Wastage of talent?: Social origins, cognitive ability and educational attainment in Britain

Journal article

The extent to which societies suffer „wastage of talent‟ due to social inequalities in educational attainment is a longstanding issue. The present paper contributes to the relevant literature by examining how social origins and early-life cognitive ability are associated with educational success across three British birth cohorts. We address questions of over-time change, bringing current evidence up-to-date. Our findings reinforce the well-established trend that the importance of cognitive ability declined for cohorts born between 1958 and 1970, but we show that for a cohort born in the early 1990s this trend has reversed. We further show that the relative importance of family background has not seen a corresponding decline. In distinguishing between different components of social origins, we show that family economic resources have become somewhat less important for children‟s educational success, while socio-cultural and educational resources have become more important. Even high ability children are unable to transcend the effects of their social origins. The problem of „wastage of talent‟ remains; young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are still lacking the opportunity to fully realise their potential within the British educational system.

Authors: Bukodi, E; Bourne, M; Betthäuser, B

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Advances in Life Course Research
• Volume: 34
• Pages: 34-42
• Publication date: 2017-09-18
• Acceptance date: 2017-09-14
• DOI: 10.1016/j.alcr.2017.09.003
• ISSN: 1040-2608
• Keywords: cohort studies; educational attainment; social origins; cognitive ability; ALSPAC