ABSTRACT
Earlier chapters have mapped a national system of education within which the generative principles of school organisation, pupil allocation and the structures of opportunity seem to have changed considerably. Academic selection at the age of 11 was replaced, for the great majority of children in British state schools, by entry to non-selective secondary comprehensives. In this chapter we explore the extent to which changes in their organising principles have given rise to changes in the life chances of secondary school students, focusing upon social mobility studies.
