Report

Things worth knowing

This report from UK think tank the Social Market Foundation looks at the role of assumed knowledge in youth transitions from education to employment.

This report examines how access to ‘assumed knowledge’ – certain unspoken, untaught information that helps them ‘get ahead’ – varies among young people based on socioeconomic background, and the way it hinders social mobility. Despite decades of effort to close education and employment gaps across socioeconomic backgrounds, these disparities persist.

Research suggests the issue lies not only in academic abilities but also in access to “assumed knowledge” – unspoken, untaught knowledge crucial for successfully transitioning into adulthood. Assumed knowledge, categorized into six areas (education system, career planning, job applications, work culture, high culture, and confidence), was identified through interviews with 150 young people aged 20-29. In the next stage of the report, a survey of about 1,000 young people aged 15-21 the level of awareness was gauged and responses broken down by socio-economic factors to explore gaps.

Our recommendations are aimed at increasing the level of assumed knowledge, especially among those from less affluent backgrounds, and making the system less disadvantageous for those who lack it. They include: two weeks’ worth of work experience for all young people; embedding assumed knowledge into the curriculum, for example by using data on average salaries in maths classes; a more proactive role for the National Careers Service with ‘career check-ins’ starting once young people have left compulsory education, and then at four-year intervals; adding careers provision to key criteria on which schools are graded in Ofsted inspections; universities to structure degrees more flexibly, inspired by US-style ‘minor’ and ‘major’ system, to allow young people to make more informed educational choices at a later stage in their lives than in the current system.