This report from the Social Market Foundation found that the forms of knowledge that boost education and employment success. They found that access to ‘assumed knowledge’ - that is, the things that some might assume everyone instinctively knows about ‘how the system works’, is found to be skewed heavily towards young people from more affluent families, and those with parents who have been to university themselves.
The report shows that differing levels of assumed knowledge threatens equality of opportunity because some groups benefit from access to certain information that helps them ‘get ahead’ in education and employment.
Groups with higher assumed knowledge tend to be more affluent, with parents who were graduates, and with valuable social connections.
This helps explain why young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with similar grades at school to their more-privileged peers can end up doing less well in higher education and the job market.
The report gaps in knowledge to inform study choices. Over a third (35%) of young people from less advantaged backgrounds were unable to identify the University of Cambridge as the most prestigious university from a list of institutions. A quarter of all 15-21 year olds surveyed were unable to do the same.