Education as a Mediator of the Association between Origins and Destinations: The Role of Early Skills
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Education as a Mediator of the Association between Origins and Destinations : The Role of Early Skills. / Karlson, Kristian Bernt; Birkelund, Jesper Fels.
In: Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Vol. 64, 10.2019, p. 100436.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Education as a Mediator of the Association between Origins and Destinations
T2 - The Role of Early Skills
AU - Karlson, Kristian Bernt
AU - Birkelund, Jesper Fels
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - Sociological research examining how education mediates the association between occupational origins and destinations has long relied on the origins-education-destinations framework. We argue that the framework would benefit from factoring in processes of early skill formation to better grasp the mechanisms through which education becomes a channel of social reproduction. We propose that education is a mediator of the origins-destinations associations as a result of two processes: The sorting into schooling on early skills and the independent mediating impact of education net of early skills. We outline the implications of this distinction for comparative research, stressing that education can be a mediator of the origins-destinations associations as a result of factors that have little to do with the effects of schools and schooling. Analyzing data from the National Child Development Study and the British Cohort Study, we show that the conventional OED framework may overstate the independent mediating role of education by up to about 25 percent. We discuss the implications of our framework for policies about using education as a vehicle for promoting social mobility.
AB - Sociological research examining how education mediates the association between occupational origins and destinations has long relied on the origins-education-destinations framework. We argue that the framework would benefit from factoring in processes of early skill formation to better grasp the mechanisms through which education becomes a channel of social reproduction. We propose that education is a mediator of the origins-destinations associations as a result of two processes: The sorting into schooling on early skills and the independent mediating impact of education net of early skills. We outline the implications of this distinction for comparative research, stressing that education can be a mediator of the origins-destinations associations as a result of factors that have little to do with the effects of schools and schooling. Analyzing data from the National Child Development Study and the British Cohort Study, we show that the conventional OED framework may overstate the independent mediating role of education by up to about 25 percent. We discuss the implications of our framework for policies about using education as a vehicle for promoting social mobility.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Social mobility
KW - Education
KW - Skills
KW - Stratification
KW - Social class
U2 - 10.1016/j.rssm.2019.100436
DO - 10.1016/j.rssm.2019.100436
M3 - Journal article
VL - 64
SP - 100436
JO - Research in Social Stratification and Mobility
JF - Research in Social Stratification and Mobility
SN - 0276-5624
ER -
ID: 228855337