Adolescent Disability, Social Class, and Socioeconomic Disadvantage: Evidence from England

There is a well-documented association of childhood disability with socioeconomic disadvantage: Disabled children and young people are more likely to come from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and to lag behind their non-disabled peers in educational and occupational attainment. However, existing research has provided limited insights surrounding the intersection of childhood disability and social class with respect to socioeconomic outcomes. On the one hand, longitudinal surveys are limited by the small number of disabled people present in the data, which renders intersectional analyses particularly challenging. On the other hand, while qualitative studies have provided important insights surrounding the mechanisms through which disability is translated into subsequent disadvantage, they are characterised by a middle-class bias, undoubtedly linked to the manifest difficulties in recruiting disabled people who experience multiple sources of disadvantage. This paper seeks to present evidence surrounding the intersection of social class and disability status with respect to school-to-work transitions of disabled young people in England. I will first draw on quantitative evidence from the Next Steps longitudinal study, which follows approximately 16,000 young people born in 1989-1990 in England. Following this, I will turn my attention to qualitative longitudinal evidence from the Educational Pathways and Work Outcomes longitudinal study, which follows 35 physically disabled, dyslexic, and/or autistic young people in England. Results demonstrate the heterogeneity of disability classifications and the importance of intersectional analysis for a better understanding of disability disadvantage in school-to-work transitions.