Introduction
1. ‘A qualitative evaluation of non-educational barriers to the elite professions’, Social Mobility Commission, 2015. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/434791/A_qualitative_evaluation_of_noneducational_barriers_to_the_elite_professions.pdf
2. These figures include those, like me, who went to Oxbridge for postgraduate studies.
3. Though I am not convinced that access to Oxbridge is a measure by which to judge the progress, or not, that we are making in modern-day Britain.
4. Dr Philip Kirby, ‘Leading People 2016: The educational backgrounds of the UK professional elite’. Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Leading-People_Feb16.pdf
5. The Sutton Trust Cabinet Analysis 2019. Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/research-paper/sutton-trust-cabinet-analysis-2019/
6. But, as Professor John Goldthorpe of Nuffield College, Oxford, found, the increase in opportunities at the top effectively plateaued in the early 1990s, around the time of my arrival in Britain. As a consequence, this has led to more movement downwards, something we seldom acknowledge or discuss.
7. Gregory Clark, The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility, 2014
8. Owen Jones, ‘Social mobility is a dead end’, The Guardian, 2011. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/01/social-mobility-dead-end
9. Chris McAndrew with Ahmed Roble, ‘How I made it from a Brixton comp to Eton’, The Times, 2016. Access at: wwwthetimes.co.uk/article/how-i-made-it-from-a-brixton-comp-to-etonfxrstvd5j
10. ‘Here’s why you didn’t get that job: your name’, World Economic Forum, 2017. Access at: wwwweforum.org/agenda/2017/05/job-applications-resume-cv-name-descrimination/
1 Three Hashis: Origins and Starting Points
1. This chapter needs to be read alongside the map on p. 24.
2. Records from this period are notoriously non-existent, outside the few administrations at the time, but due to my grandfather’s status in the police force, documents do give the exact birth date of my father.
3. Incidentally, our mother, at Shukri’s age, had already given birth to eight children.
4. Afua Hirsch, ‘Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and the myth of royal purity’, The Guardian, 2 November 2016
5. Christopher Wilson, ‘Now that’s upwardly mobile! How in 150 years, Meghan Markle’s family went from cotton slaves to royalty via freedom in the U.S. Civil War… while her dad’s ancestors included a maid at Windsor Castle’, Daily Mail, 2017. Access at: wwwdailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5130473/Meghan-Marklesupwardly-mobile-family.html
6. Ruth Styles, Shekhar Bhatia, ‘Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton: Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed – so will he be dropping by for tea?’, Daily Mail, 2016. Access at: wwwdailymail.co.uk/news/article-3896180/Prince-Harry-s-girlfriend-actress-Meghan-Markles.html
7. Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison, The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged, 2019, p. 57
8. Toby Young, ‘The fall of the meritocracy’, Quadrant, 7 September 2015. Access at: quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/09/fall-meritocracy/
9. Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History, 2017, p. 73
10. Ibid., p. 75
11. Ibid., p. 67
12. Victoria Brignold, ‘The eugenics movement Britain wants to forget’, New Statesman, 2010. Access at: wwwnewstatesman.com/society/2010/12/british-eugenics-disabled
13. Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History, op. cit., p. 23
14. Alison Pilnick, Genetics and Society, 2002, p. 19.
15. Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History, op. cit., p. 67
16. Tanith Carey, ‘Why having FIVE children is suddenly the ultimate middle-class status symbol’, Mail on Sunday, January 2019. Access at: wwwdailymail.co.uk/news/article-6561055/Why-having-FIVE-children-suddenly-ultimate-middle-class-status-symbol.html
17. Ziada Ayorech et al., ‘Genetic Influence on Intergenerational Educational Attainment Psychological Science’ 2017. DOI: 10.1177/0956797617707270
18. M. Ramsay, ‘Genetic reductionism and medical genetic practice’, in A. Clarke, ed., Genetic Counselling: Practice and Principles, 1994, p. 258
19. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., p. 10
20. Ibid., p. 12
21. Social Metrics Commission 2019 Report, 29 July 2019; https://socialmetricscommission.org.uk/new-report-on-poverty-from-independent-commission-highlights-scale-of-challenge-facing-new-prime-minister/
22. Brigid Francis-Devine, Lorna Booth, Feargal McGuinness, ‘Poverty in the UK: statistics’, House of Commons Library, September 2019. Access at: researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN07096#fullreport
23. James J. Heckman, Henry Schultz, ‘Invest in the Very Young’, 2007. Access at: wwwresearchgate.net/publication/255601449_Invest_in_the_Very_Young
24. Michael Marmot, Peter Goldblatt, Jessica Allen , et al., ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives: The Marmot Review’, 2010. Access at: wwwinstituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review/fair-society-healthy-lives-full-report-pdf.pdf
25. Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin, Social Mobility and its Enemies, 2018, p. 157
