Search

Recent studies of social mobility have documented that not only who your parents are, but also where you grow up, substantially influences subsequent life chances. We bring these two concepts together to study social mobility in England and Wales, in three post-war generations, using linked Decennial Census data. Our findings show considerable spatial variation in rates of absolute and relative mobility, as well as how these have changed over time. While upward mobility increased in every region between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, this shift varied across different regions and tailed off for more recent cohorts. We also explore how domestic migration is related to social mobility, finding that those who moved out of their region of origin had higher rates of upward mobility compared to those who stayed, although this difference narrowed over time., (© 2021 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.)

There has been much recent discussion concerning the conceptual and empirical viability and value of the distinction between social class and social status, and in particular as implemented in the work of Chan and Goldthorpe. The present paper addresses certain of the issues that arise on the basis of a historical case, that of class and status in interwar England, with reference to housing, sports club membership, and dress. It seeks to show that, contrary to what has been claimed by various authors, the distinction can be effectively made and is indeed necessary to an understanding of these features of the social history of the period; that it is differential association that has to be seen as constitutive of status stratification, rather than differences in lifestyle; and that increased status striving, anxieties, and segregation, with adverse psychological consequences, can result from a narrowing as well as from a widening of class inequalities., (© 2020 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.)

Background: Studies in the United States show that school students from some ethnic backgrounds are susceptible to stereotype threat, that this undermines their academic performance, and that a series of virtually zero-cost self-affirmation writing exercises can reduce these adverse effects. In England, however, socioeconomic status (SES) is a much stronger predictor of academic success than is ethnic background., Aims: This study investigates whether self-affirmation writing exercises can help close the SES attainment gap in England by increasing the academic performance of low-SES (but not higher-SES) school students., Sample: Our sample consisted of students aged 11-14 in a secondary school in southern England (N = 562); of these, 128 were eligible for free school meals, a proxy for low SES., Methods: Students completed three short writing exercises throughout one academic year: those randomly assigned to an affirmed condition wrote about values that were important to them, and those assigned to a control condition wrote about a neutral topic., Results: On average, the low-SES students had lower academic performance and reported experiencing more stereotype threat than their higher-SES peers. The self-affirmation raised the academic performance of the low-SES students by 0.38 standard deviations but did not significantly affect the performance of the higher-SES students, thus reducing the SES performance gap by 62%. The self-affirmation also reduced the level of stress reported by the low-SES students., Conclusions: The benefits of this virtually zero-cost intervention compare favourably with those of other interventions targeting the SES academic attainment gap., (© 2019 The British Psychological Society.)

