Class origin, cultural origin, and educational attainment: the case of Sweden

This paper examines changes in how social background affects educational attainment in Sweden. The analyses, using log-linear models, cover a long period of time. A broad perspective on educational attainment is applied, with the emphasis being placed not only on higher levels of education, but also on the overall allocation of education and on the social selection of people with no education beyond compulsory school. It is shown that during this century, education is allocated according to social origin to a decreasing extent. By assuming that the higher of the parents' educational levels reflects cultural resources in the childhood family, an attempt is made to estimate the relative effect of class and ‘cultural’ origin on children's formal schooling. Contrary to common assumptions, the relative importance of the latter is not growing. ‘Cultural capital’, as measured here, appears to become decreasingly transferable between generations, which, it is suggested, has implications for theories of social reproduction.