ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2007

Primary and Secondary Effects in Class

Differentials in Educational Attainment
The Transition to A-Level Courses in England and Wales

Michelle Jackson
Nuffield College, Oxford, UK

Robert Erikson
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

John H. Goldthorpe
Nuffield College, Oxford, UK

Meir Yaish
University of Haifa, Israel

abstract: In this article we start from Boudon’s important, but still surprisingly
neglected, distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ effects in the creation of
class differentials in educational attainment. Primary effects are all those, whether
of a genetic or socio-cultural kind, that are expressed via the association between
children’s class backgrounds and their actual levels of academic performance.
Secondary effects are those that are expressed via the educational choices that
children from differing class backgrounds make within the range of choice that their
previous performance allows them. We apply a method introduced by Erikson and
Jonsson to represent the relationship between primary and secondary effects in
analysing class differentials in one crucial transition within the English and Welsh
educational system: that which children make at around age 16 and which deter-
mines whether or not they will pursue the higher-level academic qualifications –
A-levels – that are usually required for university entry. We then use a development
of this method that we have earlier proposed in order to produce quantitative
estimates of the relative importance of primary and secondary effects as they
operate within this transition. We show that secondary effects reinforce primary
effects to a substantial extent, accounting for at least one quarter, and possibly up
to one-half, of class differentials as measured by odds ratios. In conclusion, we
consider some theoretical and policy implications of our findings.

keywords: class origin ◆ educational inequality ◆ England and Wales ◆

primary effects ◆ secondary effects

Acta Sociologica ◆ September 2007 ◆ Vol 50(3): 211–229 ◆ DOI: 10.1177/0001699307080926

Copyright © 2007 Nordic Sociological Association ◆ Published by SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
www.sagepublications.com
Acta Sociologica 50(3)

Introduction
Boudon (1974: 29–31) introduced an important, but still surprisingly neglected, distinction
between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ effects in the creation of class differentials in educational
attainment. Elaborating on Boudon, primary effects may be defined as all those, whether of a
genetic or socio-cultural kind, that are expressed via the association between children’s class
backgrounds and their actual levels of academic performance.1 In turn, secondary effects are
those that are expressed via the educational choices that children from differing class back-
ground make within the range of choice that their previous performance allows them. There is
by now abundant evidence to show that as well as reflecting primary effects, as defined above,
class differentials in educational attainment are also significantly accentuated by secondary
effects. That is to say, children from more advantaged class backgrounds tend on average to
take up more ambitious educational options than do children from less advantaged back-
grounds, even when level of previous academic performance is held constant (for early results, see
Boalt, 1947, and for a review of more recent research, see Goldthorpe, 2007, vol. II: ch. 2).2
Erikson and Jonsson (1996b) propose a method of treating primary and secondary effects in
empirical investigations that we here adopt and extend. For Swedish students at the point of
possible transition from lower to higher secondary school, Erikson and Jonsson compare those
of higher-salariat and of working-class background in the following two ways. As regards
primary effects, they take students’ Grade Point Averages (GPAs) as a measure of academic
performance and show that, as would be expected, students of higher-salariat background
tend to have higher GPAs than those of working-class background. Then, as regards secondary
effects, they estimate, for each group of students separately, their probabilities of moving from
lower into higher secondary school through a binary logistic regression in which GPA is the
explanatory variable. Results of this kind – as will later be seen – can be coordinated in
graphical form so as to show class-specific ‘transition propensities’ for all levels of previous
performance. What in fact emerges from Erikson and Jonsson’s analysis is a clear and detailed
confirmation of previous findings: students of higher-salariat background are more likely to
make the transition to higher secondary school than are students of working-class background
at all levels of GPA.
In this article, we follow the Erikson–Jonsson approach in analysing the broadly analogous
transition that arises within the English and Welsh educational system to that they consider
in the Swedish case. That is, the choice that has to be made by young people at around age
16, after taking public examinations at the end of the period of compulsory schooling, between,
on the one hand, staying on in full-time education in order to seek the advanced-level quali-
fications – ‘A-levels’ – that provide the best assurance of gaining university entrance or, on
the other hand, enrolling on vocational courses or entering employment or taking up some
combination of these latter two possibilities.3
Our analysis does, however, differ from that of Erikson and Jonsson in the following
respects. First, we concentrate on this one transition rather than also considering, as they do,
the subsequent choice of whether or not to go on to university. Second, though, we examine
the transition at not just one, but at three different time-points extending over a quarter of a
century. Third, we cover all students involved in the transition, on the basis of a threefold
categorization of those of salariat, intermediate and working-class backgrounds. And, fourth,
we use a development of the Erikson–Jonsson approach in order to arrive at quantitative
estimates of the relative importance of primary and secondary effects in class differentials
overall – although with some degree of uncertainty resulting from the possibility of what
might be called ‘anticipatory decisions’. That is, decisions made by students concerning their
educational futures at some time prior to relevant examinations, which may then influence

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their performance in these examinations, rather than their performance influencing their
subsequent educational choices.4

Data
We draw on two data sources, both of which, unfortunately, have problematic features that
limit both the analyses that we can reasonably attempt and the reliability of some of the results
that we report. For the earliest of our analyses, we use the data set of the National Child
Development Study (NCDS), a continuing birth cohort study covering all children who were
born in Great Britain in one week in March 1958 and who thus reached age 16 in 1974. In this
year, these children themselves, rather than their parents, were interviewed for the first time.
However, most of the data that we need for our purposes have to be taken from subsequent
‘sweeps’ of the study and in some respects substantial attrition occurs. We limit our attention
to children within the data set who were born in England or Wales or who had migrated there
before age 5.
For our later analyses, we use the Youth Cohort Studies (YCS) data set. This comprises data
from a series of cohort studies of young people in England and Wales aged 16 and upwards
that have been commissioned annually by various government departments since 1984. The
surveys from which these data derive often have deficiencies, at least for our purposes, as
regards coverage, information collected, question wording, coding procedures, etc. We have,
however, concentrated on two of the YCS in which such deficiencies appear, on balance, least
troublesome: that is, YCS3, which began with a survey of 16-year-olds in 1987 (with a response
rate of 71 per cent), and YCS11, which began with a survey of 16-year-olds in 2002 (with a
response rate of 55 per cent). These studies, it should be noted, provide information on
students’ transition, or not, to A-level courses in the year previous to that in which they were
carried out. Thus, the three time-points to which our analyses refer are 1974, on the basis of
the NCDS, and then 1986 and 2001 on the basis of the YCS.5
In order to follow the Erikson–Jonsson approach, we need to construct variables, as compa-
rable as possible across our three data sources, for (i) students’ class background; (ii) students’
academic performance; and (iii) students’ choice in the transition at age 16. We attempt to do
this as follows.

