The `Alternative Route' Reconsidered: Part-Time Further Education and Social Mobility in England and Wales

Abstract

Part-time further education has been described as an `alternative route' for those from less favourable educational and social backgrounds. The concept of the `alternative route' is examined critically, and two interpretations of it are tested on data collected from a sample of adult males in England and Wales interviewed in 1972. Men from middle class backgrounds, or with high (but not the highest) school attainments, have been most likely to enter part-time courses. As influences on entry, class background and school attainment interact, suggesting that part-time education has been more of an alternative route in educational terms for the middle class than for the working class. Analysis of occupations later entered by part-time students, however, suggests that part-time education was most strongly associated with occupational achievement among those with poor school attainments. This, and the interactive patterns of recruitment in terms of class background and school attainment, produced a positive association between part-time education and net upward intergenerational occupational mobility that was strongest among those from working class backgrounds.