Education, Social Background and Cognitive Ability : The decline of the social

ISBN-13: 9780415842464 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 304 str.

Gary N. Marks

Opis

In this book Gary Marks challenges existing ideas by suggesting that it is cognitive ability rather than socioeconomic inequality that leads to long term educational outcomes, adding to the debate between the traditional quantitative methods of sociology and the more accepted qualitative methods today.

This book indicates that in western industrialized countries the basic assumption underlying the sociological perspective that social attributes, such as social class, have strong and enduring relationships with a range of sociological outcomes is unfounded. Marks argues that relationships between the two are often only moderate and/or declining and that socioeconomic background does not have strong, almost, deterministic relationships with educational outcomes.

The text discusses the idea that cognitive ability has a stronger influence than socioeconomic background on educational outcomes, and that quantitative research methods should be more heavily relied upon. Chapters covered include:

• cognitive ability: conceptual issues, stability and origins
• the importance of ability for educational and labour market labour outcomes
• explaining socioeconomic inequalities in education.

"

Education, Social Background and Cognitive Functioning "will appeal to professionals in the fields of education and sociology as well as advanced students and academics involved in the debate.

Spis treści

1: Introduction  2: Theoretical Matters  3: Concepts, Measures and Statistics  4: Cognitive Ability I: Conceptual Issues, Stability and Origins  5: Cognitive Ability II: Educational Outcomes  6: Cognitive Ability III: Labor Market Outcomes  7: Socioeconomic Inequalities in Education I: The Strength of the Relationship  8: Socioeconomic Inequalities in Education II: Theoretical Explanations  9: Socioeconomic Inequalities in Education III: Changes over Time  10: Occupational Attainment  11: Reproduction of Economic Inequalities  12: Conclusions and Discussion

O autorze

Gary N. Marks is a Principal Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, the University of Melbourne, Australia.