Social Class and Achievement: Some Facts

If we trace the relationship between social class and achievement since the 2nd World War, we can begin by noting that, in general, middle and upper class children (as defined by their father's occupation) tend to achieve more than their working class counterparts, both in terms of the length of their education and the level of qualifications they achieve.

In 1954, the Early Leaving Report stressed the fact that children from classes 4 and 5 (semi and unskilled manual, according to the Registrar General's scale) entered grammar school less that half as often as they might, statistically, have been expected to. Those who did enter such schools were less successful and tended to leave earlier than their middle class peers.

Floyd, Halsey and Martin (1956) compared 11+ selection in both Middlesborough and Hertfordshire and found that, in 1953, 12% of working class boys were admitted to Middlesborough grammar schools as compared to 30% of lower middle class boys. In Hertfordshire the figures were 14% and 50% respectively.

The 1959 Crowther Report surveyed (male) National Service recruits and found that while nearly 75% of recruits from the middle classes attended selective (grammar) or private schools, only 18% of semi-skilled and 12% of unskilled workers' children attended selective schools. None attended private schools.

In 1963, the Robbins Report looked at Higher Education and used IQ measurements as a way of standardising "intelligence" and comparing individuals from different social classes with the same measured level of IQ. Robbins found that, of middle class children with high IQ's (over 130), 40% were admitted to University, whereas the figure for working class children was 20%.

The weight of evidence surrounding the relationship between class and achievement led Swift (1965) to note:

"The basic facts of social class performance in school are so well known as to hardly need repeating. As all teachers know, the children who do the best work, are easiest to control and stimulate, make the best prefects, stay at school longest, take part in extra-curricula activities, finish school with the best qualifications and references and get into the best jobs, tend to come from the middle class..."

This form of educational inequality did not, as might perhaps have been expected, decline significantly with the introduction of Comprehensive schooling to replace, in all but a small number of areas, the old grammar - secondary modern "bi-partite" system.

Halsey, Heath and Ridge ("Origins and Destinations", 1980), for example, found that upper middle class children in relation to working class children were:

• 4 times more likely to stay at school until 16 (the minimum leaving age)
  
• 8 times more likely to stay at school until 17
• 10 times more likely to stay at school until 18
• 11 times more likely to go to University.

Wilmott and Hutchinson (1992) noted that, throughout the 1980's, in inner city areas of Manchester and Liverpool there was a general increase in the number of children leaving school with no GCSE qualifications. They argued that poor living conditions and standards, coupled with social class, were strongly linked to educational failure. Similarly, Jenson and Gray (1991) found that children from "deprived social backgrounds" achieved least in the educational system.

Despite the range of evidence it's possible to assemble about the relationship between social class and educational achievement, it's clear that not all working class children fail educationally. Just as some middle and upper class children fail, many working class children achieve academic success in the education system. 

However, the overall pattern is of a strong correlation between social class and achievement levels as measured by examination passes at GCSE, A-level and Degree level.

"In simple terms, Sergeant, the higher your social class, the more likely you are to achieve educational success".