26. Social Metrics Commission 2019 Report, op. cit.
27. Nissa Finney, Dharmi Kapadia and Simon Peters, ‘How are poverty, ethnicity and social networks related?’, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2015. Access at: wwwjrf.org.uk/report/how-are-poverty-ethnicity-and-social-networks-related
28. John Lanchester, ‘Good New Idea’ London Review of Books, Vol 41, No. 14, 5 November 2019. Access at: wwwlrb.co.uk/v41/n14/john-lanchester/good-new-idea
29. NHS Health Scotland, ‘Tackling the attainment gap by preventing and responding to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)’, 2017. Access at: wwwhealthscotland.scot/media/1517/tackling-the-attainment-gap-by-preventing-and-responding-to-adverse-childhood-experiences.pdf
30. Leon Feinstein, ‘Inequality in the early cognitive development of British children in the 1970 cohort’, 17 November 2003. Access at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468–0335.t01–1-00272
31. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., pp. 15–16
32. ‘Middle-class parents actively foster children’s talents, opinions, and skills: enrolling children in organized activities, reasoning with children (i.e., answering questions with questions), and closely monitoring children’s experiences in institutions such as schools.’ Quote taken from Annette Lareau; see sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/sociology.sas.upenn.edu/files/Lareau_Question&Answers.pdf
33. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit. p. 16
34. Lareau, sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/sociology.sas.upenn.edu/files/Lareau_Question&Answers.pdf
35. Val Gillies, ‘Childrearing, class and the new politics of parenting’, Sociology Compass, vol. 2, no. 3, April 2008
36. Lareau, sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/sociology.sas.upenn.edu/files/Lareau_Question&Answers.pdf
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity, 2018, p. 172
40. Boris Johnson, ‘What Would Maggie do Today?’, speech to the Centre for Policy Studies, November 2013. Full text accessible at: wwwtelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/london-mayor-election/mayor-of-london/10480321/Boris-Johnsons-speech-at-the-Margaret-Thatcher-lecture-in-full.html
41. James Lyons, ‘Boris Johnson: Millions of people too STUPID to get on in life’, The Mirror, November 2013. Access at: wwwmirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boris-johnson-millions-people-stupid-2859024
42. Theresa May, ‘Britain, the great meritocracy: Prime Minister’s speech’, September 2016. Access full text at: wwwgov.uk/government/speeches/britain-the-great-meritocracy-prime-ministers-speech
43. Gordon Brown, ‘We can break the glass ceiling’, The Guardian, 15 January 2010. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/15/aspiration-mobility-middle-class-labour
44. Michael Young, quoted in Appiah, The Lies that Bind, op. cit., p. 171
45. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., p. 34
2 Getting On and Getting Along: Race and Class
1. George Orwell, ‘England Your England’ Access at: orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye
2. Race Disparity Audit: Summary Findings from the Ethnicity Facts and Figures Website, Cabinet Office, 2017, p. 8. It should be noted, however, that this doesn’t mean that the total proportion of white people went down significantly: the combined total of people identifying as ‘White British’ and ‘White Other’ remained stable at around 86 per cent.