As part of a wider study into the educational attitudes and experiences of white, working-class male pupils in the north of England, this paper explored the ways that male pupils in years 10 and 11 navigated and experienced the six-level (A-F) academic banding system present in their British mainstream secondary school (Ayrefield Community school – ACS). Following an initial four-week period of both covert and overt observations (including guided conversations), three distinct groups of male pupils emerged. Influenced in part by Paul Willis' seminal study (1977) of males in a working-class school environment, these three 'lads' groups were representative of pupils in the top, middle, and bottom academic bands and were subsequently named Performers, Participants and Problematics respectively by the researcher. Following this initial phase of observations, a total of 74 male pupils from these top (n = 29), middle (n = 26) and lower (n = 19) academic bands were specifically selected to take part in a total of 14 group interviews with the aim being to explore the lads' experiences of, and attitudes towards, being taught in academic bands, as well as their views on education and qualifications more generally. Passages from these group interviews are combined with guided conversation responses to make up the findings presented in this paper which are then explored and explained using some key concepts from Norbert Elias's field of figurational sociology alongside key academic literature linked to the use of academic banding in schools. The paper suggests that despite the fact that all male pupils at ACS were exposed to very similar working-class upbringings and social pressures as part of their wider social figuartions, members of each of the three lads' groups became part of, and were subsequently influenced by, the specific, school-based figuartions that emerged as a result of their allocation to their respective academic group. Influenced by the increasingly diverse and complex social relations within these school-based figuartions, the lads from the three different groups seemed set to achieve relative 'success' at school, albeit on route to different destinations, for different reasons, and towards quite starkly different end goals – all whilst still being very much aware of, and influenced by, the wider social figuration of which they were inextricably a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the importance of relationality and care for understanding women's alcohol use, using a theoretical framework comprising concepts from feminist ethics of care, the sociology of personal life, and feminist approaches to governmentality. A key focus is how care giving responsibilities and expectations in families appear to be particularly significant for creating or constraining possibilities for drinking practices. We draw on findings from a qualitative study about alcohol use and stress with 26 women, aged 24-67 years, in the North East of England, UK. We consider how care practices in families feature in the accounts of alcohol use by women with and without children, and how the symbolic and material aspects of social class interact with care to alter the drinking practices women engage in. The interpretation extends scholarship on women's drinking, by adopting a relational approach to identity and linking private care practices and alcohol use to social and political structures. Public health approaches for preventing or reducing heavy drinking practices are predominantly situated within biomedical or psychological paradigms. Intervention approaches to reduce women's drinking that draw on our theoretical framework could offer potential for reducing harmful alcohol use in a more meaningful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes, as its starting point, Preston and Haines' observation in Fatal Years that social class was the most important influence on infant and child mortality in England and Wales in the early twentieth century. A subsequent study suggested that this could in part be due to the spatial distribution of the different classes across different types of place, and that some of the mortality differences by social class might actually reflect the contextual effects of healthy and unhealthy places. Although this line of argument has received a considerable amount of attention in health geography literature, it has rarely been examined for a specific historic period, and then only within particular urban areas. In this paper, we apply multi-level models to a complete count individual-level dataset of the 1911 census of England and Wales, comparing influences on infant and child mortality at the level of the individual couple and for two spatial levels. We find that although most variation in infant and child mortality operates at the individual level, there is also important variation at the two spatial levels and part of the mortality differences between social classes is better explained by the areas in which people lived rather than by their social class. A consideration of independent variables at all three levels suggests that different spatial scales capture different sorts of influences on early age mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the problem of consumerism in the Mayhew brothers' Living for Appearances and The Greatest Plague of Life: Or, The Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant. The two novels offer a satirical comment on the emergence, in the mid-19th century, of a distinctive commodity and consumer culture in England - a development intimately related to the growth and the new visibility of the middle classes. The paper places the novels within their appropriate cultural-historical context and discusses the ways in which they address contemporary anxieties about the new consumerism. Most importantly, it focuses on the nexus between consumption and social aspiration; on commodification; on the imitation and adulteration of commodities and social identities; on the specularization of the self; and, with respect to The Greatest Plague of Life, on the problem of the specifically female gender of consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the fertility of historical social groups by accounting for singleness and childlessness. We find that the middle class had the highest reproductive success during England's early industrial development. In light of the greater propensity of the middle class to invest in human capital, the rise in the prevalence of these traits in the population could have been instrumental to England's economic success. Unlike earlier results about the survival of the richest, the paper shows that the reproductive success of the rich (and also the poor) were lower than that of the middle class, once accounting for singleness and childlessness. Hence, the prosperity of England over this period can be attributed to the increase in the prevalence of middle-class traits rather than those of the upper (or lower) class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educational policy. Drawing on theoretical work by Bourdieu and Foucault, we demonstrate how the students in this study appeared able to re-make disability as a liberal intellectual identity marker and use it as a form of capital within the bounded college sub-field. However, we argue that these empowered disabled subjectivities were strongly middle-classed and precarious. The findings have implications through advancing current understandings of young people's complexifying relationships with disability in education, of enduring inequalities around disability, and how social class is implicated in this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents two remarkably similar characterological figures who are stereotyped embodiments of working-class personas: Haagse Harry in The Hague and chavs in England. The two figures have similar attires, class positions, attitudes, and associated attributes. We compare and contextualize the indexical links between their linguistic features and their social characteristics. Firstly, while chavs can be both men and women, the fictional persona Haagse Harry represents an all-male lower-working-class subculture. Secondly, while Haagse Harry consistently speaks Broad Haags, the language of chavs is not rooted in any single regional dialect but invariably indexes working-class features. Thirdly, Haagse Harry, and his sociolect, has a higher social status compared to the language and persona of chavs, who embody British class prejudice. We demonstrate that the repertoire of linguistic features deployed in the stylisation of characterological figures is strongly dependent on patterns of variation and ideas that are prevalent in the local speech community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how social workers intervene with affluent parents when there are child protection concerns about neglect. Based on data gathered from a small‐scale exploratory qualitative study with 30 practitioners from 12 local authorities across England, this study examined three overarching questions: (a) How do social workers identify risk factors for vulnerable children in affluent circumstances? (b) Which factors inhibit or enable social workers' engagement with resistant affluent parents when there are child protection concerns? (c) What kind of skills, knowledge, and experience is necessary for social workers to effectively assert their professional authority with affluent parents when there are concerns about abuse and neglect? The findings revealed that indicators of neglect can be difficult to identify and challenging to respond to when parents are affluent. Results indicate that social workers have to navigate complex power relationships with parents who are able to use their class privileges to resist their interventions. The paper concludes with a discussion of social workers' skills and capacities for engaging highly‐resistant affluent parents in the child protection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a small sample of passenger’s experiences of low cost air travel (LCAT) and the opinions of principle tourism professionals. The paper draws from research undertaken in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England. The paper initially discusses the limited amount of focus given to social class by those academics concerned with tourism and travel. In particular the paper suggests that a new emphasis is needed on the role and impact of social class on individual’s abilities to partake in low cost air travel and the inclusions and exclusions social class can underpin within touristic experiences. Literature on low cost airlines is then addressed, identifying an overemphasis on the financial success stories of LCAT, suggesting a need for a clearer focus on the social and cultural impacts of LCAT. The paper then draws from 12 interviews and 38 questionnaire responses from the travelling public and travel professionals. In so doing the paper suggests that experiences offered of LCAT highlight the role of financial, social and cultural capital in an individual’s abilities to partake in the LCAT boom — where the middle class or those already mobile may be those who primarily benefit from the arrival of LCAT. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper offers to substantiate a claim about the so-called Meritocratic Conception of how educational opportunities ought to be distributed. Such a conception holds an individual's prospects for educational achievement may be a function of that individual's talent or effort levels but should not be influenced by their social class background. The paper highlights the internal tension in the Meritocratic Conception between on the one hand a prohibition on the influence of social class on educational opportunities and on the other a permission to allow unequal educational opportunities on the basis of talent and effort. This tension obtains because individuals' talent and effort are themselves subject to influence by social class. The paper makes a positive case for an interpretation of the Meritocratic Conception that resolves this tension in favour of an egalitarian version, such that social class represents an objectionable determinant of unequal educational prospects even when its influence is mediated through the cultivation of talent and effort. This argument is further supported through an explanation that the character of social class as a systemic social source of the structure of individuals' opportunities makes it an objectionable influence on educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time use is both a cause of social inequality and a consequence of social inequality. However, how social class stratifies time use patterns is seldom studied. In this paper, I describe the time use patterns in the years 1983 and 2015 by social class, and gender in the British context. Using sequence analysis methods, I show how the diversity of time use patterns in British society is socially stratified. I find that 13 clusters capture the heterogeneity of time use patterns and that these clusters are associated with social class, gender, and day of the week. These clusters capture patterns of paid and unpaid work schedules, as well as leisure patterns. The results show that men have experienced a reduction of the standard Monday to Friday 8-hr working day, while women have experienced a general increase in this type of schedule. On the other hand, patterns of domestic working days have reduced for women and increased for men. Important differences exist in paid and unpaid work patterns between social classes. Working-class women have experienced an important increase in shift work on weekends. They are also much more likely to be doing unpaid work on weekdays compared to upper-class and middle-class women. Working-class men are more likely to experience non-working days and leisure days on both weekdays and weekends and are more likely to be doing shift work. They are also more often doing unpaid work on weekdays compared to men in upper-class households. Patterns of childcare indicate that all families have increased their childcare time. Men in upper-class households in particular have experienced an important growth in childcare time between 1983 and 2015. I conclude by discussing how time use can further our understanding of social stratification., (© 2020 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.)

