All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lower working class (my hometown) to my recent years where I've lived in rather upper-class "lawyer-doctor-business owner" regions. The difference in education between the lower and upper classes is stark. Let me explain.
Upper-class children are enrolled in schools of like-minded high-achievers full of entrance exams and interviews (provides a non-zero floor to student "intelligence/quality" at the school), and strict rules/discipline. They are further pushed towards degrees leading to higher paying careers - Finance, Medicine, Law, by their families and the schools themselves. Their families purchase extra tutoring, they have smarter parents (this is a positive feedback loop across generations!) to guide them, and so on...
Compare this to lower-class children, who, in the UK (and i'm pretty sure everywhere else essentially) are enrolled in "state schools" (free). These schools have no entrance requirements (there is zero floor for student quality), the families almost never purchase extra tutoring, and are much less pushed towards "meaningful" degrees. The schools offer equal environments to the best and the worst of students.
This imbalance in education (and by extension upbringing in general) is what seeds everything else. And indeed, in the past few years the UK government has recognized all the above. How they plan of solving it? The reintroduction of "Grammer Schools"! These are state schools (still), but _do_ have enterance requirements, thereby allowing lower-class students of high intelligence/quality a chance to separate from the worst students in state schools and enroll in a more challenging education. There is much debate in the UK whether this will work, or will simply just allow children of rich families to more-often/further separate themselves from poor families. Time will tell.
That's my 0.02c anyway: Education.
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#5The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…
If grammar (you spelt this incorrectly) schools were effective at improving society as a whole, you'd be able to measure an effect in the places in the UK where they were retained. Especially Northern Ireland.
Instead you have to address what happens to the 50% of people who don't get into the selective schools. You can't improve overall quality through rejecting students, because there's no "away" to reject them to!
People who are actually involved in education are more likely to tell you that the key factor for most of the lower-achieving students is obstacles, especially out of school; are they getting enough sleep and 3 square meals a day? Do they have at least one parent around who's engaged in their education? What obstacles does that parent face? Is the child being bullied at school or home? etc.
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#6The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…
One way of avoiding any exams or interviews is to have your child start at a private school at nursery level - it's only if you transfer in later that they do the interviews/exams (NB not all public schools work like that though).
Mind you my son transferred between private schools at age 16 and the interview was mainly about rugby...
[NB Both my wife and I went to very humble state schools but we could afford private schools and, to be honest, the quality of teaching and facilities at private schools is vastly better to state schools so I've never regretted it].
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#7The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…
I'm not sure where you get your experience of state education, but with two kids in state primary and now a comprehensive in working class East London, that's been far from my experience. Yes these schools are non-selective, but do excellent work with differentiated curriculum to ensure that children of all levels are pushed. When it came to choosing GCSE's there was explicit guidance as to which mixture of courses would be most attractive to "Russell Group" universities.
I have friends who moved down to Kent so that they could get their kids into selective grammar schools. There's little evidence that these schools provide better educational outcomes in terms of progress. They skim the most able from the system at the beginning of the secondary school process and at the end, they are still the most able, though not measurably better educated than the most able who go to non-selective comprehensive schools.
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#8The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…
If grammar (you spelt this incorrectly) schools were effective at improving society as a whole, you'd be able to measure an effect in the places in the UK where they were retained. Especially Northern Ireland. Instead you have to address what happens to the 50% of people who don't get into the selective schools. You can't improve overall quality through rejecting students, because there's no "away" to reject them to!…
you'd be able to measure an effect in the places in the UK where they were retained.
I live in a very rural area where a grammar school has been maintained (which my wife attended) and most of the people who go there end up at good universities and then move away for good careers in distant cities. Meanwhile, the people at the comprehensives usually end up staying in our area on lower paid jobs.
Does this lead to be a better society? It certainly provides a way for poorer but smarter people to find a way 'out' of a humdrum rural location, but I don't think it makes our area any better in and of itself.
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#9The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…
One way of avoiding any exams or interviews is to have your child start at a private school at nursery level - it's only if you transfer in later that they do the interviews/exams (NB not all public schools work like that though). Mind you my son transferred between private schools at age 16 and the interview was mainly about rugby... [NB Both my wife and I went to very humble state schools but we could afford privat…
Your own experience may be of better quality teaching in the private schools but that's not borne out by the evidence, what little there is. For reference, there's the recent publication of "Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain" by Robert Verkaik, which explicitly states there is no demonstrably better teaching.
My own personal experience is of State, Grammar (selective) and Private. It's all about the intake, I feel. The quality of teaching isn't really different. If anything the Private school teachers are lazier because they don't have to try as hard. They also seemed more arrogant to me.
Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain
#10The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…
If grammar (you spelt this incorrectly) schools were effective at improving society as a whole, you'd be able to measure an effect in the places in the UK where they were retained. Especially Northern Ireland. Instead you have to address what happens to the 50% of people who don't get into the selective schools. You can't improve overall quality through rejecting students, because there's no "away" to reject them to!…
I find it interesting that the non-Grammar "comprehensive/secondary modern" schools in areas with Grammar Schools actually perform better than Comprehensive schools (such as the one I attended) in areas where Grammar Schools have been abolished.
Does this mean that such schools apply more focus to issues such as the ones you list in order to better compete?