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We use data from the youth component of the British Household Panel Survey to examine gender differences in educational attitudes and aspirations among 11-15 year olds. While girls have more positive aspirations and attitudes than boys, the impacts of gender on children's attitudes and aspirations vary significantly with parental education level, parental attitudes to education, child's age and the indirect cost of education. Boys are more responsive than girls to positive parental characteristics, while educational attitudes and aspirations of boys deteriorate at a younger age than those of girls. These findings have implications for policies designed to reduce educational attainment differences between boys and girls as they identify factors which exacerbate the educational disadvantage of boys relative to girls.

We use data from the youth component of the British Household Panel Survey to examine how educational attitudes and aspirations among 11-15 year olds vary across the business cycle. We find that the impact of the local unemployment rate on children's attitudes and aspirations varies significantly with parental education level and parental attitudes to education - children from highly educated families react more positively to low labour demand those from less educated families. Therefore the aspirations of children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds are more adversely affected by recessions than those from higher status backgrounds, representing a barrier to social mobility for a generation.