The Mediterranean Jewish Diaspora of Late Antiquity

No known literary sources survive from Jews living in the Mediterranean diaspora from the early fourth to the end of the sixth century. Mining the writings of non-Jews (primarily Christians), late Roman laws, the physical remains of a few synagogues, donor inscriptions, and numerous epitaphs, this chapter sketches aspects of their lives, including geographic distribution, economics, participation in ancient civic life, communal organizations, communication between Jewish populations, and their possible homogeneity or diversity. It also examines the pressures exerted on Jews to convert to Christianity, including the destruction of synagogues and exclusions from public offices and elite professions, and considers both the efficacy of such pressures and possible Jewish responses.

Families

This chapter traces the role of families and life course in determining the unlikely gender outcomes found in large law firms. The advantage of the legal profession is that the career trajectory allows for a more progressive work–family balance. In particular, women in elite law firms typically start their careers in their early twenties and are in a position to become partner in their early thirties — this timeline for promotion allows women to be in positions of power while they negotiate childcare and maternity leave, whereas women in other elite professions tend to be junior colleagues when they make agentic life-course choices and are penalized accordingly. Yet, the fact remains that the structural career trajectory in these law firms was not introduced to make women more competitive candidates for partnership, but instead, emerged as a response to a concentrated, high-growth legal services market. The chapter then highlights the ways in which this unprecedented success for Indian middle-class women in the workforce depends on two existing inequalities in the grander Indian system: a ready, caste-dependent labor force that supplies affordable housework support and childcare; and a penultimate generation of close female family members who are not in the workforce and are available to provide free and ready household support systems.

Sex, Scholarship, and Service

In the global context, women are 49.6% of the total population, and in what history has categorized as the “elite professions,” there is near equal parity between male and female-identifying persons. In American Higher Education, parity has nearly been met with female-identifying academicians comprising of 47% of the professoriate, yet 65% of the senior ranks of the professoriate are still male. Women are less tenured and less promoted than males. Globally, women are less published. In the American academy, women are invited to present less and are recognized less for their accomplishments. While the disparity numbers in research or scholarly productivity have been reported for decades, an examination of the systemic factors contributing to the disparities has not. This chapter seeks to present the overwhelming intersectionality of gender and scholarly productivity in the academy through the lens of intersectionality theory and the implications for a continued need for sweeping reforms in the practices exacerbating the inequity in higher education for women.

The New Muslim Ethical Elite: “Silent Revolution” or the Commodification of Islam?

Very little research has examined the emergence of Western Muslims into the elite professions that are central to the operation of the capitalist free market and that serve as a central location of economic and political power. Less research still has examined how this is shaping citizenship among Muslims and the future of Islam in the West. These professions include finance, trade and auditing and supporting free market infrastructure including commercial law, consulting and the entrepreneurial arms of government public service. Many Muslim men and women in these professions maintain a commitment to their faith and are often at the forefront of identifying opportunities for the application of Islamic principles to the free market through the development of social engineering mechanisms such as Islamic finance and home loans, Islamic wills, marriage contracts, businesses and context-specific solutions for Muslim clients. These may have a potentially profound impact on belonging and practice for current and future generations of Western Muslims. The political and economic clout (and broader potential public appeal) of these new Muslim elites often significantly outweighs that of Imams and Sheikhs and thus challenges traditional textually based Islam. This article, grounded in empirical research, seeks to build upon very limited research looking at Muslim elites, exploring these developments with specific reference to professionals working in Islamic finance and law across the Western contexts of Australia and the United States, two countries with capitalist free markets and significant Muslim minorities.

Methods for the study of accent bias and access to elite professions

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‘Talent-spotting’ or ‘social magic’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal graduate in elite professions

Graduate outcomes – including rates of employment and earnings – are marked by persistent inequalities related to social class, as well as gender, ethnicity and institution. Despite national policy agendas related to social mobility and ‘fair access to the professions’, high-status occupations are disproportionately composed of those from socially privileged backgrounds, and evidence suggests that in recent decades many professions have become less socially representative. This article makes an original contribution to sociological studies of inequalities in graduate transitions and elite reproduction through a distinct focus on the ‘pre-hiring’ practices of graduate employers. It does this through a critical analysis of the graduate recruitment material of two popular graduate employers. It shows how, despite espousing commitments to diversity and inclusion, constructions of the ‘ideal’ graduate privilege individuals who can mobilise and embody certain valued capitals. Using Bourdieusian concepts of ‘social magic’ and ‘institutional habitus’, the article argues that more attention must be paid to how graduate employers’ practices constitute tacit processes of social exclusion and thus militate against the achievement of more equitable graduate outcomes and fair access to the ‘top jobs’.

Building bridges

This article explores how universities and industry can work together to improve access to graduate opportunities for disadvantaged students. Focusing on an initiative which involved students from a ‘post-1992’ UK university experiencing London’s legal sector, the article analyses the factors that contributed to the students’ perceptions of their increased self-efficacy as a result of participating in the event. Using a focus group methodology, the authors critically examine the barriers that can be imposed by students’ socio-economic backgrounds, which may prevent such initiatives from having a meaningful impact on diverse recruitment and fair access to the higher professional occupations. Concentrating on two strands of the Triple Helix model, the authors also make recommendations for building more effective bridges between universities and industry to improve access to the elite professions.