Class background
We take class of father or of other household head as our indicator of students’ class back-
ground. In both the NCDS data set and for YCS3 we have information on this individual’s
Socio-Economic Group (SEG), from which a fairly good approximation to the Goldthorpe class
schema can be derived (Heath and McDonald, 1987). For YCS11, the information in question
is coded to the ‘operational’ categories of the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification
(NS-SEC), which is in effect a new instantiation of the Goldthorpe schema (Rose et al., 2005).
As earlier indicated, we work with the standard threefold collapse of the schema: salariat or
service class (Classes I and II), intermediate classes (Classes III, IV and V) and working class
(Classes VI and VII). A more refined treatment of class background would not, we believe, be
advisable in view of a possible lack of comparability across our data sources and, more
seriously, in view of the fact that in the YCS information on head of household’s occupation
and employment status is provided by students rather than directly by the individuals in
question, which is likely to detract from its quality (cf. Payne, 2001: 30).

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Academic performance
We base our measure of academic performance on students’ results in public examinations
taken at around age 16 towards the end of the compulsory years of education: that is, O-levels,
CSEs, GCSEs, etc., according to historical period. However, we focus on grades in just two
subjects: mathematics and English. The main reason for this is that these count as almost
obligatory subjects in the examinations in question and ones in which, therefore, nearly all
students will have grades. Thus, in concentrating on mathematics and English, we avoid the
problems of comparability that would otherwise arise in averaging grades over the quite widely
differing number and combinations of subjects that students may take. There is, moreover, good
evidence that performance in mathematics and English correlates highly with performance in
other subjects.6
In the YCS samples, the information on grades comes from students themselves; in the NCDS
it comes from a special supplementary inquiry directed to students’ schools. The latter might
be thought the more reliable source, but in fact the data-collection exercise involved appears
not to have been very effectively carried out and the ‘missing data’ count is unfortunately high.
To obtain a single measure of performance for each student, we use the ‘scores’ that are offi-
cially attached – for purposes of aggregation – to ordinal grades and, for each student, simply
sum the scores corresponding to the grades that he or she obtained in mathematics and English.
To deal with problems resulting from changes over time in the form and nomenclature of the
public examinations, we take over the equivalencies in the scoring of grades under different
examination systems that have become conventionally accepted in educational administration
and research, although we appreciate that the detail of these has in some respects been ques-
tioned.7 The resulting scores are inverted (so that high scores indicate high ability) and then
standardized to z-scores with a mean of zero and standard deviation of unity.8

Transition at sixteen
Our main concern here was to distinguish between those students who stayed on in full-time
education to engage in A-level work and the rest. For the NCDS sample, we use a question
that simply identifies those who remained in full-time education after age 16 and, in the
absence of further information, we assume that these students were indeed taking A-level
courses.9 For the YCS3 and YCS11 samples, we use a question asking respondents still in
school if they were studying for A-levels or AS-levels (the latter being examinations taken
after one year of study prior to A-levels, which are usually taken after two years).
To repeat, then, a number of problems do arise in constructing comparable variables across
our three data sets, and these will have to be kept in mind in interpreting the results of the
analyses that are to be reported. In general, we would believe, such class effects as we may
discover are likely to be underestimated: that is, because of unreliability in data on class back-
grounds and of greater non-response in the case of students who are both from less advan-
taged backgrounds and have low levels of academic performance.

Initial results
To begin with, we present in Table 1 some basic descriptive statistics on changing transition
rates into A-level courses of students of differing class background. As can be seen, we show
results separately for data pertaining to (a) all students for whom we have information on
class background and transition and (b) all students for whom we have this information plus
information on their academic performance. It is of course on the latter data subset that our
analyses of primary and secondary effects will be based.
It is readily apparent from the table that the loss of individual cases as between (a) and (b)
is not random – and is also quite substantial with the NCDS data for 1974. For each year alike
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Table 1 Transition rates (%) into A-level work of children of differing class background, 1974, 1986 and 2001: (a)
all cases with information on class and transition; (b) all cases with information on class, transition and academic
performance
Class Year (a) (b) N(a) N(b)
1974 40 51 2554 1635
Salariat 1986 62 65 3294 3091
2001 75 76 5473 5279

1974 19 29 1530 1095

Intermediate 1986 40 44 3027 2658
2001 51 54 5395 5012

1974 10 17 4056 1593

Working 1986 28 33 3815 3070
2001 35 39 2278 2004

1974 21 33 8140 4323

All 1986 43 48 10136 8819
2001 58 61 13146 12295
Odds ratios
S/I I/W S/W
(a) (b) (a) (b) (a) (b)
1974 2.90 2.57 2.21 1.90 6.49 4.89
1986 2.50 2.32 1.71 1.58 4.27 3.66
2001 2.81 2.71 1.95 1.85 5.50 5.02

attrition increases as one moves down the table from the salariat to the working class; and for
each year and class the transition rate is higher with (b) than with (a). At the same time, the
odds ratios shown at the foot of the table, which are our preferred measure of class differen-
tials in educational attainment, are themselves always lower with (b), and this difference is
especially marked for 1974.
None the less, it is still the case that, whether we consider the results from (a) or (b), two
important features of Table 1 remain the same. First, an increase over time is revealed in the
proportion making the transition to A-level work among students from all three of the classes
distinguished. And, second, the odds ratios that we calculate to show class differentials all fall
between 1974 and 1986 – i.e. indicate a reduction in these differentials – but then all increase
again between 1986 and 2001.
This latter finding is then confirmed, for the data of (b), by the log linear modelling exercise
reported in Table 2, in which the counts underlying Table 1 are treated as forming a (3) class

