Culture and Privilege

Thinking Allowed

BBC

Society & Culture, Science

4.4 • 997 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Governments and arts organisations claim that culture brings joy to many lives and unites communities. But a recent study signals a note of scepticism. Orian Brook, AHRC Creative and Digital Economy Innovation Leadership Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, talks to Laurie Taylor about the mechanism of exclusion in cultural occupations which ensures that women, people of colour, and those from working class backgrounds experience systematic disadvantage in terms of gaining such jobs, in the first place, or progressing within these industries. In addition, only a very small percentage of people in England & Wales ever go to an art gallery, the theatre or opera. Only 60% go to cinemas, even though this is seen as accessible to all. So why do so few people participate in or produce 'culture'?

They’re joined by Dave O’Brien, Chancellor's Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh, who asks why people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class. Drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, he finds that such misidentification allows them to tell an upward story of career success ‘against the odds’ that casts their progression as well deserved while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their lives. Revised repeat.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Transcript

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0:00.0	Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of
0:07.0	Happiness Podcast.
0:08.0	For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want
0:14.4	to share that science with you.
0:16.1	And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.
0:19.4	I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that
0:25.4	calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:36.7	This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC,
0:39.9	and for more details and much, much more
0:42.4	about thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co.uk.
0:47.0	UK.
0:48.0	You know after all this I'm going to need a stiff dose of culture.
0:57.0	That, that as I remember was my fervent intention after I had sat through yet another long evening of
1:08.3	lockdown television, spent hours gazing at films that I'd already seen twice and didn't like much in the first place,
1:16.0	watching 20-year-old sitcoms that I'd originally avoided like the plague,
1:21.2	and spent what seemed the whole weeks nodding off before game shows in
1:26.4	which the answers were as predictable as the chairperson's contrived enthusiasm.
1:31.2	And of course that stiff dose of culture that I crave, that that
1:36.1	main line injection meant going out. Going out to an art gallery, a theater, an opera
1:41.4	house, a concert hall, a proper grown-up cinema. It meant booking seats, reading
1:46.0	reviews, proffering membership cards, and even initiating critical discussions over a late night dinner. Now a new book with the intriguing title
	...

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