PATHWAYS INTO A SCIENTIFIC ELITE: THE SOCIAL ORIGINS, SCHOOLING AND UNIVERSITIES OF FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY BORN FROM 1900

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.

Sleepwalking, Class Mobility, and the Search for the Social Origins of Populism in Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly

This paper argues that Brown's sleepwalkers in Edgar Huntly offer us an early figuration for the problems inherent in the phenomenon we now refer to as “populism.” Both populism and sleepwalking function through paradoxical and incongruent forms of expression that appear incoherent. The most prominent explanations that account for this paradoxical form of expression rely on an analysis of the breakdown of discourse. However, this paper argues that the incongruous form of expression is rooted in the reconfiguration of the social arrangements that enable Clithero and Edgar to advance socially but also places them in proximity to social crises. The contradictions of this position of social mobility are the source of the contradictions of the expression of sleepwalking. In depicting a world that makes social identity precarious, Brown offers us an explanation for how such paradoxical modes of expression are rooted in unstable resolutions of post-revolutionary society.

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

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.

The Coronavirus Crisis and Migration: The Pan-Syndemic and Its Impact on Migrants

he coronavirus crisis exposed and exacerbated inequalities that already existed. Simultaneously, it has transformed inequalities, changing old ones, generating new ones, intertwining the old and the new. A test of these processes, in particular, of the differentiated impact of the health crisis, may be observed in migration. After examining the ecological-social origins of the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 related racial health inequalities, the article analyzes the consequences of the pandemic on the health and working conditions of immigrant workers, asylum seekers, emigrants in travel. It highlights the syndemic situation affecting them.

What’s Worth Knowing? Research and Instructional Impacts of Books on Working-Class Academics

What are the research impacts and instructional impacts of books of essays on the perspectives of faculty from working-class backgrounds? To what extent are these books used in undergraduate or graduate courses? Previous research on the content of these edited volumes has been limited to manual constant comparative analyses that described book content. This study employed data analysis methods in the emerging field of altmetric sciences to investigate the impacts of books of personal essays about faculty from working-class backgrounds (N=11). Book-level and chapter-level analyses were conducted to measure research impact using the Altmetric Explorer online tool and instructional impact using the Open Syllabus Project Explorer online tool. Data analysis results on research impacts for books on working-class academics produced extremely low impact levels. Few books (N=4) generated patterns of attention and these patterns were limited in scope. Data analysis results on instructional impacts identified that each of the 11 books generated a Teaching Score, but all scores were minimal and indicated low impact levels. The results suggest that scholarship on faculty from working-class social origins is not being widely included in undergraduate or graduate course syllabi. Further, a large proportion of the book-level scholarship in the subject area of ‘faculty diversity’ has been limited to the constructs of race and gender. Issues involving faculty social origins have been largely omitted from curricula in this area and raises the important question: What is worth knowing?

The elephant in the dark: the social origins of research in nonprofit financial management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to map the most influential literature in nonprofit finance and financial management. The second is to understand why the literature has evolved the way it has, including isolated silos developing in certain disciplines.Design/methodology/approachThe review includes articles assembled from three sources: a core list, an expert list and journal archive searches on phrases that emerged. Using social origins theory as a guide, we coded 119 articles for traits such as root discipline, methodology and author characteristics.FindingsResearch tends to stay confined within the doctoral discipline of the author, who publishes in journals valued by their discipline. This has caused limited cross-referencing across disciplines, and it has allowed different understandings and judgments of the same phenomenon to exist in different fields. Data availability drives much of the research agenda, but author teams of mixed disciplines are promising.Originality/valueUnlike a traditional literature review, this study identifies factors that have had a formative influence on the development of the diverse field of nonprofit finance and financial management. This diversity has resulted in a fractured field held in silos with few indigenous developments. Using social origins theory as a guide, this study provides an overview of the most consequential literature through the analysis of authors and institutional characteristics. This approach provides an evolutionary perspective and illustrates how this disciplinary adherence has created a research topography that limits progress for both scholars and practitioners.