(3) year
(2) transition–choice array. The results for models 1 and 2 show that a clear associ-
ation exists between students’ class and making the transition to A-level courses (i.e. model 2
is a significant and substantial improvement on model 1); but, further, that this association
cannot be regarded as constant over time (model 2 still shows a significant lack of fit).
However, model 3, the log multiplicative UNIDIFF model (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992:
ch. 3), which allows for uniform movement away from or closer to unity in the odds ratios for
the class–transition (CT) association, does give a good fit to the data. And the parameters from
this model for the factors by which the relevant log odds are to be multiplied then indicate
that, in line with the observed odds ratios of Table 1, the CT association first weakens between
1974 and 1986 but strengthens again between 1986 and 2001.10
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Table 2 Results of modelling the association among students’ class (C), transition to A-level work (T) and year
(Y) (all cases with information on class, transition and academic performance) n = 25437
Model G2 df p 
1. CY TY 2029.6 6 0.00 12.7
2. CY TY CT 19.0 4 0.00 1.0
3. CY TY CT (UNIDIFF) 0.8 2 0.68 0.2

1974 1986 2001

UNIDIFF  parameters (set at 1) 0.83 1.02

We now move on to our analyses that relate the transition at 16 to both class background
and previous academic performance. For students from each of the three class backgrounds
that we distinguish and for each of the three years that we cover, we estimate transition prob-
abilities to A-level work through a binomial logistic regression in which the standardized
performance scores previously described are the explanatory variable.11
The results of our analyses are shown graphically in Figures 1–3. In each figure, the logistic
curve for each class shows the proportion of students from that class who at each point on
the academic performance axis are estimated to make the transition to A-level courses. The
performance distributions for students in each class are also presented, but, it should be noted,
in normalized form, i.e. we apply the mean and standard deviations of the standardized scores
in the normal distribution equation. As will be seen, this normalization is necessary to our
subsequent analytical strategy, which requires a distribution function that we can integrate.
From Figures 1–3 an initial observation that may be made is that the performance distri-
butions are in all cases differentiated by class in the way that would be expected, i.e. students
of salariat background have, on average, higher levels of academic performance than do
students of working-class background, with those of intermediate-class background falling in

1 1
Data range

0.9 0.9

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7
Probability of transition
Proportion of cases

0.6 0.6

0.5 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
–4 – 3.5 –3 – 2.5 –2 – 1.5 –1 – 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Academic performance

Salariat Intermediate W orking class

Figure 1 Graphical representation of regression of transition to A-level work on academic performance (1974)

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 Jackson et al.: Class Differentials in Educational Attainment

1 1
Data range
0.9 0.9

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7

Probability of transition
Proportion of cases

0.6 0.6

0.5 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
–4 – 3.5 –3 – 2.5 –2 –1.5 –1 – 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Academic performance

Salariat Intermediate W orking class

Figure 2 Graphical representation of regression of transition to A-level work on academic performance (1986)

between. Thus, primary effects, i.e. effects stemming from performance, can be expected to
operate on class differentials in transition rates; and the figures would not suggest that, over
the period covered, these effects are weakening. In fact, as is shown in Table 3, while differ-
ences in academic performance, as we have measured it, between students of differing class
background were somewhat narrower in 1986 than in 1974, they were then wider again in
2001 than in either 1986 or 1974.12

1 1

0.9 Data range 0.9

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7
Probability of transition
Proportion of cases

0.6 0.6

0.5 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
–4 – 3.5 –3 – 2.5 –2 – 1.5 –1 – 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Academic performance

Salariat Intermediate W orking class

Figure 3 Graphical representation of regression of transition to A-level work on academic performance (2001)

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Table 3 Average academic performance scores (standardized) of students by class background and class differences
Class
Salariat Intermediate Working
SI IW SW
1974 0.42 0.48 –0.06 0.33 –0.39 0.81
1986 0.39 0.44 –0.05 0.30 –0.35 0.74
2001 0.37 0.54 –0.17 0.36 –0.53 0.90

Turning next to the curves in Figures 1–3 showing estimated transition propensities, we
would note the following three features of interest. First, in line with the data of Table 1, it can
be seen that, from 1974 to 1986 and then to 2001, these curves start their sharp upward rise
further to the left, i.e. at lower levels of performance, and thus indicate that increasing propor-
tions of students at all levels of performance are continuing to A-level work. Second, though,
in all three graphs the curve for students of salariat background lies above that for students
of intermediate-class background, which in turn, with some slight deviation in the lower tails
of Figures 2 and 3, lies above that for students of working-class background.13 And third, in
all three graphs the ‘gaps’ between the curves are at their widest – at 15–20 percentage points
as between the salariat and working-class curves – at intermediate levels of performance lying
in fact between –0.5 and 0.7 on the performance axis. It would seem reasonable to suppose that
students who perform very poorly in their examinations at 16 will have a low probability of
going on to A-levels and that those who perform very well will have a high probability almost
regardless of their class origins, while it is at intermediate levels of performance that the scope
for secondary effects to operate is largest.14
In sum, then, we can say that throughout the period that we cover secondary as well as
primary effects are clearly at work in the creation of class differentials in the transition to
A-level work. Questions are thus prompted about the relative importance of these two kinds
of effect, and it is to these questions that we next turn.

