THE SUCCESS PARADOX
Why we need a holistic theory of social mobility
Graeme Atherton
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Policy Press University of Bristol 1-9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK Tel +44 (0)117 954 5940 e-mail
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Policy Press 2016
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ISBN 978 1 44731 633 6 hardcover
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Contents
List of figures and tables
Figures
Tables
About the author
Graeme Atherton has been working in the field of access to higher education for over 20 years. He has founded regional, national and local networks aiming to change peoples lives through extending access to higher education, and holds visiting professorships at universities in the United Kingdom and abroad. Graeme writes extensively on issues associated with social mobility and education. He lives with his wife and two children in London and this is his first book.
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the support of my wife Sarah Adibi and my family. I thank them for their patience. I would also like to thank London Higher for their support of my work and of access to higher education and social mobility work in London and in the United Kingdom. My publishers at Policy Press have shown great patience in allowing me to complete this book and I thank the whole team who have supported me there, in particular Laura Greaves, Isobel Bainton and Rebecca Tomlinson. Finally, I would like to dedicate the book to all of those who have to fight against the odds every day to improve their lives and that of their families and loved ones. I hope this book can make some contribution to making that fight a more winnable one.
Introduction
Once upon a time, not so long ago, social mobility was an academic thing, and the concern of sociologists in particular. Although the debate around social mobility was played out in academic journals and conferences, it had little impact on the mainstream political conversation. Then something happened. Social mobility became popular.
While the rise of social mobility may have started in the early years of the New Labour government in the late 1990s, it really took off after the global recession of the late 2000s. The relatively poor performance of the UK in terms of social mobility compared to other nations, and the difficulties in penetrating a self-perpetuating professional elite, have now become a preoccupation across the political spectrum. The debate around social mobility in the UK is now starting to resemble a slow-burning moral panic (Goode and Ben-Yahuda 2009). The elite are following in the footsteps of muggers, mods and football hooligans as a metaphor through which a wider set of societal anxieties are channelled.
A convenient truth
There are a number of reasons why social mobility has gained such political prominence in recent years.
First, it captures well some of the anxieties that those in the middle class feel about the future of their children (and themselves). Since the 1980s, the middle classes have invested more and more money and effort in cementing their position through education (Ball 2002), and expect a pay-off in access to professional occupations. But when this group becomes concerned about something, then the policy makers listen. And while it might be those further down the socioeconomic ladder for whom social mobility is the biggest challenge, it would never have gained the traction it has in recent years if it had been perceived as a problem purely affecting those from lower socio-economic groups.
Second, it captures some of anger felt at the financial and political elites responsible for the economic recession that began in the late 2000s (Bennet and Kottasz 2012). These elites are perceived as separate and aloof from even the majority of those in professional occupations. And it is the lack of social mobility into this elite that has allowed it to put its own interests first, at the expense of the rest of the population.
Third, the phrase social mobility itself is also appealing as a way of talking about class, inequality and poverty at a time when these terms are less palatable. The economic recession of the late 2000s has coincided with a concerted attack on the poor from the Right, while the Left, as it has been since the 1990s, is still searching for a language to articulate its core values where these issues are concerned. The latest attempt to find this language is the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party in 2015 in the UK. Neither side is comfortable, for different reasons, with speaking about class or inequality. Social mobility has represented a way of articulating the concerns of each of the three major political parties regarding class and inequality that fits with their existing ideology and policy positions.
Finally, social mobility as currently defined in the early 2010s has a personal resonance for many of the politicians in the major UK parties and the journalists who write about them. They are graduates from either Oxford or Cambridge universities or, at worst, from one of the other highly selective universities (Sutton Trust 2010). Research by Sutton Trust in 2015 showed that 26% of all MPs went to Oxford or Cambridge universities (Sutton Trust 2015). In this context, the social mobility problem is defined in a particular way, which begs a particular solution i.e. identifying able but poor young people who can make it to Oxbridge and then on to the commanding heights of society.
