Erzsébet Bukodi and John Goldthorpe will discuss their recently published book, Social Mobility and Education in Britain: Research, Politics and Policy, in which they show a marked disconnect between the findings of sociological research and the current discussion of social mobility in political and policy circles.

For example, social mobility in Britain is not in decline – the problem is one of decreasing upward and increasing downward mobility; there is little evidence that it is educational policy that is crucial in increasing mobility; and Britain is not, in comparative perspective a low mobility society.

This event is hosted by the University of Bath Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy (CASP).

Speaker profiles

Erzsébet Bukodi is Associate Professor in Quantitative Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for New Economic Thinking in the Oxford Martin School, and a Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College.

John Goldthorpe is an Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.