Destined for success? Educational biographies of academically able pupils

Abstract

The research reported here has explored the different pathways and prospects of a group of young people considered to have been ‘destined for success’. The 347 men and women involved in this research were all identified as ‘academically able’ when, in the mid‐1980s, they joined 18 different secondary schools that ranged from inner‐city comprehensives to some of the most prestigious independent schools in the country. Their retrospective accounts provide a unique opportunity to explore the extent to, and the manner in, which early educational ‘promise’ is translated through a variety of pathways into further opportunities and educational destinations. Questionnaire and interview data gathered from them in their mid‐20s reveal that, in terms of conventional measures of performance, most have fulfilled their educational promise irrespective of the type of school attended. The majority of our respondents have pursued the ‘prime trajectory’ for young people through A levels into higher education and then out into professional and managerial occupations. Beneath this apparent homogeneity, however, are complex interrelationships between background and school type that have contributed to differentiated experiences and prospects. Although there are significant within‐sector differences and ‘success’ was by no means guaranteed, the highly selective and academically oriented independent schools that comprised our sample from the private sector seem to have provided a more certain pathway to high‐status educational and occupational destinations than either the state grammar schools or the state comprehensives. Students who went to independent schools were more than twice as likely to go to elite universities than those who went to state schools. The importance of attending high‐status universities, rather than any university, is evident in the close connection between rank of higher‐education institution attended and occupational status. Attending an elite university appeared to give access to a broader range of professional and managerial occupations at higher levels than attending less prestigious universities.