The relative importance of primary and secondary effects

In their work previously cited, a particular concern of Erikson and Jonsson (1996b) was with
the likely impact on class differentials in the transition to upper secondary schools in Sweden
of the imposition of minimum GPA requirements. In this regard, they point out that under
representations of primary and secondary effects as in Figures 1–3, class transition rates
expected under any performance limit can be readily calculated by numerical integration: that
is, by multiplying, for each class, the area under the normalized distribution of academic
performance scores, subject to any limit imposed, by the corresponding area under the tran-
sition probability curve given by the logistic regression. With our own purposes in mind, we
can then follow the same procedure, but with the limits to the integration being widely set so
that in effect all individuals in our samples will be covered. Thus, for each class in each year
we can calculate the integral

冢 冣冢 冣
+4

兰 1
–––––––– e –(x – µ) /2σ
2 2 e (a + bx) dx
–––––––––––
–4
σ√
⎯⎯2⎯π 1 + e (a + bx)

where µ is the mean of the performance scores and σ the standard deviation and a is the
constant and b the performance coefficient from the regression model.15
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 Jackson et al.: Class Differentials in Educational Attainment

The crucial advantage that we in this way gain is that of being able to separate the two
components of any class transition rate that are represented in the integration, and, consequently,
of being able to carry out counterfactual analyses. That is, analyses in which we estimate the
transition rates that would occur – all else equal – if the distribution of performance scores of
students of a certain class background were to be combined with the performance-specific
transition propensities of students of another class background. Before moving on to such
analyses, we need, though, to establish that the results we obtain from our numerical integra-
tions do in fact provide us with a reliable basis from which to work.
In Table 4 we present the transition rates thus estimated alongside the actually observed
rates as previously reported in Table 1 (column b). It can be seen that the correspondence is
reassuringly close. The indication is that our regression model is not badly misspecified and
that our normalization of the distributions of performance scores has not resulted in any
serious distortion.16
Given that we make a threefold division of students by class background, there are six (3!)
counterfactual combinations of performance scores and transition propensities that we can
consider, apart from the three actual combinations. The combinations can be identified as in
Table 5, where in the notation used the first subscript refers to class performance distribution
and the second to class performance-specific transition propensities. Table 5 shows for each of
the six combinations the estimated proportion of students who, under our model, would be
expected to make the transition to A-level work as given by numerical integration.
The nature of the counterfactual propositions that become possible on this basis can be
illustrated by reference to the results for 2001. One may, for example, observe from Table 4
that in this year the proportion of students of working-class background proceeding to A-level

Table 4 Transition rates into A-level work for students of differing class background, as estimated from
integrations and as observed (see Table 1)
1974 1986 2001
Class per cent per cent per cent
Estimated 49 64 76
Salariat
Observed 51 65 76
Estimated 28 44 54
Intermediate
Observed 29 44 54
Estimated 17 33 39
Working
Observed 17 33 39

Table 5 Counterfactual transition rates

Transition rate estimated by numerical integration
Counterfactual 1974 1986 2001
combinationsa per cent per cent per cent
Psi 40 55 71
Psw 36 51 68
Pis 35 52 60
Piw 24 40 51
Pws 27 44 48
Pwi 20 36 42
aWhere first subscript represents performance distribution and second subscript transition propensities.

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Acta Sociologica 50(3)

courses, as estimated under our model, was 39 per cent, as against 76 per cent of those of
salariat background. However, from Table 5 it can then be seen (second row) that if working-
class students had had the same performance levels as students of salariat background, while
retaining their actual performance-specific transition propensities, the estimated proportion
of those proceeding would have been 68 per cent; and, further (fifth row), that if working-
class students had had the same transition propensities as students from the salariat, while
retaining their actual performance levels, the estimated proportion proceeding would have
been 48 per cent.
Such calculations give some indication of the relative importance of primary and secondary
effects in creating class differentials in the transition in question, as indeed would various
other calculations of a similar form that could be derived from Tables 4 and 5. But what would
be of obvious value would be to further exploit such counterfactual reasoning so as to reach
a more generalized method of making estimates in this regard. In work reported elsewhere
(Erikson et al., 2005), we have in fact described such a method. Here, we limit ourselves to
setting out its underlying logic.
First, we represent the proportion of individuals from class j continuing to A-levels as Pjj ,
where the first subscript represents the performance distribution of class j, and the second the
transition propensities of class j. We can then write the odds ratio for the transition propensi-
ties of class j as compared to class k as

Q jj.kk = (Pjj/(1 – Pjj)/(Pkk/(1 – Pkk ))

We can then have the counterfactual odds ratios

Q jj.kj = (Pjj/(1 – Pjj))/(Pkj/(1 – Pkj))

and
Q jj.jk = (Pjj/(1 – Pjj))/(Pjk/1 – Pjk ))

where in both cases we compare the actual odds for class j with a counterfactual case in which
the performance distribution, or the transition propensities of class j, is replaced by that of
class k.
Other counterfactual odds ratios such as Q kj.kk and Q jk.kk could of course also be calculated,
with corresponding interpretations.

Now
Q jj.kk = Q jk.kkQ jj.jk (1)
and also
Q jj.kk = Q jj.kjQ kj.kk (2)
or if we take logarithms
L jj.kk = L jk.kk + L jj.jk (3)
and
L jj.kk = L jj.kj + Lkj.kk (4)

where in each case the first term on the right-hand side refers to situations with different
performance distributions but similar transition propensities, and the second term to situations
with similar performance distributions but different transition propensities. Or, that is, the first
terms could be said to isolate primary effects while the second terms isolate secondary effects.
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 Jackson et al.: Class Differentials in Educational Attainment

The relative importance of, say, secondary effects can therefore be calculated as

L jj.jk/L jj.kk (5)

or as
L kj.kk/L jj.kk (6)

