ABSTRACT

The key feature of the competition for educational credentials is that it is positional competition – a form of competition that necessarily creates inequality. Positional competition intentionally creates unequal outcomes, a succinct definition of it being that it is competition for relative position within a hierarchy. In Britain, positional competition would take the extreme form that it did because, unlike other countries, major alternative paths to these valued credentials had not emerged previously. In its final manifestation, competition was partly transformed away from one in which individuals simply worked towards the best higher educational credentials that they could possibly obtain. For many decades during the 20th century, education was seen widely as a way in which some people would be able to overcome the disadvantages of being relatively poor. Since then the positional economy of education has enabled the education system to become the primary route over time for maintaining social advantage.