Kevin Marjoribanks: A life in education in context

The passing of Emeritus Professor Kevin Majoribanks on the 29 April 2006 occurred at a time of continuing high level scholarly productivity. The present paper celebrates some of the accomplishments from his long career. It takes a developmental orientation, beginning with the early stages of his career in education and his choice of inequalities in educational outcomes as the core long-term focus for his scholarly endeavours. His emphasis was on family and school environments as the origin of inequalities in educational outcomes. His empirical work drew on both the conduct of large-scale longitudinal studies and on the analysis of secondary data. His scholarly achievements are reflected in the formulation of a series of increasingly comprehensive causal models linking environments to educational achievement and occupational attainment. His approach to research and theory construction offers a model for future scholars in educational research. Foremost, his achievements provide a foundation on which those future scholars can build.