scholarly journals THE SOCIAL ORIGINS AND SCHOOLING OF A SCIENTIFIC ELITE: FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY BORN FROM 1900

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erzsebet Bukodi ◽  
John H Goldthorpe ◽  
Inga Steinberg

We present an analysis of the social composition of the UK scientific elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, in terms of Fellows’ social class origins and type of secondary education. From various sources, we have assembled data for 1691 Fellows, representing 80% of our target population of all Fellows born from 1900 onwards whose scientific careers were spent predominantly in the UK. We find that while these elite scientists come largely from more advantaged class backgrounds, it is professional rather than business or managerial families that are the main source of their recruitment – and, increasingly, such families where a parent is in a STEM occupation. Recruitment from working-class families has declined and for most recent birth cohorts almost ceased. The scientific elite is thus now more homogenous as regards the social origins of its members than it was in the second half of the twentieth century. At the same time, little change is evident in the secondary schooling of Fellows. In all birth cohorts, between two-fifths and a half of all – and over two-thirds of those from more advantaged class backgrounds – were privately educated, although the proportion attending Clarendon schools would seem low compared with that in other elites. A further finding is that both class origins and type of schooling are associated the relative probabilities of Fellows working in different research fields.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erzsebet Bukodi ◽  
John H Goldthorpe ◽  
Inga Steinberg

We report on continuing research on the British scientific elite, intended to illustrate a proposed new approach to elite studies, and based on prosopographical data on Fellows of the Royal Society born from 1900. We extend analyses previously reported of Fellows’ social origins and secondary schooling so as to take their university careers into account. The composite term ‘Oxbridge’ is called into question, as Cambridge appears historically to have been far more productive of members of the scientific elite than Oxford. However, Fellows from more advantaged class backgrounds do have a clearly higher probability than others of having attended Cambridge, Oxford or London, rather than universities outside of ‘the golden triangle’ – an outcome only partially mediated through private schooling. The ‘long arm’ of family of origin is thus apparent, although private schooling has been more important in helping Fellows from managerial rather than from professional families to gain entry to an elite university. Family influences on Fellows’ fields of research also remain, even though a further major factor is the universities they attended. A ‘royal road’ into the scientific elite, which Fellows from higher professional and managerial families have the highest probability of having followed, can be identified: that leading from private schooling to both undergraduate and postgraduate study at Cambridge. But the most common pathway, taken by 20% of all Fellows, is that leading from state schooling to undergraduate and graduate study at universities outside of the golden triangle. Fellows from higher professional, but not managerial, families show a distinctively high probability of having avoided this pathway; but it is that most common for Fellows of all less advantaged class origins. The case of the British scientific elite would suggest that detailed and disaggregated analyses of processes of elite formation can show these to be much more diverse than has often been supposed.


1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estella Tincknell

The extensive commercial success of two well-made popular television drama serials screened in the UK at prime time on Sunday evenings during the winter of 2011–12, Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–) and Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012–), has appeared to consolidate the recent resurgence of the period drama during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as reassembling something like a mass audience for woman-centred realist narratives at a time when the fracturing and disassembling of such audiences seemed axiomatic. While ostensibly different in content, style and focus, the two programmes share a number of distinctive features, including a range of mature female characters who are sufficiently well drawn and socially diverse as to offer a profoundly pleasurable experience for the female viewer seeking representations of aging femininity that go beyond the sexualised body of the ‘successful ager’. Equally importantly, these two programmes present compelling examples of the ‘conjunctural text’, which appears at a moment of intense political polarisation, marking struggles over consent to a contemporary political position by re-presenting the past. Because both programmes foreground older women as crucial figures in their respective communities, but offer very different versions of the social role and ideological positioning that this entails, the underlying politics of such nostalgia becomes apparent. A critical analysis of these two versions of Britain's past thus highlights the ideological investments involved in period drama and the extent to which this ‘cosy’ genre may legitimate or challenge contemporary political claims.


1977 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Galliher ◽  
Allynn Walker
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (9) ◽  
pp. 42-47
Author(s):  
E. A. Frolova

The article presents the linguostylistic analysis of the story «Sluchai na stantsii Kochetovka» by A.I. Solzhenitsyn. Its aim is to show how the true-believing man can commit double homicide – bodily and moral. The author analyses the reasons of the character’s moral lapse possibility, defend language means that can discover the social origins of crashing human in a person.


Author(s):  
Elisabeth Schimpfössl

The opening chapter explores the paradox of a Russian bourgeoisie emerging out of the Soviet elite. It deals with the ways in which these individuals navigated the years of post-Soviet social transformation. Many of the characters in this book were born into socially privileged, highly educated, nonmoneyed Soviet elite. Some used their science vocations and leadership positions in the Komsomol to launch their business careers, exploiting their insider status to gain access to the corridors of power and to foreign-currency bank accounts. While it did help in the climate of the 1990s to be aggressive, wily, and not overly principled, it was more important to have privileged social origins. The new rich used the social assets they had to hand, were quick to recognize which parts of their expertise and skill sets were of no further value in the turmoil, and realigned their resources accordingly.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092199450
Author(s):  
Nicola Maggini ◽  
Tom Montgomery ◽  
Simone Baglioni

Against the background of crisis and cuts, citizens can express solidarity with groups in various ways. Using novel survey data this article explores the attitudes and behaviours of citizens in their expressions of solidarity with disabled people and in doing so illuminates the differences and similarities across two European contexts: Italy and the UK. The findings reveal pools of solidarity with disabled people across both countries that have on the one hand similar foundations such as the social embeddedness and social trust of citizens, while on the other hand contain some differences, such as the more direct and active nature of solidarity in Italy compared to the UK and the role of religiosity as an important determinant, particularly in Italy. Across both countries the role of ‘deservingness’ was key to understanding solidarity, and the study’s conclusions raise questions about a solidarity embedded by a degree of paternalism and even religious piety.


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