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Individual Differences in the Pathways into and Beyond Higher Education in the UK: A Life‐Course Approach
Author(s) -
Feinstein Leon,
Vignoles Anna
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00551.x
Subject(s) - odds , life course approach , diversity (politics) , selection (genetic algorithm) , order (exchange) , psychology , cohort , mental health , relation (database) , actuarial science , social psychology , sociology , computer science , economics , statistics , psychiatry , mathematics , logistic regression , finance , database , artificial intelligence , anthropology , machine learning
This article uses data from the UK 1970 Birth Cohort (N= 10,000) to address the research questions: (a) Who in this cohort made the transition to higher education (HE), and (b) how are the benefits and risks of such participation distributed? We assess the way that the benefits and risks of participation differ according to family background and child development, finding risks to mental health for individuals who attend HE against the odds. We also explore the errors in prediction of standard statistical models in order to introduce a discussion of selection bias linked to a broader policy question of the appreciation of the complexity and idiosyncrasy of individuals' educational pathways. We explore this question in relation to three particular cases that confound the prediction of the statistical analysis in order to clarify the assumptions and limitations of a standard analysis in approaching the problems of developing policy that recognizes individual heterogeneity and diversity .