ABSTRACT
The evidence from the Oxford Mobility Inquiry shows that some 16 per cent of sons from working-class backgrounds are upwardly mobile and arrive at service-class destinations. The corresponding figure for sons of service-class parents is almost 60 per cent. This is a striking disparity in mobility chances. Relatively few children of manual workers have obtained professional, managerial, or skilled administrative employment, even in postwar Britain. Why is this so? Universal and free secondary education has been available in this country since 1944. Scholarships and then student grants ensured that, in principle, higher education was open to all who were able and might benefit from it. Do the above statistics therefore mean that middle-class children are inherently more talented—proportionately more intelligent—than those from working-class households? Or are there social processes which might explain these differences in recruitment to service-class occupations?
