Educational and Social Mobility: Results from a Longitudinal Study

This paper addresses issues concerning educational and social mobility and reproduction theories, including a gender perspective approach, during the transition to adulthood. We argue that social and educational backgrounds still play a very relevant role for transitional outcomes in youth trajectories, but that there is also some room for social and educational mobility.

Drawing on data from a longitudinal cohort study of young people (“EPITeen24: Reproducing or going against social destiny? A longitudinal study of a cohort born in the nineties of the XX century in Portugal”) born in 1990 and assessed at the ages of 13, 17, 21 and 24 (n= 2943), this presentation seeks to explore five defined educational mobility profiles: (1) UEM - Upward Educational Mobility; (2) LER - Low Educational Reproduction; (3) HER - High Educational Reproduction; (4) IER - Intermediate Educational Reproduction; (5) and TDEM - Transitional Downward Educational Mobility. We will combine these profiles with structural variables like family income, parents’ occupation, school attendance, work situation and social capital.

Previous results at 21 confirm the persistence of social reproduction but also enhance the role of agency. For instance, one of our main findings was that youngsters with low educational background but with high educational levels (UEM, upward educational mobility) have very similar educational practices (like time spent reading or in other cultural activities) compared to youngsters of HER, high educational reproduction). Women also stand out in terms of educational mobility but reveal difficulties when entering the labor market.

We will account how these trends change with the dataset results at 24, and using also qualitative interviews carried at 24, to further capture youngsters’ subjective perspectives about their educational and social mobility paths and inequalities.