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This article extends the evidence base on childhood circumstances, education and psychological distress. We examine the link between childhood advantage and disadvantage, the type of school attended during adolescence and psychological distress at ages 16 and 42. The analysis uses a large, population-based birth cohort study, the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) (n = 17,198) using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. More advantaged young people were more likely to attend private schools, but we find no evidence for an effect of private schooling on psychological distress for men, and for women there was an association between private schooling and raised psychological distress at age 16. Having a university degree was associated with a modest reduction in psychological distress in mid-life. We establish that maternal psychological distress at age 10 was a risk factor for the offspring's psychological distress both in adolescence and in mid-life, and adolescent psychological distress predicts psychological distress in mid-life. We conclude that schools which are academically successful do not necessarily provide wider benefits in terms of mental health.

This article assesses the chances of entering the top 5% of earners for a British cohort currently in their 40s. We assess the difference made by a university degree from an elite (Russell Group) or non-elite university, and from different undergraduate fields of study. Our study uses rich longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). This allows us to control for an unusually large range of potential confounding factors, including childhood socio-economic circumstances, cognitive scores, secondary schooling and prior qualifications. We find that large raw differences in the chances of achieving a top salary are strongly attenuated by our controls, but substantial differences between degree subject areas remain. The large gap between men and women in the chance of gaining a top salary is not explained by the type of degree achieved, and we found no evidence of gender differences in the gains from institutional prestige or particular fields of study.

Much has been made of the academic success of children who have attended private secondary schools in Britain, but far less attention has been directed to whether there are similar benefits from attending a private primary school. Using data from three British birth cohorts--born in 1958, 1970 and 2000/1--this paper profiles the family background and personal characteristics of children at state-funded and private fee-paying schools and then investigates the effect of the type of primary school attended on academic progress made during the primary-school years. Applying "value-added" linear regression and propensity score-matching techniques, we find evidence of a positive association between private primary-school attendance and a child's cognitive progress in all three cohorts. This effect remains after accounting for a wide range of individual and family characteristics, despite the very different times and socio-economic circumstances experienced by the children and their families in the three studies. Findings are discussed and compared against contrasting international findings.

Children with special educational needs (SEN) are known to experience lower average educational attainment than other children during their school years. But we have less insight into how far their poorer educational outcomes stem from their original starting points or from failure to progress during school. The extent to which early identification with SEN delivers support that enables children who are struggling academically to make appropriate progress is subject to debate. This is complicated by the fact that children with SEN are more likely to be growing up in disadvantaged families and face greater levels of behavioural and peer problems, factors which themselves impact attainment and progress through school. In this paper, we evaluate the academic progress of children with SEN in England, drawing on a large-scale nationally representative longitudinal UK study, the Millennium Cohort Study, linked to administrative records of pupil attainment. Controlling for key child, family and environmental factors, and using the SEN categories employed at the time of data collection, we first establish that children identified with SEN in 2008, when they were age 7, had been assessed with lower academic competence when they started school. We evaluate their progress between ages 5-7 and 7-11. We found that children identified with SEN at age 7 tended to be those who had made less progress between ages 5 and 7 than their comparable peers. However, children with SEN continued to make less progress than their similarly able peers between ages 7 and 11. Implications are discussed.

This paper investigates the relationship between stream placement and the academic progress made by children in England in Year 2 of primary school, drawing on data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). The MCS is a sample of 19,000 children born across the UK around the turn of the century and their families. Academic progress was compared between children in England in the "top", "middle" or "bottom" streams, and among the majority of non-streamed children. Multiple regressions took into account child, family and school characteristics and showed that stream placement significantly impacted on the academic progress made by children. Children in the "top" stream achieved more and made significantly more academic progress than children attending schools that did not stream, while children in the "middle" or "bottom" streams achieved less and made significantly less academic progress. The reasons for this and the educational implications are discussed.

To what extent and why do social origins matter for access to higher education, including access to elite universities? What is the role of private and selective schooling? This paper uses the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) to analyse the trajectories of a generation currently in early middle age. We find that the influence of social origins, especially parental education, remains when both a wide range of cognitive measures and school attainment are controlled. Attending a private school is powerfully predictive of gaining a university degree, and especially a degree from an elite institution, while grammar schooling does not appear to confer any advantage.

The adoption of streaming in the primary school (where children are placed in a class on the basis of measures of attainment and remain in that class all of the time) was commonplace when the 11 plus examination was used to select children for grammar school places. During the 1950s and 1960s the practice died out with most children being taught in mixed ability classes with some in-class grouping. During the 1990s successive governments indicated that some form of ability grouping should be introduced in primary schools, setting (children placed in ability groups for some subjects and taught in mixed groups for the remainder of the time) being preferred, however, streaming was introduced in some schools despite evidence that movement between structured ability groups is infrequent and that children tend to remain in the same groups throughout their school careers limiting their educational opportunities. Recent research based on 8875 children, in the Millennium Cohort Study showed that 16.4% of children in Year 2 were in streamed classes. Logistic regression analysis showed that the best predictors of being in the top stream were whether the child was born in autumn or winter 2000, parents owning their own home, and the child's cognitive ability score. The measures predicting being in the bottom stream were being a boy, being born in the spring/summer of 2001, having a behaviour problem, being born into a lone parent family, and cognitive ability score. (Contains 7 tables, 10 figures, and 7 notes.)

