Family, school and job – the impact of socio-economic background and school segregation on labour market outcomes : evidence from the Longitudinal Study Next Steps in England.

Early access to the labour market in the UK and other developed countries for young people is still clearly stratified according to socio-economic origins and prior educational attainment. However, these factors are difficult to change, are not the only factors creating stratified outcomes, and may in any case be mediated by other factors such as school segregation and peer influence. In recent years, there have been increasing policy concerns about social mobility in the UK. This study uses the longitudinal study Next Steps to analyse the trajectories of a generation currently in their late 20s. It focuses on how two different factors - socio-economic background and school segregation - are related to occupational status in early adulthood from the perspective of social justice and the equity and equality of education. The paper provides a review of the literature on the topic and describes the methods used in this study