‘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

Understanding social exclusion in elite professional service firms: field level dynamics and the 'professional project

This article explores social exclusion in elite professional service firms (PSFs) through a qualitative study of six legal, accounting, investment banking and consulting firms. Employing a Bourdieusian perspective we find that all six firms privilege candidates with the same narrow forms of cultural capital, while acknowledging that this contradicts their professed commitment to social inclusion and recruiting the best ‘talent’. We find that this behaviour is enshrined within the habitus of elite firms. We argue that it represents an organizational strategy generated by a compulsion to achieve legitimacy in a specific field of London-based elite PSFs. We identify a ‘professional project’ of sorts, but argue that this can no longer be mapped on to the interests of a discrete occupational group. As such, we contribute to studies of elite reproduction and social stratification by focusing specifically on the role of elite professional organizations in the reproduction of inequality

Problematising social mobility in relation to Higher Education policy

This paper problematises the concept of social mobility through an exploration of it in relation to Higher Education policy in England. Based upon a content analysis of a number of key policy documents from distinct eras, it identifies definitions and understandings of social mobility within them, exploring how such references have changed over time, and critiquing the differences between the imagined ideals of what policy rhetoric seeks to do and the reality of policy implementation. In particular, it considers the characterisation of social mobility as an individualised concern; it positions aspirations of improving social mobility within the market of Higher Education; and it ultimately asks whether Higher Education can solve the government's social mobility problem

What Would a Society Look Like Where Children’s Life Chances Were Really Fair?

A critical analysis of the prominence and significance of the term 'fair life chances' in recent UK policy, focusing on problems of definition and measurement, and proposing a plural measure. The article highlights three policy areas an appropriate commitment to tackling which is necessary (though not sufficient) for the promotion genuinely fair life chances for children: poverty, childcare, and the configuration of opportunities. The overall argument of the article is that a commitment to making life chances fairer requires a considerably more substantial change of policy direction than the term’s recent handling in political discourse would imply

Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak: Nacionalizam i imaginacija i drugi eseji

This paper contributes to the empirical evidence on participation and attainment in higher education by reviewing the patterns of entry and success of undergraduate students. It examines the characteristics of entrants to different subjects and considers the role that subject studied plays in determining the likelihood of graduating with a ‘good’ degree. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one ‘elite’ British university. Despite considerable between-subject variation in degree outcomes, multivariate analysis of the relationship between students’ social and academic characteristics and achievement at university revealed that once social background and prior attainment had been controlled for, the subject students studied added little explanatory power to models predicting final degree classifications. Differences in degree outcome were most strongly related to attainment on entry to higher education, sex and ethnicity. In contrast with attainment during the earlier phases of education, the relationship with occupational class was relatively weak. Disparities between the proportion of higher level classifications awarded in different subjects can be largely explained by the background characteristics of the students who choose (and are accepted) to study on these degrees. This finding has particular implications for policies aimed at increasing both the number and quality of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates in what is often argued to be a ‘shortage’ or ‘priority’ area

Does student loan debt deter higher education participation? New evidence from England

Research among prospective UK undergraduates in 2002 found that some students, especially from low social classes, were deterred from applying to university because of fear of debt. This paper investigates whether this is still the case today in England despite the changing higher education landscape since 2002. The paper describes findings from a 2015 survey of prospective undergraduates and compares them with those from the 2002 study. We find that students’ attitudes to taking on student loan debt are more favorable in 2015 than in 2002. Debt averse attitudes remain much stronger among lower-class students than among upper-class students, and more so than in 2002. However, lower-class students did not have stronger debt averse attitudes than middle-class students. Debt averse attitudes seem more likely to deter planned higher education participation among lower-class students in 2015 than in 2002

Social class origin and assortative mating in Britain, 1949-2010

This article examines trends in assortative mating in Britain over the last 60 years. Assortative mating is the tendency for like to form a conjugal partnership with like. Our focus is on the association between the social class origins of the partners. The propensity towards assortative mating is taken as an index of the openness of society which we regard as a macro level aspect of social inequality. There is some evidence that the propensity for partners to come from similar class backgrounds declined during the 1960s. Thereafter, there was a period of 40 years of remarkable stability during which the propensity towards assortative mating fluctuated trendlessly within quite narrow limits. This picture of stability over time in social openness parallels the well-established facts about intergenerational social class mobility in Britain

The socioecology of social class

Despite the increasing attention paid by psychologists to social class, we argue here that insufficient attention has been paid to the ways, in which socio-ecological factors shape both which dimensions of social class are used by individuals to compare themselves with others, and the outcomes of these comparisons. We illustrate our argument by reviewing recent research on the ways in which different facets of socioeconomic status shape social and political attitudes, and on the ways in which inequalities in educational outcomes stem from comparisons made in specific social contexts. We conclude that by studying the psychological impact of social class differences through the lens of a socio-ecological approach, it becomes more evident that this impact varies as a function of both the dimension of social class involved, and local social ecologies