The Great Leveller – Education as a Means to Social Mobility

What is social mobility?

Education was always very important to my family growing up. My paternal grandparents emigrated to the UK from Guyana in the 1950s and worked in the public sector for British Telecom and the NHS, respectively. All of their children also went on to work in the public sector, again in the NHS and BT and also in education. All of this was underpinned by my grandparents’ insistence that a good education was a means to succeed in this country despite all the challenges of being an immigrant at the time. This was passed down to their children and then to my generation, in which all three of us grandchildren attended and graduated from university.

This story is a typical example of ‘social mobility’, one which has been repeated many times, particularly in the decades immediately following World War II. Social mobility is typically seen as children going on to be more affluent than their parents, with better access to jobs, higher incomes and secure housing.

There is, however, a broader dimension to social mobility beyond the economic. Social mobility can be gained through access to cultural capital like exposure to art, theatre and other cultural elements, social capital that is developed through networks and soft skills like the ability to navigate the workplace and other institutions. Ultimately, then, social mobility can be seen as any action that improves or expands a person’s life chances.