Objectives: Large-scale influxes of international immigrants into England have stimulated heated debate about whether the increasing ethnic diversity has undermined local residents' life satisfaction and wellbeing. In this paper, we provide the first nationally representative evidence on the relationship between international immigration and local residents' life satisfaction in England. Methods: We used multilevel linear regression models to analyze nationally representative data (2011-2012) from 23,143 respondents and neighborhood level data from the 2011 Census. Results: The results show that the local share of international immigrants who arrived in 2010-2011, in particular the non-white immigrants, has a significantly adverse impact on local people's life satisfaction. Further analysis shows that the adverse impact of migration is particularly pronounced for local residents who do not have a job or from intermediate social class. Conclusions: This study enables a better understanding of the link between international immigration and life satisfaction, highlighting the need of public policies to be more targeted to areas that experienced great influxes of international immigrants by facilitating positive interactions and communication between international immigrants and the local residents.

In British social mobility discourse, the rhetoric of fair access can obscure wider issues of social justice. While socio-economic inequalities continue to shape young people's lives, sociological work on class dis-identification suggests social class is less obviously meaningful as a source of individual and collective identity. This paper considers subjective understandings of the post-16 education and employment landscape in this context, drawing on qualitative research exploring the aspirations of young men and women as they completed compulsory education in north-west England, and the hopes their parents had for their future. It shows how unequal access to resources shaped the older generation's expectations for their children, although this was rarely articulated using the explicit language of class. Their children recognized they faced a difficult job market but embraced the idea that success was possible through hard work. Both generations drew moral boundaries and made judgments based on implicit classed discourses about undeserving others, while at the same time disavowing class identities. There was a more explicit recognition of gender inequality among the parents framed with reference to hopes for greater freedom for their daughters. Opportunities and inequalities were thus understood in complex and sometimes contradictory ways., (© London School of Economics and Political Science 2018.)

