Schooling attainment depends on family background as much today as fifty years ago

Evidence

The statistical associa­ tion (coefficient of correlation) between parents’ social status and years of education attained by individuals who completed their schooling three or four decades ago is virtually identical to the same correlation for individu­ als who terminated their schooling in recent years. On balance, the available data suggest that the number of years of school attained by a child depends upon family background as much in the recent period as it did fifty years ago. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 438

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does this same immobility hold now, decades later, or did late-century expansion shift the correlation?
• XREF: connects to: Parental socioeconomic background predicts a five-year schooling gap across the distribution — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 411; College graduation dependence on social background has not declined over generations — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 437; Parents low in formal schooling can still provide high social capital for children’s education — Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, 146 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Parents low in formal schooling can still provide high social capital for children’s education #complicates (0.80) — Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, 146
• The dropout advantage of private schools persists when controlling for student backgrounds #qualifies (0.72) — Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, 186