3. ‘The perils of perception and the EU’, 9 June 2016. Access at: wwwipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/perils-perception-and-eu
4. Omar Khan and Faiza Shaheen, ed., ‘Minority Report Race and Class in post-Brexit Britain’, Runneymede Trust, p. 22, 2017. Access at: wwwmigrantsrights.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Race-and-Class-Post-Brexit-Perspectives-report-v5-1.pdf
5. Chris Curtis, ‘The demographics dividing Britain’, April 2017. Access at: yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/04/25/demographics-dividing-britain
6. Race Disparity Audit: Summary Findings from the Ethnicity Facts and Figures Website, 2017, p. 9
7. Ibid., p. 8
8. Ibid., p. 10
9. Boston Consulting Group, for The Sutton Trust, The State of Social Mobility in the UK 2017, p. 14
10. Omar Khan and Faiza Shaheen, ed., ‘Minority Report Race and Class in post-Brexit Britain’, Runneymede Trust, p. 22, 2017. Access at: wwwmigrantsrights.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Race-and-Class-Post-Brexit-Perspectives-report-v5-1.pdf
11. Ibid., p. 25
12. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., pp. 42–43
13. Ibid., p. 43
14. Demos, ‘Why are British Indians more successful than Pakistanis?’, 2015. Access at: demos.co.uk/blog/why-are-british-indians-more-successful-than-pakistanis/
15. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., p. 40
16. Figures from a 2011 census: 2.7 million Muslims in England and Wales; 4.8 per cent of population; 33 per cent aged fifteen or under; 68 per cent of Asian descent; 8 per cent are of white ethnicity; 47 per cent born in Britain, 36 per cent in the Middle East and Asia; 6 per cent say they are struggling to speak English; 37 per cent of Muslims live in London; 20 per cent are in full-time employment (compared to 35 per cent of the general population); see wwwbbc.co.uk/news/uk-31435929
17. ‘British Muslims in numbers’, The Muslim Council of Britain, pp. 16–17, 26, 37; www.mcb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MCBCensusReport_2015.pdf –
18. Ibid.
19. Runnymede Trust, Minority Report: Race and Class in Post-Brexit Britain, 2017, p. 6
20. Caitlin Moran, ‘Isis bride Shamima Begum’s image problem’, The Times, 1 March 2019
21. ‘Universal credit: Brown says benefit rollout could lead to “poll-tax-style chaos”’, BBC, October 2018. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45811239
22. More information on the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) at: wwwgov.uk/education-maintenance-allowance-ema
23. Amanda Platell, ‘Can’t you show a scintilla of gratitude, Stormzy?’, Daily Mail, February 2018. Access at: wwwdailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5429041/Platells-People-Stormzy-gratitude.html
24. Dina Nayeri, ‘The Ungrateful Refugee: “We have no debt to repay”’, The Guardian, 2017. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-ungrateful-refugee
25. Nick Bailey, Anna Haworth, Tony Manzi, Primali Paranagamage and Marion Roberts, ‘Creating and sustaining mixed income communities: a good practice guide’, published for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by the Chartered Institute of Housing, 2006. Access at: wwwjrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/9781905018314.pdf
26. Dina Nayeri, ‘The Ungrateful Refugee: “We have no debt to repay”’, The Guardian, 2017. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-ungrateful-refugee
27. Credit Suisse, Global Wealth Report 2018. Access at: wwwcredit-suisse.com/corporate/en/research/research-institute/global-wealth-report.html
28. Afua Hirsch, Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, 2018
29. Ibid., p. 8
3 Painting the Room Blue: Education
1. Richard Adams, ‘One in four teachers “experience violence from pupils every week”’, The Guardian, April 2019. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2019/apr/20/one-in-four-teachers-experience-violence-from-pupils-every-week
2. Tony Blair, speech on education, 2001. Full text available at: wwwtheguardian.com/politics/2001/may/23/labour.tonyblair
3. Social Mobility 2017 Summit Report: The Sutton Trust 20th Anniversary Summit 2017, p. 9
4. Elliot Major and Machin, Social Mobility and its Enemies, op. cit., p. 124
5. Tara Westover, Educated, 2018, p. 377
6. Sally Weale, ‘London state school says 41 students offered Oxbridge place’, The Guardian, January 2019. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2019/jan/15/london-state-school-brampton-manor-41-students-offered-oxbridge-place
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Office for National Statistics, ‘How has the student population changed?’. Access at: wwwons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/howhasthestudentpopulationchanged/2016–09–20
10. Elliot Major and Machin, Social Mobility and its Enemies, op. cit., p. 115
11. Ibid., p. 117
12. Ibid., p. 124
13. Ibid., p. 92
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty in Great Britain, p. 47
17. Ibid., p. 4
18. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., p. 38
19. Sean Clare, ‘London teens sent to Africa to escape knife crime’, BBC, May 2019. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/uk-48353960
20. Robert Joyce, ‘Child poverty in Britain: recent trends and future prospects’, The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), October 2014. Access at: wwwifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/wps/WP201507.pdf
21. Hannah Richardson, ‘Child poverty: Pale and hungry pupils “fill pockets with school food”’, BBC, April 2018. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/education-43611527
22. Elliot Major and Machin, Social Mobility and its Enemies, op. cit., p. 120
23. Natasha Onwuemezi, ‘“Staggering” £25m fall in libraries spending revealed’, The Bookseller, December 2016. Access at: wwwthebookseller.com/news/cipfa-library-figures-446101
24. Boston Consulting Group, for The Sutton Trust, The State of Social Mobility in the UK 2017, p. 13
25. Some efforts have been made, like extending school hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, but of course this is always subject to the available resources.
