Research Catalog

Title

Diverging pathways : social structure and career deflections / by Alan C. Kerckhoff.

Author

Kerckhoff, Alan C.

Publication

Cambridge, England ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 254 pages; 24 cm

Summary

Social arrangements of society's institutions deflect people's achievement patterns. Some schools take only talented students, others take the rest; within schools, students are separated into ability groups. Firms are in different industries and vary in size. During their educational and work careers, people get sorted into these different locations. Diverging Pathways examines that sorting process and shows how it affects people's achievements. Some locations accelerate achievements, others depress them - in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary school programs, and in the labor force. Most important, some people are consistently in the same kinds of locations, repeatedly advantaged or disadvantaged, especially in school. They end up far apart as adults, due in large part to the cumulative effects of the social arrangements they passed through. Diverging Pathways follows the members of a 1958 British birth cohort for the first twenty-three years of their lives. It presents a detailed picture of their family backgrounds and their school and early labor force experiences and achievements. Besides the cumulative effects of institutional locations, it shows major career differences of men and women, and it describes how the interface between postsecondary education and the labor force alters some of the outcomes of elementary and secondary schooling.

Subject

• Educational sociology > Longitudinal studies
• Academic achievement > Great Britain > Longitudinal studies
• Social mobility > Great Britain > Longitudinal studies
• Labor supply > Effect of education on > Longitudinal studies. > Great Britain
• 71.12 social stratification, social mobility
• Academic achievement
• Educational sociology
• Labor supply > Effect of education on
• Social mobility
• Berufslaufbahn
• Bildungsgang
• Institution Soziologie
• Karriere
• Längsschnittuntersuchung
• Sozialstruktur
• Schoolloopbaan
• Longitudinaal onderzoek
• Sociale mobiliteit
• Arbeidsmarkt
• Great Britain
• Großbritannien

Genre/Form

• Longitudinal studies
• Longitudinal researches (form)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-247) and index.

Contents

Foreword / James S. Coleman -- 1. Institutional structure and achievement -- 2. Tracing a British birth cohort -- 3. Elementary school: the opening wedge -- 4. Secondary school: increased dispersion -- 5. Alternative pathways after secondary school -- 6. Randomization and consolidation in the labor force -- 7. Structural linkages, careers, and career lines -- 8. The cumulative effects of structure -- 9. Structural differentiation: necessary evil or policy instrument?

ISBN

• 0521433975
• 9780521433976

LCCN

92034933

OCLC

• ocm26809212
• 26809212
• SCSB-1990778

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library