'Widening participation' and 'fair access' have been contested policy areas in English higher education since at least the early 1990s. They were key facets of the 2003 White Paper - The Future of Higher Education - and the subsequent 2004 Higher Education Act, with stated objectives that the reach of higher education should be wider and fairer. In particular, there has been considerable concern about admissions to 'top universities', which have remained socially as well as academically exclusive. The principal policy tools used by the Act were the introduction of variable tuition fees, expanded student grants, discretionary bursaries and the new Office for Fair Access (OFFA). This paper draws on publicly available statistics to assess whether the changes implemented by the 2004 Act have indeed made access to English higher education wider and fairer in relation to young people progressing from state schools and colleges and from lower socio-economic groups. It concludes that, while there is some evidence for modest improvements, these have been concentrated outside the 'top universities', which have seen slippage relative to the rest of the sector. The paper concludes with a discussion of the reasons why financial inducements appear to be a flawed and naive approach to influencing student demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policies and practices have maintained a high status internationally, nationally and locally, but limited literature relates to the perspective of social disadvantage in England, with a particular under-representation of young people. The research presented in this paper has been driven by the supposition that a lack of knowledge and research into the views of socially deprived young people, and a lack of engagement with them at a policy level perpetuates the notion that such groups not only have a lack of environmental concern, but may also be seen to be part of the problem. However, exploring the local environmental comprehension of young people allows the assessment of their potential value in local decision-making processes. This research is of continuing relevance, as environmental issues are increasingly highlighted as a major concern for those who experience social disadvantage. This paper presents the findings of a research project conducted in 2008 with socially disadvantaged young people in a youth club setting and makes use of environmental images based on a range of themes. The core aims of this paper are to increase understanding about the environmental views, concerns and knowledge of socially disadvantaged young people, to contrast this understanding with existing evidence relating to socially disadvantaged adults, and then to consider any implications for participation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the roles of migration and group-specific ethnic penalties in minority groups’ life chances. In relation to existing knowledge of extensive diversity between ethnic groups, and outlining a range of frameworks within which to understand that diversity, the paper first explores the relationship of class origins to parental educational and economic assets for three groups of migrant parentage and a comparison white non-migrant group. Second, the paper investigates for the different ethnic groups how the probability of having a professional or managerial class outcome is influenced by class origins and by the educational achievements of the “second generation”. Analysis is based on the ONS Longitudinal Study, which enables the study members to be tracked from 1971, when they were children living with their parents, to their own social class outcomes in 1991 and 2001. Because processes of occupational achievement may take different lengths of time for different groups, occupational outcomes are modelled in both 1991 and 2001, and also outcomes in 2001 conditional on position in 1991. The paper shows that there is evidence of differential processes operating for different ethnic groups that go beyond their class background, but which cannot be attributed to discrimination operating equally against all minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a perspective from an Independent Advocate in England, United Kingdom on the importance of equality in the involuntary treatment of children and young people (CYP). The article highlights the need for safeguards when CYP require detention as part of their mental health care. The paper raises concern that CYP and their families who are less empowered to advocate for optimal care plans may be at risk of less satisfactory outcomes from mental health detention. It notes that CYP in the care system may be particularly vulnerable to such outcomes due to their lower levels empowerment. To mitigate this risk, services need to be proactive in reducing inequity arising from differential levels of empowerment among service users. This could be achieved by adopting strong participation and coproduction activities and ensuring access to Advocacy services for all CYP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, young women in the West have been addressed as ‘Top Girls’, symbols of social progress and emblems of a new meritocracy. The 2008 financial crash and subsequent implementation of austerity measures have further called into question the realisation of such promise and potential as evidence suggests that the young and women have suffered disproportionately within the post-crash landscape in the UK and beyond. This paper draws on longitudinal data to interrogate the promises and failures of neoliberal and post-feminist articulations of aspiration and meritocracy as these are lived and negotiated by young women making transitions in the midst of the ‘crisis’. Attending to the biographical accounts of two participants occupying different class locations, I explore their transitions and perceptions of the uncertainties and risks characterising ‘austere times’. I demonstrate how, despite similarities in their experiences of a stunted graduate labour market, social class shaped how they responded to and made sense of the pressures and predicaments they encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Revista Española de Sociología is the property of Federacion Espanola de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objectives: Large-scale influxes of international immigrants into England have stimulated heated debate about whether the increasing ethnic diversity has undermined local residents’ life satisfaction and wellbeing. In this paper, we provide the first nationally representative evidence on the relationship between international immigration and local residents’ life satisfaction in England. Methods: We used multilevel linear regression models to analyze nationally representative data (2011-2012) from 23,143 respondents and neighborhood level data from the 2011 Census. Results: The results show that the local share of international immigrants who arrived in 2010-2011, in particular the non-white immigrants, has a significantly adverse impact on local people’s life satisfaction. Further analysis shows that the adverse impact of migration is particularly pronounced for local residents who do not have a job or from intermediate social class. Conclusions: This study enables a better understanding of the link between international immigration and life satisfaction, highlighting the need of public policies to be more targeted to areas that experienced great influxes of international immigrants by facilitating positive interactions and communication between international immigrants and the local residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the relationship between working-class participation in higher education ( HE) in England and social and cultural mobility. It argues that embarking on a university education for working-class people has been construed in governmental discourses as an instrumental means of achieving upward mobility, or of aspiring to 'become middle class'. Education in this sense is thus not only understood as having the potential to confer value on individuals, as they pursue different 'forms of capital', or symbolic 'mastery' ( Bourdieu, 1986), but as incurring a form of debt to society. In this sense, the university can be understood as a type of 'creditor' to whom the working-class participants are symbolically indebted, while the middle classes pass through unencumbered. Through the analysis of empirical research conducted with staff from working-class backgrounds employed on a university Widening Participation project in England, the article examines resistance to dominant educational discourses, which understand working-class culture as 'deficient' and working-class participation in HE as an instrumental means of securing upward mobility. Challenging the problematic notion of 'escape' implicit in mobility discourses, this paper concludes by positing the alternative concept of 'fugitivity', to contest the accepted relationship in HE between creditor and debtor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether the institutional hierarchies defined by ‘golden triangle’, other Russell Group, other pre-1992 and post-1992 universities in England, and by ancient, old and new universities in Scotland, have become weaker since the 1990s. Using indicators constructed from Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data for 1996–2010, the article finds a stable hierarchical relationship among the sectors within each country, with some indicators showing a slight widening of status differences between sectors towards the end of the period. The main exception was a slight ‘upgrading’ of new (post-1992) universities in Scotland early in the period. There was little change in the association of institutional sector with social class, but in England the association with private secondary schools became slightly stronger and the association with ethnicity weakened. