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

‘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

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

‘If parents are punished for asking their children to feed goats’: supervisory neglect in sub-Saharan Africa

Summary: In the United States and the United Kingdom supervisory neglect of children is premised on a construction of childhood which characterises children as essentially vulnerable and in need of constant care and protection by parents. This Western conception has been transmitted to the countries of the sub-Sahara via the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, the socio-economic and cultural context of African countries differs significantly from those of the United Kingdom and the United States. The incorporation of a Western hegemonic idea of childhood into the national laws of African countries creates fundamental contradictions in the application of criteria for adjudging the adequacy of parental supervision in the sub-Sahara. Drawing on secondary data, this article explores these contradictions and proposes alternative considerations in the conceptualisation and assessment of supervisory neglect. Finding: The combined effects on households in the sub-Sahara of economic conditions, ascribed gender roles and the reciprocal duties held by children to assist their families, contest established indicators and thresholds for supervisory neglect. The concept of societal neglect together with the application of the Haddon Matrix provides a more apposite framework for reducing the risk of significant harm to children. Application: All African countries, excepting Somalia, have introduced the Convention on the Rights of the Child through domestic legislation. The findings of this study are pertinent to policy-makers and social workers in the sub-Sahara. They also invite Western scholars to critically engage with dominant notions of supervisory neglect and re-appraise its applicability in cross-national contexts

Advancing an energy justice perspective of fuel poverty: Household vulnerability and domestic retrofit policy in the United Kingdom

The concept of energy justice has brought philosophies of ethics and principles of social justice to bear on a range of contemporary energy issues. More inter-disciplinary and applied endeavours are now needed to take this field forward. One such application is to the issue of fuel poverty and the challenge of retrofitting inefficient housing stock. An energy justice perspective sees fuel poverty as a fundamentally socio-political injustice, not just one of uneven distribution. Starting from this premise, we highlight the multiple injustices faced by two groups who are regarded by policymakers as being particularly vulnerable to fuel poverty: disabled people and low-income families. In the UK, these groups are nominally prioritised within fuel poverty policy, but their complex situations are not always fully appreciated. Building on the theoretical foundations of energy justice, we present an inter-disciplinary dialogue that connects this approach with wider vulnerability research and domestic energy efficiency policy. Specifically, we discuss ‘within group’ heterogeneity (recognition justice), stakeholder engagement in policy and governance (procedural justice) and the overlap of multiple structural inequalities (distributional justice). In each section we illustrate the added value of combining justice and vulnerability conceptualisations by linking them to domestic energy efficiency schemes