Department of Sociology, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5000 LE, Tilburg, the Netherlands.
Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ, United Kingdom.
Soc Sci Med. 2010 Jul;71(2):288-297. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.04.004. Epub 2010 Apr 24.
This paper investigates whether education buffers the impact of physical disability on psychological distress. It further investigates what makes education helpful, by examining whether cognitive ability and occupational class can explain the buffering effect of education. Two waves of the 1958 British National Child Development Study are used to test the hypothesis that the onset of a physical disability in early adulthood (age 23 to 33) has a smaller effect on psychological distress among higher educated people. In total 423 respondents (4.6%) experienced the onset of a physical disability between the ages of 23 and 33. We find that a higher educational level cushions the psychology impact of disability. Cognitive ability and occupational class protect against the effect of a disability too. The education buffer arises in part because individuals with a higher level of education have more cognitive abilities, but the better social position of those with higher levels of education appears to be of greater importance. Implications of these findings for the social gradient in health are discussed.
本文探讨了教育是否能缓冲身体残疾对心理困扰的影响。它进一步探讨了教育的帮助作用，通过检查认知能力和职业阶层是否可以解释教育的缓冲效应。本文使用了 1958 年英国全国儿童发展研究的两个波次来检验假设，即成年早期（23 至 33 岁）身体残疾的发作对受过高等教育的人的心理困扰影响较小。总共有 423 名受访者（4.6%）在 23 至 33 岁之间经历了身体残疾的发作。我们发现，较高的教育水平缓冲了残疾对心理的影响。认知能力和职业阶层也能起到保护作用，防止残疾的影响。这种教育缓冲的出现部分是因为受教育程度较高的人具有更高的认知能力，但受教育程度较高的人所处的较好社会地位似乎更为重要。本文讨论了这些发现对健康方面社会梯度的影响。
