This major ESRC project (2013-2017) addressed the role of schooling in determining educational attainment, occupational outcomes and social mobility.
A key aim of the project was to repair the BCS70 1986 school data via both retrospective and administrative information, and to input previously unavailable cognitive scores from 1986. These variables are now available via the UK Data Service.
Publications
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Ploubidis, G., Green, F., & Wiggins, R. D. (2020). Pathways from origins to destinations: Stability and change in the roles of cognition, private schools and educational attainment. The British Journal of Sociology, 71(5), 921-938.
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Ploubidis, G., Wiggins, R. D., & Green, F. (2020). Education and psychological distress in adolescence and mid‐life: Do private schools make a difference?. British Educational Research Journal.
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Green, F., Wiggins, R. D., Ploubidis, G., & Huynh, T. (2018). Educational attainment in the short and long term: was there an advantage to attending faith, private, and selective schools for pupils in the 1980s?. Oxford Review of Education, 44(6), 806-822.
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Green, F., Wiggins, R. D., & Ploubidis, G. (2018). The path from social origins to top jobs: social reproduction via education. The British journal of sociology, 69(3), 776-798.
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Green, F., Wiggins, R. D., & Ploubidis, G. (2018). Elite universities, fields of study and top salaries: Which degree will make you rich?. British educational research journal, 44(4), 663-680.
Green, F., Henseke, G., Parsons, S., Sullivan, A., & Wiggins, R. (2018). Do private school girls marry rich?. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 9(3), 327-350.
Green, F., Parsons, S., Sullivan, A., & Wiggins, R. (2018). Dreaming big? Self-valuations, aspirations, networks and the private-school earnings premium. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 42(3), 757-778.
Parsons, S., Green, F., Ploubidis, G. B., Sullivan, A., & Wiggins, R. D. 2017. The influence of private primary schooling on children’s learning: Evidence from three generations of children living in the UK. British Educational Research Journal, 43(5), 823-847.
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Green, F., Wiggins, R. D., & Ploubidis, G. 2017. The path from social origins to top jobs: social reproduction via education. The British Journal of Sociology, 69(3) 776-798.
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Wiggins, R., Heath, A. and Green, F. 2014 Social origins, school type and higher education destinations. Oxford Review of Education 40 (6): 739-763 [invited contribution to 40th anniversary special issue].
Other Writing
Elite universities, fields of study and top salaries: Which degree will make you rich?, BERA blog, 2018.
Grammar schools don’t give pupils a better chance of getting into elite universities, The Conversation, November 2014.
The path from social origins to top jobs: is it all about education?, American Sociological Association “Work in Progress” blog, December 2017.
Reports
Childhood cognition in the 1970 British Cohort Study, CLS 2014.
Higher Education and Occupational Returns: do returns vary according to students’ social origins? Report to UUK, 2016.