The Decline and Persistence of the Old Boy: Private Schools and Elite Recruitment 1897 to 2016

Reeves, Aaron

doi:10.31235/osf.io/y54cd

Cited by 28 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…In Britain, although they only educate a small proportion of the pupil population at any one time, their influence is extensive; there is a disproportionate representation of privately educated people among judges and other high-status professional occupations, in top political and cultural positions, and in high-paying jobs (e.g. Green, Machin, Murphy, & Zhu, 2011;Kirby, 2016;Reeves, Friedman, Rahal, & Flemmen, 2017). While some studies have explored these economic and social advantages associated with private schooling through social capital and social closure (for example Coleman, 2000), an important focus in recent literature on British private schools has been the human capital argument.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Private schooling, subject choice, upper secondary attainment and progression to university

Henderson¹,

Anders²,

Green³

et al. 2019

Oxford Review of Education

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With approximately three times the resources per pupil in private compared with state schools, Britain's private sector presents an interesting case of what could be expected from schools that are extremely well resourced. This paper studies the links between private schooling and educational performance in upper secondary school, as measured through their performance in 'A level', the main school-leaving assessment which determines access to universities. Using an English longitudinal study, we find evidence that, compared with otherwise observably similar state school students in upper secondary education and controlling for prior attainment, those at private school study more 'facilitating' subjects, which are known to be favoured by high-status universities; they are placed 8 percentage points higher in the A level rankings and 11 percentage points higher in the rankings for 'facilitating' A levels. We find evidence of a private school advantage for participating in undergraduate study, net of socioeconomic status, subjects selected and number of A levels but there is no private school advantage for attending an elite university, controlling for the same characteristics. Taken together with other studies, our findings mean that private schooling in England is associated with cumulative moderate advantages at every stage of education.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Private schooling, subject choice, upper secondary attainment and progression to university

Henderson¹,

Anders²,

Green³

et al. 2019

Oxford Review of Education

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“…Educational systems cross‐nationally may play a crucial role in structuring the distribution of cultural capital (embodied and institutionalized) and determining the convertibility of cultural consumption (Bourdieu ). In the UK, it is not uncommon to find both bankers and journalists, stockbrokers and academics attending the same schools and universities, and even studying the same subjects (Reeves, Friedman, Rahal and Flemmen ). Not only do alumni share similar credentials but the common form of embodied cultural capital acquired during these school years actually expands their career options.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can cultural consumption increase future earnings? Exploring the economic returns to cultural capital

Reeves

Vries

2018

British Journal of Sociology

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Abstract:Cultural consumption is often viewed as a form of embodied cultural capital which can be converted into economic rewards because such practices increase the likelihood of moving into more advantaged social positions. However, quantitative evidence supporting this proposition remains uncertain because it is often unable to rule out alternative explanations. Cultural consumption appears to influence hiring decisions in some elite firms, in both the U.S. and the U.K., but it is unclear whether these processes are applicable to other professional occupations and other labour market processes such as promotions. We examine these processes using data from Understanding Society, an individual-level panel survey conducted in the UK, allowing us to explore whether cultural consumption predicts future earnings, upward social mobility, and promotions. People who consume a larger number of cultural activities are more likely to earn higher wages in the future, to be upwardly socially mobile, and to be promoted. Cultural consumption, then, can function as cultural capital in some labour market settings, potentially contributing to the reproduction of income inequality between generations.* Replication materials are available here: https://github.com/asreeves/culture-income † Aaron Reeves and Rob de Vries are joint lead authors of this article, and both contributed equally. 1 ICultural consumption is correlated with social position (Bennett et al. 2009;Chan 2010). Across high-income countries, people who are highly educated, have higher incomes, and work in prestigious occupations are, on average, more avid cultural consumers than people in less advantaged social positions (Chan 2013;Jaeger and Katz-Gerro 2010;Peterson and Kern 1996).One common explanation for this homology between cultural consumption and social position presumes there are economic returns to participating in cultural activities (Bills 2003). Or, to be more concrete, consuming certain cultural products may increase the likelihood of moving into advantaged social positions and thereby increasing future earnings (Bourdieu 1984;Rivera 2011). Economic returns to cultural consumption may arise because these practices smooth access to advantaged social positions in situations where gatekeepers prefer people who are already similar to themselves (Tilly and Tilly 1998), allowing evaluators to recognise a candidate as 'one of us' . Likewise, gatekeepers may treat cultural consumption as a signal of other desirable traits that are valuable to firms, such as intellectual curiosity or creativity (Ridgeway and Fiske 2012). In these circumstances, as Bourdieu (1984) argued, cultural consumption becomes a particular manifestation of 'embodied cultural capital' . 1 Cultural dispositions along with the symbolic mastery of certain cultural forms generate patterns of cultural consumption and these practices, in turn, enable some (rather than others) to secure certain social and financial rewards (Bourdieu 1986). It is precisely the 'convertibility' 2 of cultural consu...

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“…This can lead distributional institutional analysis with classical questions in the sociology of stratification. For example, questions on where functionaries come from dovetail nicely with the renascent study of elites in sociology (Khan 2010;Rahman Khan 2012;Reeves et al 2017;Rivera 2015Rivera , 2012, in particular those considering the educational and career pipelines of functionaries-both how certain people get these positions, but also what sort of contributory knowledge they acquire along the way. Although presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs are functionaries that easily come to mind-and of primary concern for power-structure researchers-they are not always the most consequential.…”

Section: A Distributional Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Functionaries: Institutional Theory without Institutions

Stoltz¹,

Taylor²,

Ližardo³

2019

Preprint

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In conceptualizing institutions, theorists tend to resort to conceptual metaphors of ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴᴇʀs or sᴜʙsᴛᴀɴᴄᴇs. We argue these construals are responsible for difficulties analysts encounter in conceptualizing the sources and mechanisms behind institutional change. We propose ᴅɪsᴛʀɪʙᴜᴛɪᴏɴ as a more effective foundational metaphor for institutional analysis. From this perspective, institutions are conceived as non-random dispersals of activity and knowledge across people and not as containers encasing persons or substances endowed with an essence. Most of a population may know how to take interactional advantage of an institution but few know how to keep institutions going and are therefore usually powerless to change them. This means those who do have the requisite operational knowledge and engage in the required upkeep activities, whom we refer to as “functionaries,” play pivotal roles in institutional change and reproduction. We revise theories of institutional entrepreneurship around the role of functionaries, and distinguish between two ideal types of institutional change.

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The Decline and Persistence of the Old Boy: Private Schools and Elite Recruitment 1897 to 2016

Cited by 28 publications

References 31 publications

Private schooling, subject choice, upper secondary attainment and progression to university

Private schooling, subject choice, upper secondary attainment and progression to university

Can cultural consumption increase future earnings? Exploring the economic returns to cultural capital

Functionaries: Institutional Theory without Institutions

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