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on social capital theory to discuss the way social class plays out in the friendships of teenage students. Based on data from individual interviews and focus groups with 75 students in four London secondary schools, it is suggested that students tend to form friendships with people who belong to the same social-class background as them. Social-class ‘sameness’ is considered to be an element that importantly exemplifies the quality of their friendships, and hence close, inter-class friendships were significantly less common than close, intra-class ones. In addition, class differentials were evident and often reproduced by students, even in the context of the rarer inter-class friendships. This paper concludes that social class is of continuous importance in teenagers’ lives and despite some agentic negotiation of class boundaries, as in the case of omnivorousness, students’ friendship networks are dynamically informed by class inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores how the creation of a socially and ethnically mixed student body relates to mobility within the context of Beaumont Academy. This authoritarian school opened in 2004 under the ethos ‘structure liberates’. Based in a predominantly deprived, ethnic minority area of London, Beaumont seeks to culturally transform its students. With its outstanding GCSE results, the school has been championed as a blueprint for reform, yet the cultural implications underlying this approach remain unexamined. The ethos pathologizes the surrounding area while essentializing itself as an ‘oasis in the desert’ liberating students through discipline. The paper explores how mobility is embodied by students and the alterations or eliminations necessary to achieve it. These alterations produce raced and classed positions and bring them into focus, highlighting who needs to ‘adjust’ themselves to accrue value. Uncritical celebrations of mixed-ness conceal structural inequalities lingering beneath the rhetoric of happy multiculturalism and aspirational citizenship. These inequalities are exacerbated by a marketized education system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sociolinguists have been fighting dialect prejudice since the 1960s, but deficit views of non-standard English are regaining currency in educational discourse. In this paper I argue that the traditional sociolinguistic response – stressing dialect systematicity and tolerance of ‘difference’ – may no longer be effective by questioning a key assumption that both deficit and difference approaches share, namely that there exist discrete varieties of English. Based on an empirical study of the language of working-class children in north-east England, I demonstrate that non-standard dialects of English do not have a discrete system of grammar that is isolated from other varieties; rather local dialect forms interact with a range of semiotic resources (includingstandard forms) within speakers’ repertoires. Interactional analyses of the children's spontaneous speech highlight this hybridity, as well as the social meanings behind the linguistic choices children make. I conclude by addressing educational responses to non-standard dialect in the classroom, suggesting that it is not the presence or absence of non-standard forms in children's speech that raises educational issues; rather, educational responses which problematise non-standard voices risk marginalising working-class speech, and may contribute to the alienation of working-class children, or significant groups of them, within the school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a long-standing and commonly held belief in the United Kingdom and elsewhere that the use of elite forms of language reflects superior intellect and education. Expert opinion from sociolinguistics, however, contends that such a view is the result of middle-class bias and cannot be scientifically justified. In the 1960s and 1970s, such luminaries as Labov and Trudgill were at pains to point out to educationalists, with some success, that this ‘deficit’ view of working-class children's communicative competence is not a helpful one. However, a close reading of recent think-tank reports and policy papers on language and literacy teaching in schools reveals that the linguistic deficit hypothesis has resurfaced and is likely to influence present-day educational policy and practice. In this paper, I examine in detail the findings, claims and recommendations of the reports and argue that they are biased, poorly researched and reflect the vested interests of certain specialist groups. I further argue that we need to move away from the pathologisation of working-class children's language patterns and, once again, inject a sociolinguistic perspective on language and educational failure into the debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on data drawn from a study exploring the educational strategies of 62 Black Caribbean heritage middle-class parents. In this paper, we consider the respective roles of race and class in the shaping of parents’ educational strategies, deploying an analysis that focuses on their intersection and seeks to hold both race and class in productive tension. Drawing on empirical data, we illustrate how parents’ classed and raced identities shape their interactions with school staff. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper revisits the work on youth cultures and subcultures that emerged from Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (hereafter CCCS) during the 1970s. I engage with a number of recent critiques of the 'youth sub/cultures project', including Thornton's influential work on rave and club cultures and its troubled engagement with class. I argue that the focus of the youth sub/cultures project on mediated cultural practices through which young people constitute themselves and their (gendered, classed and racialised) positions remains of value, especially the emphasis on a 'symptomatic reading' that locates these processes in a 'conjunctural analysis'. I end by exploring the legacy of this project for understanding youth, class and culture in contemporary late modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a commissioned table based on data from the 2001 Census of Population to explore differentials in migration by ethnic group and occupational class. Employing an area classification based on the minority ethnic population and international and internal migration history of districts in England and Wales, it is hypothesised that those most likely to migrate from ‘immigrant settlement areas’ are those with the greatest economic resources. It is suggested that if migration does vary by level of affluence, then a social gradient may be apparent with respect to migration propensity and occupational class membership. Furthermore, if such ‘affluent flight’ can explain ‘racial’ migration patterns, then a similar social gradient would be expected for each ethnic group, and a similar probability of migrating for people of common socio-demographic characteristics, irrespective of ethnic group. Three main questions relating to these themes were proposed, namely: Does a social gradient exist for the residential mobility of those who live in settlement areas of England and Wales? Is a social gradient associated with moves away from settlement areas and in particular towards other areas to which minorities have dispersed? Is the social gradient, such as it exists, similar for each ethnic group? Clear evidence is presented for a social gradient with respect to movement from settlement areas. It was found that for those who originated in settlement districts, the probability of moving was greater if in higher than lower occupational classes and this was consistent for all ethnic groups. In addition, migrants were more likely to move outside their own (settlement) district, and to a non-settlement district, if in professional forms of employment. Settlement areas in London were modelled separately, and London was shown to have a distinct pattern of migration. London professionals were less likely to move to a non-settlement district than those in less skilled employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of a 'death' of class in popular and policy discourse, this paper argues that social class is still a major force at work in young people's lives, particularly in the context of schooling. We argue that young people's subcultural groups are classed, in the way in which they are constructed in discourse. Drawing on a data set of 68 interviews with white, middle-class young people in three different cities in England, we argue that class can be seen and felt in young people's constructions of the 'chav', where white, working-class young people's ways of being and doing in the context of schooling, stand in stark contrast to the normative middle-class subject, and become pathologized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which inequality generates particular population health outcomes remains a major source of dispute within social epidemiology and medical sociology. Wilkinson and Pickett's The Spirit Level (2009), undoubtedly galvanised thinking across the disciplines, with its emphasis on how income inequality shapes the distribution of health and social problems. In this paper, we argue that their focus on income inequality, whilst important, understates the role of neoliberal discourses and practises in making sense of contemporary inequality and its health-related consequences. Many quantitative studies have demonstrated that more neoliberal countries have poorer health compared to less neoliberal countries, but there are few qualitative studies which explore how neoliberal discourses shape accounts and experiences and what protections and resources might be available to people. This article uses findings from a qualitative psycho-social study employing biographical-narrative interviews with women in Salford (England) to understand experiences of inequality as posited in The Spirit Level. We found evidence for the sorts of damages resulting from inequality as proposed in The Spirit Level. However, in addition to these, the most striking finding was the repeated articulation of a discourse which we have termed "no legitimate dependency". This was something both painful and damaging, where dependency of almost any sort was disavowed and responsibility was assumed by the self or "othered" in various ways. No legitimate dependency, we propose, is a partial (and problematic) internalisation of neoliberal discourses which becomes naturalised and unquestioned at the individual level. We speculate that these sorts of discourses in conjunction with a destruction of protective resources (both material and discursive), lead to an increase in strain and account in part for well-known damages consequent on life in an unequal society. We conclude that integrating understandings of neoliberalism into theorising about inequality enriches sociological perspectives in this area., (Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: Achieving high human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine coverage may reduce inequalities in cervical cancer prevention by mitigating the inequalities seen in the cervical screening programme. This paper assesses whether the same sociodemographic factors are associated with both cervical screening and HPV vaccination., Methods: Girls' HPV vaccination records were linked by address to cervical screening records for their mothers in the North West of England. Index of Multiple Deprivation scores (2010) and census ethnicity data (2001) were used to investigate the association between deprivation and ethnic composition of area of residence with HPV vaccination and cervical screening uptake, along with potential differences between Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), which were responsible for vaccine delivery., Results: Deprivation was not associated with routine (12-13-year-olds) vaccination initiation, but girls living in the most deprived quintile were significantly less likely to complete the three vaccine doses (OR 0.75; 95% CI 0.63 to 0.88). Mother-daughter pairs failing to engage in either screening or vaccination were also more likely to live in deprived areas (routine vaccination OR for most deprived quintile: 2.35; 95% CI 2.00 to 2.77). There were differences between PCTs after controlling for demographic effects (OR 1.35; 95% CI 1.23 to 1.52)., Conclusions: Ensuring completion of the vaccine schedule is critical for organisations responsible for vaccine delivery in order to reduce cancer risk among girls living in deprived areas. There remains a small minority of mothers and daughters from disadvantaged backgrounds who do not participate in either cervical screening or HPV vaccination.