From the six counterfactual transition probabilities given by numerical integration that are
reported in Table 5, we then, following (5) and (6), arrive at the estimates of the relative import-
ance of secondary effects that are given in Table 6.
One problem immediately apparent in these estimates is that, in most cases, they differ
depending on whether they are derived from (5) or (6) – even if not to any great extent. It can,
however, be shown (Erikson et al., 2005) that these differences come about in two ways, neither
of which is in practice seriously damaging to our method: first, because the estimated
variances in the performance distributions of the three classes are not identical; and, second,
because estimates of the slopes in our logistic regression models also differ. If we had forced
the variances and the slopes to be the same for all three classes, then estimates of the relative
importance of secondary effects from equations (5) and (6) would in fact have been virtually
the same for each pair in Table 6.17 We find it more prudent to display the differences and
thereby show that they are indeed of no major consequence.
From Table 6 it can then be seen that the estimated importance of secondary effects,
considered as a proportion of the log–odds ratios that we take as defining class differentials,
is generally in the region of a third to two-fifths for 1974 and 1986, but falls to the region of a
fifth to a quarter for 2001. Whether this shift represents some secular trend or simply short-
term fluctuation must be a matter for further investigation. At least as of now, we would
favour the latter, more conservative, interpretation, and especially since supplementary
analyses that we have undertaken (see n. 5) indicate that secondary effects were in fact of
greater importance in 2001 than they were in 1995.
There is, moreover, a second, and more serious, problem that we need to address before
drawing any final conclusions from Table 6: that is, the problem of ‘anticipatory decisions’ that
we referred to in our Introduction.

Anticipatory decisions
In all of the foregoing we have assumed that the decision of whether or not to continue to A-level
work is made following examinations taken at the end of the period of compulsory schooling.
In one sense this is of course correct: it is at this time that students have to do one thing or the
other. However, the decision may in fact be anticipated. Students may at some earlier point come
to the view that they will, or will not, go on to A-levels. And in so far then as such anticipatory
decisions do occur, the approach that we have followed is likely to lead to an underestimation

Table 6 Relative importance of secondary effects in class differentials as percentage of log-odds ratios
Relative importance of secondary effects, percent of log-odds ratios
Classes S/W S/I I/W
Formula (5) (6) Average (5) (6) Average (5) (6) Average
1974 34 38 36 39 39 39 29 33 31
1986 43 36 39 45 40 43 33 30 32
2001 26 22 24 27 24 26 21 20 20

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Acta Sociologica 50(3)

of secondary effects. This is because anticipatory decisions can be expected, especially through
their positive or negative effects on motivation, to influence students’ performance in the exam-
inations they subsequently take, and in our analyses they will thus contribute, perversely, to
primary effects rather than to secondary effects, i.e. effects that derive from choice.
We can get some purchase on this problem by exploiting the NCDS data set. This includes
the results of a quasi-IQ test, concentrating on basic mathematical and linguistic abilities, that
was taken by children at age 11. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that perform-
ance as measured by this test will not be greatly subject to influence by anticipatory decisions
concerning A-level work.
We have repeated our analyses for 1974 in three different ways: first, substituting IQ for
O-level grade scores for those respondents for whom we have information on both of these
variables, thus reducing the sample N from 4323 to 3858; second, using O-level grade scores
as previously but for this reduced sample of 3858; and third, using IQ for all respondents for
whom we have such information, regardless of whether we also have information on their
O-levels, in which case N rises substantially to 8086 (as earlier noted, the NCDS data-collection
exercise on O-level results was not highly successful and, as is evident from Table 1, non-
response is clearly class-biased).
We do not here show results from these further analyses in the graphical form of Figures
1–3 earlier,18 but what emerges from such graphs is, briefly, the following. The graph for the
second analysis, where performance is indicated by O-level grade scores, is similar to that of
Figure 1, as might be expected, since the only difference is in the numbers covered. But the
graphs for the first and third analyses, where performance is indicated by IQ, differ notably
from that of Figure 1 in two respects. First, the class distributions of IQ overlap more than do
the class distributions of grade scores. And, second, the slopes of the logistic curves are much
less steep, as well as more widely separated, especially with students of salariat and working-
class origins. In other words, the indications are, first, that a weaker association exists between
IQ and transition rates than between grade scores and transition rates and, second, that while
students of salariat background tend to obtain relatively high O-level grades, given their IQs,
the reverse is the case with students of working-class background. Anticipatory decisions
could obviously be an influence here.19
However, what we chiefly wish to know from these analyses is the effect of substituting IQ
for O-level grade scores on our estimates of the relative importance of secondary effects. The
relevant results are presented in Table 6. As can be seen, the estimates in the first row of the
table are substantially larger than – in fact around double – those in the second row, which, it
may be noted, are very close to those of Table 4. The estimates in the third row, when compared
to those in the first row, would then indicate that this discrepancy is in some part to be
accounted for by the biased non-response on O-level grades to which we have already
referred. None the less, a clear difference with the second row remains. In other words, the
indication is that the estimates of the relative importance of secondary effects given in Table
6 are indeed too low; it would seem very likely that anticipatory decisions do affect transition
propensities. At the same time, though, it would be a mistake to regard the results even of the
third row of Table 7 as being true estimates. These results, one must suppose, will in some
part reflect socio-cultural influences that lead to students of salariat background translating
their basic academic abilities more effectively into O-level grades than do students of working-
class background – or, that is, they in some part reflect what must be counted as primary rather
than secondary effects which continue to operate after age 11.
What would, therefore, seem the best – or, at all events, the safest – way to interpret our
results overall would be the following: to take the estimates given in Table 6 as representing
the lower limits of the relative importance of secondary effects and the estimates given in the
third row of Table 7 as representing the upper limits. This would then mean that one could
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 Jackson et al.: Class Differentials in Educational Attainment

