It has long been clear that children from deprived homes emerge from our schools with substantially lower levels of educational attainment. However, less is known about how family background influences educational attainment. By taking a life-cycle approach, starting in early childhood and moving through to compulsory schooling and beyond, this project will build a picture of the cumulative nature of educational attainment, assessing the relative importance of different factors at different stages in the lives of young people growing up in poverty.

In particular, this project aims to address the following issues:

• What is the extent and nature of the intergenerational transmission of attitudes to education, cognitive and non-cognitive skills?
• How much do soft skills and attitudes matter for educational attainment at different ages, for risky adolescent behaviours, and for social mobility and the perpetuation of poverty across generations?
• What is the relative importance of early and later childhood and family background factors in determining educational outcomes?
• What are the key behavioural and soft skills, and can they be developed more effectively?

This project makes use of four survey datasets covering children across a range of ages:

• The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) follows a sample of just under 19,000 children born in 2000-01.
• The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) follows a sample of around 14,000 women due to give birth between April 1991 and December 1992 in the former County of Avon.
• The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) follows a sample of around 15,000 individuals aged 13/14 in 2003-04.
• The British Cohort Study (BCS) follows a sample of around 17,000 individuals born in a particular week of April 1970.

Note: This work is being carried out in collaboration with the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) based at the University of Bristol.