Private Schools and Educational Attainment: Cohort and Generational Effects

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Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between type of school attended and educational attainments. Whereas most research suggests that people who attend private schools gain higher attainments than those who attend Catholic schools and state schools, little is known about the reproduction of these effects over time or from one generation to the next. The results show that the advantages of private education are reinforced among those whose parents were also educated in private schools. However these intergenerational effects mostly disappear once selective recruitment is taken into account. Second, school effects account for only a small proportion of variance in educational attainments. Overall these results suggest that both quality of education and selective recruitment contribute to between-school differences; however attempts to reduce inequalities in education outcomes are likely to achieve more by focusing on inequalities of social background and gender rather than differences between ruling-class and working-class schools.

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