The British Elite

Thinking Allowed

BBC

Science, Society & Culture

4.4 • 973 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do today's power brokers correspond to the familiar caricatures of old? Laurie Taylor talks to Aaron Reeves, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford, who has delved into the profiles and careers of over 125,000 members of the British elite from the late 1890s to today, as well as interviewing over 200 leading figures from diverse backgrounds. Were they born to rule, travelling from Eton to Oxbridge? Do they espouse different values from their earlier variants? And are those born into the top 1% just as likely to get into the elite today as they were 125 years ago? Also, Rachel Louise Stenhouse, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education at Manchester Metropolitan University looks at private school entry to Oxbridge. By examining a bespoke intervention in a private school in England, she sheds new light on how students are advantaged when applying to elite universities, finding that applicants need to demonstrate that ‘they can think’ and ‘perform’ under pressure. But is an ease of performance evidence of knowledge and skills or, more often, of educational privilege?

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
0:05.0	My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC.
0:08.0	It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, moments and movements,
0:14.7	stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
0:19.1	And the BBC's position at the heart of British music means we can tell those stories like no one else.
0:24.6	We were, are and always will be right there at the center of the narrative.
0:28.6	So whether you want an insightful take on music right now or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and
0:34.4	infamous moments in music check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds.
0:38.6	BBC Sounds music radio podcasts.
0:44.0	This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC and for more details and much, much more about
0:49.8	thinking aloud go to our website at BBC.co. UK.
0:54.3	Hello, a very fine new book on the British elite
0:58.7	reminds me of an incident from the time when I was the junior
1:01.7	sociology lecturer at the University of York
1:04.2	and was enjoying a drink with a group of students in a local pub.
1:07.3	Now as is common in those days the conversation soon turned into a discussion of social
1:12.1	class and it was at this point that Barbara, one of the
1:14.9	young women in the group, began to lament what she called the shocking persistence of class
1:19.6	inequality. Well this was too much for Paul, the only genuinely working-class member of the group.
1:25.8	Barbara, you've given yourself away exploded.
1:29.2	How do you mean, Paul?
1:31.2	It's class inequality, not class inequality.
	...

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