Gideon Calder is Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences and Social Policy at Swansea University. The author or editor of eight books, he is co-editor of the journal Ethics and Social Welfare, and of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children.

Most people agree that every child deserves an equal chance to flourish. Most also value family life. Yet the family plays a surprisingly crucial part in maintaining inequality from one generation to the next. The children of disadvantaged parents typically achieve less and die younger. Early in their school careers, even the most able among them fall behind their better-off peers. They are then 8 times less likely to attend a top university. In the UK, as in other rich countries, the 'playing-field' is anything but level.
This book explores how seemingly mundane aspects of family life - from the right to inherit income, to the reading of bedtime stories - raise fundamental questions of social justice. Taking fairness seriously, it argues, means rethinking what equality of opportunity means.

Introduction
The family and social justice
Social mobility and class fate
Unpacking equality of opportunity
Towards real equality of life chances?
Seven conclusions