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A Transgenerational Model of Status Attainment: the Potential Mediating Role of School Motivation and Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Ingrid Schoon
Ingrid Schoon*
Affiliation:
Institute of Education, University of London
*
e-mail I.Schoon@ioe.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper examines the influences of parental social status, childhood cognitive ability, school motivation and education on social status attainment in early adulthood. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), a pathway model of transgenerational status attainment is conceptualised, taking into account the context as well as the timing of individual status transitions. The subjects were 3104 men and 3229 women who participated in the 1958 National Child Development Study and 3049 men and 2692 women from the 1970 British Cohort Study, following their lives from childhood to their mid-thirties. The findings suggest that in both cohorts the number of years spent in full-time education is by far the most important determinant of status attainment among men and women and that there are persistent social inequalities in status attainment. The findings furthermore confirm the hypothesis that social background and cognitive ability are partially mediated through school motivation and education, opening up leverage for possible interventions.

Keywords

cognitive abilityeducationgenderschool motivationgenderstatus attainmentI20J62
Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 205 , July 2008 , pp. 72 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

The analysis and writing of this article were supported by grants from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): L32625306, RES-225-25-2001 and RES-594-28-0001. Data from the Cohort Studies were supplied by the ESRC Data Archive. Those who carried out the original collection of the data bear no responsibility for its further analysis and interpretation.

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