Credit: Kues1 via Adobe

Louise Archer.

This article was originally published on Wonkhe.

What is the secret of social mobility? How and why do some working class young people “go against the grain” to succeed educationally?

Our recent ASPIRES study, based at UCL, found that luck seems to play a key role in creating opportunities for social mobility.

The study draws on insights from over 200 longitudinal interviews conducted with 20 working class young people and 22 of their parents over an 11-year period, from age 10-21. (more…)

Commuters walk around a London train station. Image credit: Chris Mann / Adobe Stock.

Aidan Riley.

The UK is home to a remarkable set of scientific studies that have tracked generations of people growing up in Britain over the last 90 years. These longitudinal population studies are unique in science and unparalleled elsewhere in the world – no other country has anything like them on the same scale.

Over those nine decades major political, social and economic changes have impacted every area of study participants’ lives. CLOSER’s ‘Our Changing Society’ resource provides this detailed historical context through a set of interactive charts and downloadable datasets to help you understand how these changes may have impacted people’s complex lives. (more…)

CICADA Stories, Bloomsbury Theatre

Carol Rivas, Amanda Moore, Kusha Anand, Alison Wu and Ozan Aksoy. This post is adapted from a blog for Biomed Central.

Even before the pandemic, many people with chronic conditions or disabilities, particularly those from minoritised ethnic groups, faced obstacles in accessing or utilising networks of support, health and social care. During the pandemic, some of these obstacles increased disproportionately, and widened the inequalities gap.

Now, during Disability History Month (16 November to 16 December), it is instructive to consider the interplay of different intersecting factors that compromise good health outcomes when considering inequalities. For example, chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease increase vulnerability to COVID-19 and are disproportionately (more…)

Sam Parsons and Richard Wiggins.

Our research presented this weekend at the Society for Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies (SLLS) International Annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio focuses on changes in self-reported trust in the UK government, trust in others and compliance with social distancing measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results are based on the responses of 23,461 people living in the UK, who participated in at least one of three web surveys collected during the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically in May 2020, September 2020 and February 2021.

Respondents belong to four nationally representative longitudinal studies which follow people from (more…)

John Jerrim.

To Year 11s, GCSEs can seem the be-all and end-all of life. Having worked hard throughout secondary school, many young people put themselves under great pressure to do well in these exams.

While many will get the grades they hope for, some will inevitably end up feeling disappointed. This is likely to include those who fail to achieve a C/4 grade in a key subject such as mathematics, given the emphasis placed upon this high-stakes grade threshold within our education system.

But what impact does missing a C/4 grade in GCSE mathematics really have? When young people receive their GCSE results, are they right to feel despondent if they have missed this grade? Or does it not really matter that much, in the grand scheme of things?

This blog – drawing upon evidence from my recently released paper – takes a closer look. (more…)

Rob Davies.

In May 2020, I highlighted the need to harness the power of longitudinal population studies to help understand the immediate and long-term impacts of the pandemic on individuals, families and communities and called for the creation of a new national birth cohort study to ensure that valuable data from a generation born during a global pandemic is not lost.

As the UK moves into a new phase of its COVID-19 response I explore what happened over the past year and how our work ensured that longitudinal data and research will remain at the forefront of the country’s response (more…)

Alissa Goodman and Alice Sullivan.
Recent political events have focussed minds on society’s deeply rooted inequalities and their long-reaching consequences. The gap between the rich and poor is growing as is the gap between generations – a recent IFS report found that people born in the 1980s had only half the wealth by their early 30s that the generation born ten years earlier had had at the same age. Social mobility is stagnant at best, causing concern across the political spectrum. Problems such as depression and obesity grow apace. How can we best understand and solve these social challenges? (more…)