Class 2

[Beef Oven]

I thought it was rather elegant, sainty, and did wonder if Beefy had picked up on the irony...

Beefy does not seem to be doing much by irony or emotional intelligence at the moment. He seems not to have gotten over not having an inside toilet when he was a kid.

[MrGongGong]

Beefy does not seem to be doing much by irony or emotional intelligence at the moment. He seems not to have gotten over not having an inside toilet when he was a kid.

Why not blame the EU ?
If we had stayed out of it we would all (by a strange process of time travel) had perfect Rupert Bear style childhoods .............

[Beef Oven]

No doubt you have some facts with which to support such a categorical statement. My "world view" is informed by such sources as this OECD report:

http://www.oecd.org/eco/growth/49849281.pdf

which tells a rather different story. To quote some of its main findings:

"Low mobility across generations, as measured by a close link between parents’ and children’s earnings, is particularly pronounced in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and France (...) Across European OECD countries covered by the analysis, there is a substantial wage premium associated with growing up in a higher-educated family and a penalty with growing up in a less-educated family, even after controlling for a number of individual characteristics. The premium and penalty are particularly large in southern European countries, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Ireland (...) The influence of parental socio-economic status on student achievement in secondary education also differs across OECD countries. It is particularly strong in the United States, France and Belgium (...) n European OECD countries, students from a higher-educated family are more likely to achieve tertiary education, while there is a probability penalty associated with growing up in a less-educated family. (...) the probability of achieving below secondary education is on average 18 percentage points higher for children whose father had below upper-secondary education compared with those whose father had upper-secondary education." And so on.

Doncha just love pseudo-social science like this.

[Richard Barrett]

Doncha just love pseudo-social science like this.

I prefer it to anecdotes.

[Beef Oven]

I prefer it to anecdotes.

Real life experience is not anecdotal.

[Richard Barrett]

Real life experience is not anecdotal.

What is it then, statistically valid?

[Beef Oven]

What is it then, statistically valid?

[Beef Oven]

I quite agree
We should get back to traditional old fashioned values , where none of this rubbish is allowed to infect the minds of our young people. If we scrapped the ridiculous anti-competitive laws that mean that we can't employ children to work in factories we might be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. People really need to know their place , we waste far too much of our money teaching the working class to read and write when they will have little use for it in later life.

"All things bright and beautiful" has the right idea ...........

REALLY ?

It's too early in the morning for this.

[MrGongGong]

It's too early in the morning for this.

Well you shouldn't stay up all night listening to Hawkwind then should you

[ahinton]

Doncha just love pseudo-social science like this.

Beef Oven says "I have read the evidence (or selected highlights thereof) and I do not approve of it, therefore it is not evidence". It would seem not to matter to you whether the information source is an OECD report, a British government report or anything else; all that appears to be paramount for you is that, if it doesn't happen to accord to your own "world view" (such as that may be - and assuming that you even have one), it must be irrelevant, incorrect and misleading and thereby to merit the descriptor "pseudo-social science". It seems as though you've bought the sand especially to be able to stick your head in it. It's clearly a waste of Mr Barrett's time in trying to inform you about such matters but, never mind, at least others here will appreciate the trouble to which he has gone in sourcing and posting that material.

[Thropplenoggin]

I think it is safe to postulate that the unpleasant responses on this thread show that some people have no class.

[teamsaint]

Well you shouldn't stay up all night listening to Hawkwind then should you

Nobody should, really.

[Beef Oven]

Well you shouldn't stay up all night listening to Hawkwind then should you

I did not stay up all night listening to Hawkwind - I moved on to Parsifal, drank too much Pinot Grigio and steamed a week's supply of black cod

[eighthobstruction]

Getting back on topic, social mobilty is a real thing and means much to many people's lives. It is a shame that we are more comfortable putting it in an academic context and poo-pooing people's real life experience (I acknowledge that the way I put it did not help, but I do have a rather large chip on my shoulder).

....are you sure it doesn't cover your ENTIRE HEAD....

[Beef Oven]

....are you sure it doesn't cover your ENTIRE HEAD....

Pass the Sellotape, my sides are splitting.