Last weeks's Cabinet Office report on social mobility has caused a stir. There is a feeling that the way it was spun to the newspapers lead to a focus on only a small part of the evidence. Or as Danny Dorling puts it in a Compass article - 'Do 3 points make a trend?'.
It is worth reading the whole Dorling article, but some highlights include:
- Newspaper articles have to have short, snappy titles. Like this Guardian one: "Social mobility on the rise at last, says report" Where as the following is a bit too long: "Social mobility possibly on the rise at last, suggests a graph on page 36 of a report which included only three data points and measured something that may not be strictly comparable".
- Had the conservatives won the 1997, 2001 or 2005 elections I am convinced the situation would be worse now than it is. But it could be so much better. It is much better in most other affluent countries. But it will not get better if we delude ourselves by looking at just three dots on a graph.
Our, not unique, view was that President-elect Obama needed to take care to manage expectation when inequality and social mobility changes are slow and difficult to achieve and even evaluate.
your comments
mdrvsv
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Reply #3 on : Sat September 10, 2011, 10:25:56
ddyiwzuwp
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Reply #2 on : Fri September 09, 2011, 12:54:20
Janesa
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Reply #1 on : Thu September 08, 2011, 09:34:23
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