The adoption of setting in the primary school (pupils ability grouped across classes for particular subjects) emerged during the 1990s as a means to raise standards. Recent research based on 8875 children in the Millennium Cohort Study showed that 25.8% of children in Year 2 were set for literacy and mathematics and a further 11.2% of children were set for mathematics or literacy alone. Logistic regression analysis showed that the best predictors of being in the top set for literacy or mathematics were whether the child was born in the Autumn or Winter and cognitive ability scores. Boys were significantly more likely than girls to be in the bottom literacy set. Family circumstances held less importance for setting placement compared with the child's own characteristics, although they were more important in relation to bottom set placement. Children in bottom sets were significantly more likely to be part of a long-term single parent household, have experienced poverty, and not to have a mother with qualifications at NVQ3 or higher levels. The findings are discussed in relation to earlier research and the implications for schools are set out.

Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, this study examines factors promoting positive language development and subsequent successful education and employment transitions among children showing early receptive language problems (age 5). We find that 61 per cent of children with early receptive language problems develop into competent readers by age 10. Factors promoting positive language development include parental support and more importantly a good school environment, characterised by only few children receiving remedial help. Post-16 education and employment experiences indicated competent reading to be associated with a less challenging journey into adulthood. Findings are discussed in terms of their policy implications.

Purpose: Understanding the long-term outcomes of developmental language difficulties is key to knowing what significance to attach to them. To date, most prognostic studies have tended to be clinical rather than population-based, which necessarily affects the interpretation. This study sought to address this issue using data from a U.K. birth cohort of 17,196 children, following them from school entry to adulthood, examining literacy, mental health, and employment at 34 years of age. The study compared groups with specific language impairment (SLI), nonspecific language impairment (N-SLI), and typically developing language (TL). Method: Secondary data analysis of the imputed 5-year and 34-year data was carried using multivariate logistic regressions. Results: The results show strong associations for demographic and biological risk for both impairment groups. The associations are consistent for the N-SLI group but rather more mixed for the SLI group. Conclusions: The data indicate that both SLI and N-SLI represent significant risk factors for all the outcomes identified. There is a strong case for the identification of these children and the development of appropriate interventions. The results are discussed in terms of the measures used and the implications for practice.

The aim of this article is to determine the extent to which individual, family, and contextual resources influence the school adjustment of 16-year-old teenagers and to investigate their consequent adult attainments at age 33. Adopting a longitudinal perspective, the experiences of more than 9,000 socially advantaged and disadvantaged young people are compared. The study shows that socioeconomic adversity is a significant risk factor for educational failure and that it influences consequent adjustment in work and healthrelated outcomes. Various social-psychological factors can counterbalance such adversity. In particular, parental educational aspirations for their child are significantly associated with educational resilience among less privileged individuals. The study confirms the long-term stability of secondary school adjustment. It is concluded that the factors and processes that modify the impact of adversity are context specific and that their influences have to be studied in the context in which they operate.

Data from the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (n=1,623) on youth not in education, employment, or training (NEET) showed that NEET was influenced by poor achievement and by inner-city residence (for boys) and parental lack of interest in education (for girls). Boys mainly had poor employment experiences; teenage mothers also experienced psychological consequences. (Contains 53 references.) (SK)

Comparison of two British cohorts (11,016 born in 1958 and 6,417 born in 1970) indicated that teenage aspirations predicted their occupational attainment. Differences between the cohorts demonstrate the key role of sociohistorical context in shaping careers. The importance of educational credentials has increased for the younger cohort. (Contains 58 references.) (SK)

Investigated family characteristics that enabled children to achieve competence despite being exposed to socioeconomic adversity during early childhood and analyzed the long-term outcomes of this positive adaptation. Found that protective factors modifying the impact of adversity were context specific and showed age and period effects. Although positive adaptation during early childhood had long-term consequences, resilient young people did not completely overcome the experience of early socioeconomic disadvantage. (Author/KB)

Comparison of early labor market experiences of two British cohorts born in 1958 and 1970 shows that, among the younger group, those without academic qualifications had consistently higher unemployment rates than their older counterparts who similarly lacked basic skills. Key requirements for employability have demonstrably increased over time. (Contains 35 references.) (SK)

A British longitudinal study measured adult numeracy at ages 16 and 37. The longer the absence from paid employment, the greater the negative impact on numeracy. This effect was strongest for men who had poor math scores at 16. (SK)

Employment experiences were compared for British adults with good/average literacy and numeracy skills and those with good/average literacy and very low numeracy. Even with good literacy skills, poor numeracy reduced employment and training opportunities and promotion prospects. (SK)

This paper provides a comprehensive account of the way in which cognitive and educational attainment mediate the link between social origins and elite social class destinations in mid‐life. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), we assess the roles of a range of pathways through which educational advantage may lead to occupational attainment: cognitive development; private and selective secondary schools; school level qualifications; and higher education, including institution and field of study. Whereas past research has shown a residual direct effect of social origins on class destinations, we find that, once a sufficiently detailed picture of educational attainment is taken into account, education fully explains the link between social origins and top social class destinations. In contrast, the gap between men and women in achieving top social class positions is in no part accounted for by education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]