At 13:13 23/05/2012, Mike wrote:
Subject: [NetBehaviour] Social mobility: the charts that shame Britain Can you go from stacking shelves to heading up a major corporation in Britain? The data suggests it's unlikely. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/22/social-mobility-data-cha rts#zoomed-picture
I suppose we ought to feel shame over here. We have crocodile tears from the leaders of the Lib-Dems (just as we do from the Tories) from time to time. But as they have always been (and still are) predominantly products of the privately-educated 20-class their anguish soon subsides. As for the Labour Party, we can't hope for any worthwhile reform from them. On the one hand, they daren't encourage quality competition from a much wider swathe of private schools because they're strapped by the state teachers' unions; on the other hand, the leaders make sure that their own children go to private schools (or to one of a handful of exceptional state schools, usually in London) and when they retire from politics, make sure they make enough money to securely implant their descendants within the 20-class fold.
However, despite those comments I'm optimistic about social mobility in future decades within the UK (or any country that wishes to be economically viable). The increasing need for specialization and high talent in future years means that the 20-class will longer be quite so self-selective in education and parentage as it has been for the past 150 years or so, but will have to expand opportunities to children of the 80-class more than somewhat and also to try and reach down to earlier ages before too much mental blunting has been done by lack of adequate nursery socialization and education. At present, this leaves most "ordinary" 80-class children at the time of puberty at least four or five years behind 20-class children. From puberty onwards, any deficiencies in high skills not learned by then can seldom be remedied.
As the 80-class continues to decline in numbers due to insufficient family size, then I think we'll see social mobility growing hugely within the remaining 20-class.
Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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