Table 7 Relative importance of secondary effects, estimates based on IQ and O-level grade scores
Relative importance of secondary effects, percent of log-odds ratios
Classes S/W S/I I/W
Formula (5) (6) Average (5) (6) Average (5) (6) Average
IQ substituted for 77 75 76 72 77 74 71 61 66
O-level scores
(n = 3858)
O-level scores 34 37 36 41 40 40 28 32 30
(n = 3858)
IQ, all respondents 61 62 61 63 65 64 54 50 52
(n = 8086)

regard secondary effects as accounting for somewhere between a quarter and a half of
observed class differentials, as measured by odds ratios, in the particular educational tran-
sition with which we are concerned. This is obviously a less precise assessment than one might
wish to have. It is, though, one that could be improved upon by using the method that we
have proposed together with better data on anticipatory decisions: for example, data on
students’ levels of performance at, say, around age 14 that could be linked to information on
their educational plans and intentions. And further, even as they stand, our estimates are quite
sufficient to show that the role of secondary effects in the creation of educational differentials
can by no means be regarded as negligible.
In order to underline this latter point, we can resort to one counterfactual analysis of the
kind our methodology makes possible that is of particular interest. That is, we can consider
the situation in which students from the three classes we distinguish keep their observed
performance distributions while all have the same performance-specific transition propensi-
ties, i.e. the highest we observe, those of students of salariat background. In this case, therefore,
we ‘think away’ all secondary effects; class differentials are produced by primary effects alone.
If we then take, for example, our results for 2001, we obtain the proportions going on to A-level
work that are predicted under our regression for children of salariat background in the first
row of Table 4, and for children of intermediate-class and working-class background in the
third and fifth rows of Table 5 (i.e. the rows for Pis and Pws). As compared with the proportion
predicted for students of salariat background of 76 per cent, the proportion predicted for
students of intermediate-class background under our counterfactual conditions shows a rise
from the ‘real’ figure of 54 per cent (Pii) to 60 per cent (Pis) and for students of working-class
background from 39 per cent (Pww) to 48 per cent (Pws). And it must be remembered that we
are here working at our lowest estimate of the relative importance of secondary effects, with
no allowance for anticipatory decisions being made.

Conclusions
In this article, we have applied a particular method of analysing primary and secondary effects
in class differentials in educational attainment in the case of one crucial transition in the English
and Welsh educational system: that in which, at around age 16, students do, or do not, continue
to A-level courses. Over the period we cover, 1974 to 2001, a strong increase occurred in the
total numbers of students taking up such courses. However, class differentials, as measured by
odds ratios, reveal no consistent decline. We have been able to show that in understanding this
situation both primary and secondary effects must be given an important part. On the one hand,
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class differentials persist in academic performance: i.e. in grades obtained in public examina-
tions taken at the end of the period of compulsory schooling. On the other hand, class differ-
entials also persist in transition propensities at all levels of academic performance, though most
markedly at intermediate levels. The estimates of the relative importance of primary and
secondary effects that our method of analysis allows would in fact suggest that, with due
allowance being made for anticipatory decisions, secondary effects are responsible for between
a quarter and a half of observed class differentials in the transition in question.
The main conclusion that we would wish to draw from the findings that we have presented
is then the following. It is a serious error to ignore Boudon’s distinction between primary and
secondary effects and to discuss class differentials in educational attainment as if only primary
effects were involved. That is to say, it is a serious error to concentrate attention entirely on
class differences in academic performance, whether these are seen as being primarily genetic
or – as is more often the case in the sociological literature – primarily socio-cultural in origin.
Over and above differences of this kind, class differences further occur in the choices that are
made by students, in conjunction, perhaps, with parents, teachers and peers, as regards their
educational careers, with students from less advantaged class backgrounds being less likely
to take educationally more ambitious options than students from more advantaged back-
grounds, and even when their academic performance would make such options entirely feasible for
them. This conclusion in turn raises major theoretical and policy issues.
On the theoretical side, it might perhaps be argued that the choices that create secondary
effects have in fact to be understood as themselves socio-culturally conditioned, or even, in
the extreme view of Bourdieu and his followers, as being not meaningful choices at all but
simply expressions of the particular class habitus into which individuals have been socialized
(cf. Bourdieu, 1990). However, arguments that thus appeal to socialization lead to essentially
‘black-box’ explanations (Boudon, 2003) that leave open the question of just why particular class
values and related social norms should be accepted and followed. And, moreover, at least in the
case in question, such arguments do not accord well with the very fact of transition rates to
A-level work rising steadily and substantially among students of all class backgrounds alike.
By 2001, as can be seen from Table 1, more than half of all students of intermediate-class
background and more than a third of all those of working-class background did achieve a level
of academic performance that allowed them to go on to A-level work and took up this option.
Even allowing for a degree of upward bias in these figures, they can scarcely bear out the idea
of static and homogenous class subcultures in which prevailing values and norms are power-
fully inimical to educational aspirations. And, consequently, it would appear far more appro-
priate, in the situation that obtains, to seek to develop explanations of class differentials in
educational attainment that allow for students making quite genuine choices, based on some
form of cost–benefit evaluation, from among the different educational options that are available
to them – although choices that are at the same time subject to various class-linked constraints
on both resources and relevant information and ones that, in their aggregate effects, may indeed
serve to perpetuate existing inequalities (see e.g. Erikson and Jonsson, 1996a; Goldthorpe, 1996;
Breen and Goldthorpe, 1997; Becker, 2003; Breen and Yaish, 2006).20
On the side of policy, perhaps the major issue that arises, at least for those concerned to
reduce class differentials in educational attainment, is that of the relative weight that should
be attached to policies aimed at overcoming the resource and informational constraints that
bear on children from less advantaged backgrounds, as opposed to policies aimed at helping
these children from an early age to develop their basic academic abilities more successfully,
as through various kinds of pre-school, early learning and more general childcare and child
development programmes.
Of late, powerful voices have been raised in favour of giving priority to policies of this latter
kind (e.g. Cameron and Heckman, 1999; Carneiro and Heckman, 2003). And it would indeed be
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difficult to deny that focusing thus on primary effects is in principle the more radical approach.
However, in practice, hard questions can still be posed about relative cost-effectiveness. On the
one hand, there is good evidence that if pre-school and early learning programmes are to be
effective in raising the performance of children from disadvantaged social backgrounds, then
such interventions must be of a sustained, high quality and thus expensive kind; otherwise,
‘fade-out’ effects are likely (e.g. Waldfogel, 1999, 2004; Currie and Thomas, 2000; Ramey and
Ramey, 2000; Currie, 2001). On the other hand, results of the kind we have reported clearly
indicate that ability that is demonstrated by children from less advantaged backgrounds in
their earlier academic careers is still often not exploited as fully as it could be at later stages.
And thus the possibility must be recognized that any gains that may be made in reducing
primary effects via interventions in early years – at a probably high cost – will be at least in
some degree offset in so far as the further problem of secondary effects is not addressed.
Through the counterfactual example on pp. 223–4 above, we have already illustrated how
the elimination of secondary effects could in itself have a far from negligible impact in
narrowing class differentials in educational attainment in the transition we have considered.
And we can in fact use the obverse of this example to gain some idea of how far the persist-
ence of secondary effects might qualify the complete elimination of primary effects. If we
suppose that all students have the same performance distribution as that we observe for those
of salariat background, but that class differences in performance-specific transition propensi-
ties persist, then on the basis of our results for 2001 we would find the following: that in
comparison with the 76 per cent transition rate to A-level work that our regression model
predicts for students of salariat background (Table 4), the rate predicted (Table 5) for students
of intermediate-class background would rise from the ‘real’ figure of 54 per cent (Pii ) to 71 per
cent (Psi ), and that for students of working-class background from 39 per cent (Pww) to 68 per
cent (Psw). In other words, while class differentials would indeed be substantially narrowed,
working-class students especially would still lag some way behind their more advantaged
counterparts. And, again, these are figures derived from our low estimates of the relative
importance of secondary effects.
Another way of viewing this and various other of the analyses that we have presented
would in fact be to see them as indicating the extent of the wastage of already developed academic
ability, and especially among working-class children, that presently occurs. And whatever
interventions may be made to try to reduce primary effects on educational differentials, to
seek to eliminate this wastage, which might well be achieved through relatively inexpensive
measures designed to offset the economic costs to children from poorer families when they
attempt more ambitious educational courses,21 could reasonably be regarded as being business
of a first-order kind.

