Minding the Gap: Ethnic, gender and social class differences in attainment at 16, 1988‐95

This article presents analyses of attainment variations for five cohorts of school leavers between 1988 and 1995. Social class, ethnicity and gender variations in educational attainment at 16 are examined using data from over 80,000 young people in England and Wales. This is the only representative data set that allows analyses of educational variations in England and Wales across social class, ethnic and gender groups simultaneously. The preliminary analyses showed an underrepresentation of some ethnic and lower social class groups in the independent education sector. The attainment analyses thereafter are for state school pupils only. Between 1988 and 1995, attainment differences relating to social class, ethnicity and gender are all seen to increase. In terms of the percentages leaving compulsory schooling with five or more high grade passes (grade A*‐C at General Certificate of Secondary Education), the social class gap of 50 percentage points widened to 56 percentage points, the ethnicity gap from 14 to 20 percentage points and the gender gap from 5 to 10 percentage points. The uneven improvement in educational attainment across ethnic, social class and gender groups is a cause for concern. For certain subgroups there appears to be little or no improvement over the 8 years. These findings relate to a period of considerable political intervention within the British compulsory education system. They suggest that policies focused on raising educational standards may be at variance with the aim of reducing educational inequality.

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