Education, Social Status and Health (review)

Education, Social Status and Health provides an informative look at how social status influences health in the United States today. It also weaves together much of John Mirowsky and Catherine Ross's research on this topic. They promote and test a theory of "education as learned effectiveness," which is based on a human capital perspective of education. According to this theory, education shapes health by influencing individuals' accumulated knowledge, skills, resources, and habits. Mirowsky and Ross therefore contend that education is the key variable that shapes adults' social status and in turn health. Throughout the book, the authors support their hypothesis by weaving together reviews of prior research and analysis of two data sources: (1) The 1995 and 1998 waves of the Aging, Status, and Sense of Control survey (ASOC), a nationally representative probability sample of U.S. households, and (2) The Community, Crime and Health study (CCH), which is representative of 1995 Illinois households. Results that range from descriptive statistics and estimates of bivariate relationships to findings from multivariate and multi-level models are presented using figures and graphs. Education, Social Status and Health begins with an introduction that provides a history of how social scientists became interested in relationships between social status and health. The introduction also previews each of the book's eight chapters. The next two chapters familiarize readers with many of the book's primary concepts. The authors discuss the theory of education as learned effectiveness, relationships between education and social status, definitions and measures of health, and relationships between education and health. Chapters 3 through 5 present evidence that education influences health by shaping personal control; a healthy lifestyle; income and economic deprivation; employment, occupation, and the type of work that individuals do; interpersonal relationships; and social support. In Chapter 6, Mirowsky and Ross demonstrate the accumulating and amplifying effects of education over the life course. The book ends with a discussion of alternative theories about the ways that education influences people's lives and a conclusion that summarizes the book's main points.

The book is an excellent overview of ways that education, social status and health may be linked, since Mirowsky and Ross provide one of the best theoretical frameworks and path models to date outlining likely associations. Their historical account, summaries of prior research, and statistical analyses will be useful for researchers studying relationships between education and health, those who are new to the field, and those looking for a general overview of this topic. The book is also clearly written and easy to read, which makes it accessible to many different audiences including the general public, advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and established scholars.

There are a few aspects of the book that may bother some readers. For instance, the authors draw on research from many fields, but do not reference important work on associations between education and health conducted by health economists such as Michael Grossman. Some readers may also wish that they could see tables presenting estimated effects of all variables in multivariate models, not simply figures and graphs. In addition, there are places in the book where the authors draw conclusions that seem to stretch beyond the evidence provided by prior research and data analysis.

One of the most perplexing aspects of the book is the authors' inclusion of a chapter on alternative perspectives of education. It seems out of place and does not bolster the arguments that the authors make in previous chapters through reviews of prior research and statistical analyses. In addition, Mirowsky and Ross seem to oversimplify different perspectives on education, do not acknowledge that these theories may not be mutually exclusive or in direct conflict with a theory of education as learned effectiveness, and ignore some basic issues on which education researchers focus. For instance, schools do track students based on ability as claimed by the authors on pages 176-177, but parents (especially well-educated parents) play a pivotal role in the process. Therefore, it is possible...