Notes
We are grateful to Vikki Boliver, Richard Breen, Harvey Goldstein, Carmel Hannan, William Jackson,
Mikael Lindahl, Sam Lucas, Colin Mills, Joan Payne, David Raffe and two anonymous reviewers for
information, advice and useful comments on earlier drafts, and to David Cox for his invaluable help
with statistical problems. Robert Erikson’s work was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research
Council (no. 40345401).

1. Boudon himself tends to concentrate on cultural factors, although it seems clear that he would include
the effects of genetic factors also insofar as these are operative, plus of course interaction effects.
2. One recent author (Nash, 2006) would appear to regard the distinction between primary and
secondary effects as turning not on differences in educational choice at similar levels of actual
academic performance but rather on differences between students’ basic ‘cognitive dispositions’, as
may be measured by ability tests, and such performance or on differences between their standards

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of performance in successive examinations. This would seem to us a serious misrepresentation of

Boudon and one which greatly favours the author’s general argument that subculture and socializa-
tion, rather than genuine choice, are key factors underlying both primary and secondary effects in
class differentials in educational attainment.
3. During the 1980s, a strong growth occurred in the numbers of students who, after age 16, opted to
stay on in school to take vocational courses rather than following such courses in other educational
institutions or in the context of their employment. However, we are here solely concerned with the
choice of staying on for the purpose of taking A-level courses. During the 1990s, students following
such courses amounted to 55–60 per cent of the total number of those staying on. It should further
be noted that we leave out of account those students who left school at age 16 but then returned to
take A-level courses at some later stage. However, the numbers involved here are relatively small.
4. In earlier work, secondary effects on class differentials in educational attainment have sometimes
been treated (although not usually under that name) in a regression context as an effect of students’
class origins on their educational choices and careers, independent of that of their actual academic
performance. In turn, it might be suggested that a similar approach could be used to determine the
relative importance of primary and secondary effects. For example, taking some level of educational
attainment as the dependent variable, one might divide the coefficient obtained for the effect of class
origins conditional on performance by that obtained for class origins alone. However, the method
we apply has, as will be seen, advantages in terms of transparency in that it allows the odds ratios,
through which class differentials are now conventionally expressed, to be directly partitioned into
two components attributable to primary and to secondary effects.
5. We have carried out various analyses on data from other of the YCS series and have in fact replicated
all the analyses reported below for YCS8 which began in 1996 and thus has data relevant to the
transition to A-levels for 1995. The results of these analyses are available from the authors on request.
There are, however, few notable deviations from the general pattern of the results we report.
6. Thus, for example, for our NCDS respondents we obtain a correlation of r = 0.85 between our measure
of performance, based only on mathematics and English, and one covering all subjects taken that is
used by Breen and Yaish (2006); and for our YCS11 respondents we obtain a correlation of r = 0.90
between our measure and a ‘total points score’ measure included in the YCS data set.
7. In 1974, the examinations taken were either Ordinary Levels or Certificate of Secondary Education.
The scores for grades in the former are grade A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, D = 4, E = 5 and U (unclassified) = 6;
and for those in the latter, grade 1 = 3, 2 = 4, 3 = 5, 4 = 6, 5 = 7 and U = 8. In 1986, a further examina-
tion was involved, known as the ‘16+’, which was in effect a trial form of the General Certificate of
Secondary Education, shortly to be introduced. Scores for this examination are grade A = 1, B = 2,
C = 3, 2 = 4, 3 = 5, 4 = 6, 5 = 7,U = 8. By 2001, only the GCSE operated, with scores of A/A* = 1, B = 2,
C = 3, D = 4, E = 5, F = 6, G = 7, U = 8. The few cases where individuals did not have grades for math-
ematics or English were omitted from the analysis.
8. This standardization does of course hide the fact that over the period covered a general improvement
in grades was observed across all classes alike.
9. This assumption is unlikely to be seriously misleading for 1974. As remarked in n. 5 earlier, it was
not until the 1980s that significant numbers of students began staying on after the end of compulsory
education in order to take courses other than those leading to A-levels.
10. This strengthening is in fact already apparent in our analyses of YCS8 relating to 1995. See n. 5 earlier.
11. We tested for gender effects but, where significant, these were very small and we have not therefore
included gender in the analysis. We also tested for whether any improvement in fit was achieved if
higher-order performance terms were included in the model. With YCS3, a significant improvement
occurs with the inclusion of a performance-squared term and also, for students of salariat and inter-
mediate-class backgrounds, of a performance-cubed term; and with YCS11 an improvement occurs
with the inclusion of performance-squared and performance-cubed terms for students of salariat
background. However, given the unsystematic nature and very slight quantitative importance of
these effects, we decided to ignore them.
12. We would not be inclined to attach great importance to the narrowing in differences in performance
in 1986 since, in the light of our other analyses, it appears as something of a ‘blip’ – the result perhaps