26. Julie Henry, Social Mobility 2017 Summit Report: The Sutton Trust 20th Anniversary Summit, July 2017, p. 14
27. Boston Consulting Group, for The Sutton Trust, The State of Social Mobility in the UK 2017, p. 15
28. Donald Hirsch, Experiences of Poverty and Educational Disadvantage, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2007
29. Ibid.
30. Val Gillies, ‘Raising the “Meritocracy”: Parenting and the Individualization of Social Class’, Sage Publications on behalf of the British Sociological Association, 2005. Access at: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038505058368
31. Hirsch, Experiences of Poverty and Educational Disadvantage, op. cit., p. 5
32. Ibid., p. 4
33. Tammy Campbell, ‘Stereotyped at seven? Biases in teacher judgement of pupils’ ability and attainment’, Journal of Social Policy, 2015. Access at: discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1474027/1/Campbell%202015%20-%20Stereotyped%20at%20Seven%20-%20 accepted%20manuscript.pdf See also Experiences of Poverty and Educational Disadvantage, Op. Cit. p5.
34. Val Gillies, ‘Raising the “Meritocracy”: Parenting and the Individualization of Social Class’, Sage Publications on behalf of the British Sociological Association, 2005. Access at: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038505058368
35. Department for Education, ‘Permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England: 2008 to 2009’. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/218896/sfr22–2010.pdf
36. ‘“They Go the Extra Mile”: Reducing inequality in school exclusions’, Office of the Children’s Commissioner, March 2013. Access at: wwwchildrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/They_Go_The_Extra_Mile-.pdf
37. ‘Permanent and Fixed Period Exclusions in England: 2016 to 2017’, Department for Education, July 2018. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/726741/text_exc1617.pdf
38. Whitney Crenna-Jennings, ‘A black Caribbean FSM boy with SEND is 168 times more likely to be permanently excluded than a white British girl without SEND. Why?’, Times Education Supplement, December 2017. Access at: wwwtes.com/news/black-caribbean-fsm-boy-send-168-times-more-likely-be-permanently-excluded-white-british-girl
39. Julia Belgutay, ‘Former Met chief: exclusions contributing to rise in knife crime’, Times Education Supplement, March 2019. Access at: wwwtes.com/news/former-met-chief-exclusions-contributing-rise-knife-crime
40. Office of the Children’s Commissioner, ‘Keeping kids safe: Improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation’, February 2019. Access at: cscp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Childrens-Commissioner-Report-Keeping-kids-safe-gang-violence-and-CCE.pdf
41. Independent Schools Council research. Access at: wwwisc.co.uk/research/
42. Dr Philip Kirby, ‘Leading People 2016: The educational backgrounds of the UK professional elite’. Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Leading-People_Feb16.pdf
43. Rebecca Montacute, Tim Carr, ‘Parliamentary Privilege – The MPs 2017’, The Sutton Trust, 2017, Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/research-paper/parliamentary-privilege-the-mps-2017-education-background/
44. The Sutton Trust, ‘Almost Two-Thirds of New Cabinet Attended Independent Schools’, July 2019. Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/newsarchive/almost-two-thirds-of-new-cabinet-attended-independent-schools/
45. Alan Bennett, ‘Fair Play’, London Review of Books, Vol 36. Ed. 12, November 2019. Access at: wwwlrb.co.uk/v36/n12/alan-bennett/fair-play
46. Francis Green and David Kynaston, Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem, 2019, p. 8: ‘In 2017, the proportion of private school students achieving A*s or As at A level was 48 per cent, compared to a national average of 26 per cent.’
