Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the steps by which expansion of a level of education can leave relative chances unchanged.
- Places at a level of education are expanded substantially
- The advantaged group approaches saturation and its take-up cannot rise further
- Advantaged families take up the new places first and most fully
- Advantage shifts to the quality and selectivity of the qualification obtained
- Participation rises across all origins but the gap in rates persists
Hints
- The sequence begins with more places, not with more equality.
- The final step is what happens once the advantaged group has nowhere left to expand into.
Show the answer
- Places at a level of education are expanded substantially
- Advantaged families take up the new places first and most fully
- Participation rises across all origins but the gap in rates persists
- The advantaged group approaches saturation and its take-up cannot rise further
- Advantage shifts to the quality and selectivity of the qualification obtained
Why
Read as a sequence, the two generalisations become one story with two acts. Expansion is absorbed unequally until saturation forces a change of tactic, and the advantage then reappears one level up in the hierarchy of institutions and fields. Nothing in the sequence requires anybody to intend the outcome.
Practise Education and Social Mobility
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