abstract The paper describes a developing sociological and psychoanalytic approach to the study of 20 London families in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the environmental inequalities of living in the floodplains of England and Wales and the differences in flood awareness of those 'at risk'. An area comparison is made between an etic, objective flood risk exposure, and an emic, subjective perception of that risk by social class. In all areas except the Midlands, the working classes were more likely to reside in the floodplains; the greatest exposure inequality is seen in the North East and Anglian regions. Flood awareness in the Anglian regions was much lower than average, but there were no significant class differences. In the Thames region, despite equal flood risk exposure between classes, the most deprived displayed the least awareness of flood risk. In the North East, inequalities in the distribution of flood risk exposure accompanied inequalities in perception, resulting in the least aware and most deprived experiencing the greatest flood risk., (© 2012 The Author(s). Journal compilation © Overseas Development Institute, 2012.)

This paper aims to examine the relationship between parental socio-economic status (SES) and adolescent substance use. The central question posed in the title is approached in two stages. First, theoretical and empirical research in this area is reviewed. Second, data from an ongoing longitudinal study of young people in England (the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study--PADS+) are used to highlight the nature of this relationship in one city. Results from discrete-time event history analyses show that when examining what predicts initiation of substance use, familial and demographic factors emerge as important predictors, but SES does not appear to be relevant. The concluding discussion focuses on whether support is found for hypotheses derived from the existing literature and implications for future research., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Progression to higher education in England varies markedly by region, with lower rates of participation outside of London. While some previous studies have explored challenges in accessing higher education in rural and coastal areas, there is a lack of research which considers both individual-level and geographic effects in relation to regional variations in HE progression. In this study, using multivariate regression analysis, we examine whether regional differences in transition to higher education can be explained by the rural/coastal nature of the geographic area in which young people grow up, by area-level deprivation, or by the characteristics of young people living within these regions. The analysis uses the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, a representative cohort study. These data have been linked to information on the proximity to the coast. Consistent with other work, we find that individual differences and area-level deprivation predict HE aspirations and progression. The newly introduced coastal/rural indicator also predicts HE aspirations and progression, but this is mitigated by the inclusion of individual differences and area-level deprivation. However, we find that unexplained regional differences persist. In particular, the South West of England emerges as a regional cold spot for HE. Consequently, policy makers should consider the role that regional dynamics may have in influencing the choices and constraints faced by young people. The approach may also be applicable to understanding inequalities in progression to HE in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper analyses the relationship between public perceptions of access to general practitioners (GPs) surgeries and hospitals against health status, car ownership and geographic distance. In so doing it explores the different dimensions associated with facility access and accessibility., Methods: Data on difficulties experienced in accessing health services, respondent health status and car ownership were collected through an attitudes survey. Road distances to the nearest service were calculated for each respondent using a GIS. Difficulty was related to geographic distance, health status and car ownership using logistic generalized linear models. A Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) was used to explore the spatial non-stationarity in the results., Results: Respondent long term illness, reported bad health and non-car ownership were found to be significant predictors of difficulty in accessing GPs and hospitals. Geographic distance was not a significant predictor of difficulty in accessing hospitals but was for GPs. GWR identified the spatial (local) variation in these global relationships indicating locations where the predictive strength of the independent variables was higher or lower than the global trend. The impacts of bad health and non-car ownership on the difficulties experienced in accessing health services varied spatially across the study area, whilst the impacts of geographic distance did not., Conclusions: Difficulty in accessing different health facilities was found to be significantly related to health status and car ownership, whilst the impact of geographic distance depends on the service in question. GWR showed how these relationships were varied across the study area. This study demonstrates that the notion of access is a multi-dimensional concept, whose composition varies with location, according to the facility being considered and the health and socio-economic status of the individual concerned.

