Elite Graduates in France and UK; Surnames and Social Mobility
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2014
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Surnames and social mobility - How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? Laurie Taylor talks to Gregory Clark, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis, about movement up the social ladder over 8 centuries, from medieval England to modern Sweden. Using a unique methodology, Professor Clark tracked family names to assess social mobility across diverse eras and societies. His conclusion is that mobility rates are less than are often estimated and are resistant to social policies. It may take hundreds of years for descendants to move beyond inherited advantages, as well as disadvantages. He's joined by Andrew Miles, Reader in Sociology at the CRESC, University of Manchester and author of the only systematic study of historical social mobility in the UK.
Also, elite graduates and global ambition. Sally Power, Professorial Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, talks about a comparative study which finds that British students from top universities seek worldwide opportunities, whereas their French counterparts wish to 'serve' France. In theory, globalization has dissolved national borders and loyalties, so why do elite students from France and England have such strikingly different visions of their future?
Producer: Torquil Macleod.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, |
| 0:06.0 | the Science of 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 | This is a Thinking Loud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and |
| 0:37.0 | much, much more about thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co. UK. |
| 0:44.0 | Graduation day music. You know I can recall a high-level university meeting I suppose it was |
| 0:54.4 | sometime probably in the mid-80s at which the topic for discussion was what to do |
| 0:58.7 | about graduation day. You see what prompted the meeting was the recognition that the days of the late 60s and early 70s |
| 1:05.9 | when a significant proportion of graduates declined the opportunity to dress up in robes and bow to the |
| 1:11.6 | Chancellor and receive their mock parchment certificate had long since |
| 1:15.8 | departed in this new era, graduating students even in social science seemed not only to relish |
| 1:21.5 | ceremonial trappings, but to display an appetite for even more ritual. |
| 1:26.0 | And it was this which prompted one junior lecturer at the meeting to blurt out the memorable suggestion. |
| 1:31.0 | Vice-Vice Chancellor, couldn't we lobby in a bit of Latin? |
| 1:35.0 | But of course, another ritual feature of such occasions is the Chancellor's address in which year after year he usually |
| 1:45.6 | a he or most inevitably a he sonorously tells graduates that this is the moment when they step out into |
| 1:50.9 | the real world a real world in which they should seek to exemplify and |
| 1:55.2 | live by the values and fulfil the aspirations they have acquired during their three years of study |
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