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of adjustments to new curricula or examination procedures. Such changes may also lie behind the
decline in class differentials evident in 1986 that we have earlier noted.
13. While the deviation in question is negligible (and indeed scarcely observable) in Figure 3, in Figure
2 it is of some interest in being entirely accounted for by students of Class IV (small employer or
self-employed) background, i.e. it is these students who, if they have achieved only low levels of
academic performance, are even less likely than students of working-class background at the same
level of performance to go on to A-level work – because, one might speculate, in this case entering
into the family enterprise would seem a clearly better option. It has been shown (Ishida et al., 1995)
that across a range of modern societies educational qualifications play virtually no part in mediating
intergenerational stability within Class IV.
14. It might be suspected that this finding is an artefact of the logistic transformation, i.e. that the logistic
curve entails that gaps will narrow towards the extremes. To check on this, we have examined
observed transition probabilities across our performance measure treated as a 15-category ordinal
scale. The general pattern for absolute class differences in transition rates to A-levels to be greater at
intermediate levels of performance than at either extreme is still quite apparent (although relative
differences as measured by odds ratios vary little).
15. The integral does not have a closed form and has to be evaluated numerically. For this purpose, we
utilized a web-based integration program (available at http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/Stefan_
Waner/RealWorld/integral/integral.html), and opted for the adaptive quadrature method which
gives the best approximation to definite integration.
16. A reviewer of this article has observed that economists (e.g. Blinder, 1973; Oaxaca, 1973; Yun, 2004;
Fairlie, 2005) have developed techniques of decomposing intergroup differences into those attribu-
table to characteristics of the groups and those attributable to effects or processes related to their
characteristics, and has suggested that we might have drawn upon these techniques instead of
following the approach described above. Our approach differs from that of the economists in that it
is based on assumptions about the distribution function of the characteristics. This, we believe, as
well as making for transparency, may be an advantage with relatively small samples, provided of
course that the assumptions are essentially correct – as in our case we can show them to be. Checks
that we have made comparing results reported subsequently with those that would be achieved
using the technique suggested by Fairlie (2005) reveal no great differences. Further details are
available from the authors on request.
17. However, larger discrepancies would show up if small (or large) overall probabilities critically
dependent on the tails of the distributions were involved (see Erikson et al., 2005: 9732).
18. The graphs are available from the authors on request.
19. IQ and O-level grade scores correlate at r = 0.63.
20. The Breen–Goldthorpe model has by now been subject to much discussion and attempts at empirical
testing. For a review, see Goldthorpe (2007: vol. II, ch. 14), also Stocké (2006).
21. Measures of this kind have in fact been recently introduced in Britain in the form of Education Main-
tenance Allowances (EMAs). Students from households with incomes of less than £30,000 per annum
can obtain payments of up to £30 per week (plus possible termly bonuses) if they stay on in education
after taking GCSE examinations at age 16 and commit themselves to courses involving at least 12
hours per week ‘guided learning’. Such payments are available for up to three years. Pilot studies
indicate that EMAs are likely to have some significant effect in raising the overall proportion of
students staying on after age 16 (Department for Education and Skills, 2003), but it is still too early
to say how well these expectations are being borne out. And it should further be noted that since
EMAs are available for a wide range of vocational courses (some rather low-level) as well as for
A-level and AS-level courses – the main point of which is qualification for university entry – it is
especially unclear how far they will serve to increase take-up in this latter respect.

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Biographical Note: Michelle Jackson is a research fellow of the Department of Sociology and Nuffield
College, University of Oxford (funded by the ESRC under the Understanding Population Trends and
Processes initiative). Her research focuses on educational inequality, social stratification and social
mobility. She is particularly interested in the role that employers play in social mobility, and recently
carried out an experiment to test how far employers discriminate against working-class candidates
when recruiting for new employees.
Address: Michelle Jackson, Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK. [email: michelle.jackson@nuffield.ox.
ac.uk]

Biographical Note: Robert Erikson is Professor of Sociology at the Swedish Institute for Social Research,
Stockholm University. His research interests concern social stratification, education, family and health,
especially the study of individual change over the life course and how it can be understood with regard
to individual and structural conditions. He has published articles in these areas and, together with
John Goldthorpe, is the author of The Constant Flux and, with Jan Jonsson, editor of Can Education be
Equalized?
Address: Robert Erikson, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, SE-106 91
Stockholm, Sweden. [email: Robert.Erikson@sofi.su.se]

Biographical Note: John H. Goldthorpe was an official fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1969 to
2002 and is now an emeritus fellow. He is also a fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the
Academia Europaea, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and holds an
honorary doctorate from the University of Stockholm. His most recent publication is the second, two-
volume edition of his book On Sociology (Stanford University Press, 2007).
Address: John H. Goldthorpe, Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK. [email: john.goldthorpe@nuffield.
ox.ac.uk]

Biographical Note: Meir Yaish is a senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at
the University of Haifa. He joined the department in October 2002 after spending three years as a
research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. His research interests lie with social stratification and
mobility, sociology of education, and the puzzle of altruism. He has published to an international
audience on these fields.
Address: Meir Yaish, Department of Sociology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. [email: myaish
@univ.haifa.ac.il]

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