There are long-standing achievement gaps in England associated with socio-economic status (SES), ethnicity and gender, but relatively little research has evaluated interactions between these variables or explored school effects on such gaps. This paper analyses the national test results at age 7 and age 11 of 2,836 pupils attending 68 mainstream primary schools in an ethnically diverse inner London borough. The groups with the lowest educational achievement and poorest progress were both Black Caribbean and White British low SES pupils. White British middle and high SES pupils made substantially more progress than White British low SES pupils, significantly increasing the SES gap over time. However low and high SES Black pupils made equally poor progress age 7–11. School effects on pupil progress were large, but there was no evidence of differential school effectiveness in relation to SES, ethnicity or gender. Low SES pupils in the more effective schools performed significantly better than high SES pupils in the less effective schools, but all pupils (both low and high SES) benefit from attending the more effective schools and so these schools do not eliminate the SES gap. The limits to change that may be achieved by schools alone are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There has been much focus on separating contextual and compositional influences on social inequalities in health. However, there has been less focus on the important role of place in shaping the distribution of risk factors. Spatial variations in worklessness are one such factor. In this paper, then we examine the extent to which between and within regional differences in the social gradient in self-rated general health are associated with differences in rates of worklessness., Methods: Data were obtained for men and women of working age (25-59) who had ever worked from the Sample of Anonymised Records (Individual SAR)-a 3% representative sample of the 2001 English Census (349,699 women and 349,181 men). Generalised linear models were used to calculate region and age adjusted prevalence difference for not good health by education (as an indicator of socio-economic status) and employment status. The slope index of an inequality was also calculated for each region., Results: For both men and women, educational inequalities in worklessness and not good health are largest in those regions with the highest overall levels of worklessness. Adjusting for worklessness considerably attenuated the educational health gradient within all English regions (by over 60%) and virtually eliminated between region differences., Discussion: Macroeconomic policies, which influence the demand for labour, may have an important role in creating inequalities in general health of the working age population both within and between regions. Employment policy may therefore be one important approach to tackling spatial and socio-economic health inequalities., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Early Club Studies emphasised the inclusiveness of club cultures and the PLUR ethos of 'peace, love, unity and respect' alongside a polarised characterisation of nightlife contexts, as either commercial, alcohol-oriented nightclubs offering 'mainstream' pop music, or 'authentic'/'alternative' underground dance clubs associated with widespread illicit drug use. This paper adds to the growing body of research problematising these simplistic characterisations of club cultures and leisure venues across the night-time economy, emphasising elements of fragmentation and segregation alongside the continued importance of social structure and resultant social and spatial exclusion. The authors explore how informal processes - such as club launches, internet promotions and dress codes - together result in the production and reproduction of two contrasting forms of English clubland elites: 'cultural elites' produced through the social, cultural and spatial exclusion of electronic dance music of black origin and its minority ethnic, working class and lower income followers from Manchester city centre dance clubs; and 'consumer elites' produced through the economic and cultural exclusion of working class and lower income club-goers from nightclubs in London's West End. The complex and interweaving practices of cultural distinction and structural discrimination which produce such elites are often closely intertwined with the formal and informal regulation, marginalization and criminalization of specific cultural forms. The paper therefore argues for the construction of more nuanced conceptual understandings of the social divisions and inequalities within nightlife and in studies of young people's leisure opportunities more generally.

Gurmukhi is a written script of the Punjabi language spoken by 104 million people worldwide. It has been previously shown in a study of Punjabi residents to contain several unique class characteristics. In this paper these class characteristics and others were analysed in both 1st generation and 2nd generation Punjabi decedents residing in the United Kingdom. Using the Pearson Chi-squared test, eight characteristic features were found to be statistically different in the Gurmukhi handwriting of the two populations (p > 0.01). Additionally there are several changes in previously identified class characteristics, such as script type and angularity of characters, between the 1st generation and 2nd generation Punjabi populations. These class characteristics may be of value to forensic document examiners and allow them to identify the population and the generation of the writer of a suspect document.

