Working Paper No. 70
Cultural Transmission, Educational Attainment and Social Mobility
Simone Scherger
CRESC, University of Manchester
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between socialisation into cultural practices during one’s youth, educational attainment and intergenerational mobility. Using data from the ‘Taking Part’-Survey of England, we analyse how far socialisation into cultural activities and encouragement play a role in educational attainment, in intergenerational mobility and in the reproduction of class. The transmission of cultural capital is captured by questions asking whether the respondents had been taken to museums/art galleries, theatre/dance/classical music performances, sites of historic interest, and libraries when they were growing up. A second set of variables gives information on how much parents or other adults encouraged the respondents to read books or to be creatively active in different domains of the arts, literature and music.
Descriptive and multivariate quantitative analyses show that part of the effect of parental class on educational attainment is due to this transmission of cultural capital. Moreover, this transmission also has a direct effect on the level of educational attainment. In a similar fashion, respondents who have experienced a higher intensity of cultural socialisation are more likely to be upwardly mobile, and likewise, cultural transmission has a positive effect on the prevention of downward mobility among service class children. These results are discussed in the light of current issues in British mobility research and its treatment of cultural aspects of class and mobility.