TCELT Research seminar - February 2025

Scott Oatley is a final year PhD Student in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. His work specialises on social stratification and youth transitions. He has presented his research at national and international conferences on topics of: pedagogy, social stratification, social survey analysis, and simulation studies.

• Scott Oatley's personal Website
• Github link to presentation

Change is the one constant characterising youth transitions research. This paper documents this change and the consequences of it following a collapse of viable alternative pathways for young people following mandatory schooling. Using four datasets: the National Childhood Development Study (1958), the 1970 British Cohort Study (1970), and the British Household Panel Survey and the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (1991-), this paper provides a historical account of young peoples first transition into the world of work following mandatory schooling. This work documents the collapse of alterative pathways for young people, who are seemingly pushed into continuing education for an increasingly credentialed society. Patterns of social inequality are focused on, with sex and housing tenure based impacts on continuing schooling declining - whilst social class effects remain robust. This paper updated previous literature on the topic by introducing novel contemporary statistical methods: sensitivity analyses, handling missing data procedures, and adjusting for complex survey designs. Young people in contemporary Britain are faced with a lack of choice and increasingly lacking opportunity. Elongated transitions are pushing young people into continuing education with no viable alternatives. Diminished structural impacts on continuing education are naive, as current credentialization pushes these inequalities down the proverbial road to young peoples next life stage.