© Education is a key factor in enabling social mobility. Despite free and compulsory state education, there remains widespread inequality of educational opportunity, as seen in chapter 4. Many working-class chil- dren face a number of obstacles and disadvantages in the way of success in education, which mean they do not do as well as their ability should allow them to, and this restricts their chances of upward mobility. © There remain biases in recruitment to the upper-middle-class elite jobs. For example, judges and top civil servants are recruited almost exclu- sively from people who have attended very expensive (largely boys’) public schools and then gone to Oxford or Cambridge Universities. This is a major obstacle for children from working-class backgrounds, who can't afford these schools and are therefore often denied the chance of getting into these top jobs. © Women face a range of obstacles in achieving upward mobility, because of anumber of factors which hinder their ability to compete in the labour market on equal terms with men (see later in this chapter). © Disadvantages in education, and racism in education, training and employment, often present obstacles to the upward social mobility of some minority ethnic groups. Consequently, a high percentage of people of African-Caribbean and Pakistani /Bangladeshi origin are represented in the working class. 1 Look at the box below, and explain how each of the factors might encourage ‘or limit the possibilities of upward social mobility. 2 Suggest what steps you might take to ensure that the most well-paid and responsible positions in society are filed by the most able and committed people, regardless of their socal class, gender or ethnic origins. Factors encouraging social mobility + Family support for children, in the form of money, support in education, values end networks of contacts + Raising educational standards end ensuring access to further and higher educetion for ali + Equality of opportunity for all besed on meritocrecy, with fairer recrutment polices by Racism Treating peopis as interior, anct towards them, on the gourds of racial oF ethnic origins - ususaity based on skin colour oe other physical or cultura characteristics.