This paper re-examines differences found between income gradients in American and English children's health, in results originally presented by [Case, A., Lubotsky, D., Paxson, C., 2002. Economic status and health in childhood: the origins of the gradient. American Economic Review 92, 1308-1334] for the US, and by [Currie, A., Shields, M.A., Wheatley Price, S., 2007. The child health/family income gradient: evidence from England. Journal of Health Economics 26, 213-232] for England. We find that these differences are reduced when English and American data from the same time period are compared. In addition, Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price's measures of chronic conditions from the Health Survey of England were incorrectly coded. Corrected data indicate that income plays a larger role in buffering children's health from the effects of chronic conditions in England.

The relatively poor health of Black American people in the US and Black Caribbean people in England is a consistent finding in the health inequalities literature. Indeed, there are many similarities between the health, social, economic and demographic profiles of these two groups. However, there is evidence that Caribbean people in the US are faring considerably better. This paper explores differences in the social and economic position of Black American, Black Caribbean and white people in the US and Black Caribbean and white people in England, how these relate to ethnic inequalities in health, and may be underpinned by differences in patterns and contexts of migration. We use similar surveys from the US and England to explore these questions. The US data were drawn from the National Survey of American Life and the English data were drawn from the Health Survey for England and a follow up study. Findings show the advantaged health position of Caribbean American people in comparison with both Caribbean people in England and Black American people. Multivariate analyses indicate that these differences, and the differences in health between Black and white people in the two countries, are a consequence of social and economic inequalities.

This paper seeks to contribute to the recent debate within the field of inequalities in health that has focused on the relationship between income distribution and health. This has contested the extent to which the main effects of income on health are not directly related to material standards but operate through psychosocial mechanisms, linked to how people experience and perceive their relative position. However, whilst this has focused attention on the qualitative dimensions of income inequality as a potential determinant of health inequality, very little empirical work has directly examined lay perspectives. In this study I attempted to address this gap by exploring how two groups of working class men living in contrasting socio-economic areas understood and experienced differences in income and material circumstances and how these were perceived to impact on their health. This study shows that the anger and resentment felt by these men had their roots largely in the perceptions of others and the way others treated them, rather than in income differentials per se. There was little evidence of feelings of shame or inferiority. For men at the bottom of the social ladder, financial hardship was additionally perceived as having the greatest impact on their health and well-being.

Changes in health socio-economic inequalities are currently measured by comparing the mortality gradient across aggregates of small administrative areas at two points in time. However, this methodology may be flawed as it ignores population movement, which previous research has shown to be selective, with a net loss of the more affluent (and possibly healthier) residents from deprived to more affluent areas. This paper investigates whether selective migration contributed sufficiently to the observed socio-economic gradients in mortality in England and Wales throughout the 1990s so as to invalidate the current method of monitoring health inequalities. The ONS Longitudinal Study for England and Wales was used to calculate directly standardised mortality rates (DSR) by decile of deprivation in 1991 and 2001. The DSRs for 2001 were calculated twice, once according to decile of residence in 2001, and also according to the original decile in 1991. Selective migration was found to make an important contribution in explaining increases in inequalities between areas, accounting for about 50% of the increase for those aged less than 75. At the older age groups, however, selective migration was responsible for a narrowing of mortality differentials over time. These results indicate that caution should be exercised when using repeated ecological studies in assessing the extent of changes in inequalities over time.

Recent studies using Canadian and US data have documented a positive relationship between family income and child health, with the slope of the gradient being larger for older than younger children [Case, A., Lubotsky, D., Paxson, C., 2002. Economic status and health in childhood: the origins of the gradient. American Economic Review 92, 1308-1334; Currie, J., Stabile, M., 2003. Socioeconomic status and child health: why is the relationship stronger for older children? American Economic Review 93, 1813-1823]. In this paper we explore whether or not these findings hold for England, analysing a sample of over 13,000 children (and their parents) drawn from the Health Survey for England. While we find consistent and robust evidence of a significant family income gradient in child health, using the subjective general health status measure, the slope of the gradient is very small. Moreover, we find no evidence that the slope of the gradient increases with child age. Furthermore, we find no evidence of such a gradient with more objective measures, based on nurse examinations and blood test results. Together these results suggest that family income is not a major determinant of child health in England. Finally, we provide some evidence that nutrition and family lifestyle choices have an important role in determining child health and that child health is highly correlated within the family.

The argument that 'indirect selection' is a contributory factor to health inequality has included ideas about personal characteristics that may originate in childhood and increase the likelihood of both poor health and disadvantaged social position in adulthood. The concept of protective resilience makes a similar but converse argument: that positive characteristics acquired at one phase of life may enable individuals to withstand later adversity. The increasing richness of data from longitudinal studies now allows us to examine these processes more closely over a longer period of life. In this paper we show that attachment style, a psychological characteristic thought to be associated with the style of parenting encountered during early childhood, may act as a source of resilience in the face of educational disadvantage. Men in mid-life who were not burdened with anxious or avoidant attachment styles seem to have been more likely to overcome the disadvantage of a lower level of educational attainment and progress up the ladder of Civil Service grades in the English Whitehall II study. As it is not strongly related to parents' social class, it can be argued that attachment style has acted as a source of upward social mobility which is also likely to reinforce better health in later life.