The cumulative impact of socioeconomic disadvantage on educational attainment during austerity: a comparative cross-cohort approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite much empirical evidence highlighting the harmful effect of socioeconomic disadvantage on educational outcomes, there is a relative lack of understanding of how different risk factors impact upon attainment. Importantly, it has yet to be established what effect, if any, austerity cuts have had on the most disadvantaged students. Using rich data from two British cohort studies (Next Steps and MCS), this cross-cohort study explores how educational inequalities impact on attainment in distinct cohorts of students at identical age-points, whilst also examining the role of wider political and socioeconomic circumstances. The analysis reconfirms the detrimental effect of exposure to socioeconomic risk factors on attainment, highlighting the relative importance of some (e.g. social housing) over others, and emphasising the disproportionate association of exposure to multiple risks with poorer outcomes. For both cohorts, the attainment gap is already clear at age 11, and widens at every level of risk across secondary education. Despite the implementation of austerity, no evidence is found for worsening inequalities at an individual level. However, the persistent link between disadvantage and attainment means that, on a cohort level, increasing levels of disadvantage during austerity will inevitably lead to greater proportions of young people facing an attainment ‘penalty’.