47. Camilla Turner, ‘Exam results gap between state schools and private schools is narrowing, figures show’, The Telegraph, August 2017. Access at: wwwtelegraph.co.uk/education/2017/08/25/exam-results-gap-state-schools-private-schools-isnarrowing-figures/
48. Rachael Pells, ‘State schools outshine Eton in science A-levels’, The Independent, July 2017. Access at: wwwindependent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/eton-state-school-science-gsce-results-public-boarding-league-table-ranking-your-life-a7826696.html
49. Elliot Major and Machin, Social Mobility and its Enemies, op. cit., p. 144
50. Appiah, The Lies that Bind, op. cit., pp. 172–73
51. Chris Belfield, Christine Farquharson and Luke Sibieta, ‘2018 Annual Report on Education Spending in England’, Institute for Fiscal Studies and Nuffield Foundation, September 2018. Access at: wwwifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/comms/R150.pdf
52. ‘Jess Phillips MP in Baby Shark protest over Birmingham school hours’, BBC, March 2019. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-47538926
53. James Tapper, ‘Burned out: why are so many teachers quitting or off sick with stress?’, The Observer, May 2018. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2018/may/13/teacher-burnout-shortages-recruitment-problems-budget-cuts
54. Allana Gay, ‘BAME teachers are still marginalised in a system that refuses to change’, The Guardian, March 2018. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/teacher-network/2018/mar/20/fight-bame-teachers-senior-positions-diversity
55. Mayor of London, Annual London Education Report 2017, p. 6
56. Ibid.
57. Teddy Wolstenholme, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Celia Thursfield and Alice Rose, ‘The Tatler guide to the best state secondary schools’, Tatler, January 2018. Access at: wwwtatler.com/article/best-state-secondary-schools-uk-2018
58. Nicky Burridge, ‘The premium parents pay for a home near a top school’, August 2018. Access at: wwwprimelocation.com/discover/property-news/top-state-schools-drive-house-price-premiums/#8SeHYTP9sEBegbj4.99
59. The social mobility index sets out the differences between where children grow up and the chances they have of doing well in adult life. Access at wwwgov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-index
60. Social Mobility Commission, ‘State of the Nation 2017: Social Mobility in Great Britain 2017’ p. iv
61. Ibid., p. 16
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid., p. 14
64. Ibid., p. 47
65. Ibid., p. iv
66. Ibid., p. iv
67. Social Mobility Commission, ‘Ethnicity, Gender and Social Mobility’, December 2017. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/579988/Ethnicity_gender_and_social_mobility.pdf
68. Ibid.
69. Social Mobility Commission, ‘State of the Nation 2017: Social Mobility in Great Britain, op. cit. p1
70. Ibid.
71. Mayor of London, Annual London Education Report 2017, p. 4–5
72. Ibid., p. 5
73. Ibid.
74. ‘The Met’s Trident unit loses its gun murders brief’, BBC, March 2013. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21773275
75. ‘What is county lines?’, The Children’s Society. Access at: wwwchildrenssociety.org.uk/what-is-county-lines
76. Ibid.
77. County Lines Violence, Exploitation & Drug Supply 2017, National Briefing Report, National Crime Agency, November 2017. Access at: wwwnationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/who-we-are/publications/234-county-lines-violence-exploitation-and-drug-supply-2017/file
4 In Pursuit of Purpose: Confidence
1. ‘What are my chances of getting into Oxford or Cambridge?’, Oxbridge Applications. Access at: oxbridgeapplications.com/blog/what-are-my-chances-of-getting-into-oxford-or-cambridge/
2. Darren McGarvey, Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass, 2017, pp. 26, 27, 28
3. Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, 2017, pp. 57–84
4. J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, 2016, p. 212
5. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., p. 25
6. James Ball and Andrew Greenway, ‘The bluffocracy: how Britain ended up being run by eloquent chancers’, The Spectator. Access at: wwwspectator.co.uk/2018/08/the-bluffocracy-how-britain-ended-up-being-run-by-eloquent-chancers/
7. Ibid.
8. Sathnam Sanghera, ‘I Learnt A Lot. But I Never Felt I Belonged’, The Times, May 2018. Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Times-I-learnt-a-lot.pdf
9. Ibid.
10. ‘List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by education’, Wikipedia. Access at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education
11. Claire Kendall, ‘Being a Young Carer’, BBC, September 2018. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Being_a_young_carer
12. Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (Second Edition), 2011
13. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success, 2008, pp. 103–104
14. See both ‘REACH: An independent report to Government on raising the aspirations and attainment of Black boys and young Black men’, REACH Group, 2007 – access at: dera.ioe.ac.uk/6778/1/reach-report.pdf – and ‘Gangs and young people How you can help keep children and young people safe’, NSPCC. Access at: wwwnspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/staying-safe-away-from-home/gangs-young-people/
15. Ibid.
16. ‘Single parents: facts and figures’, Gingerbread. Access at: wwwgingerbread.org.uk/what-we-do/media-centre/single-parents-facts-figures/
17. David Lammy, ‘Tottenham past and present – a memoir’, The Guardian, 18 November 2011
18. Stephen Bush, ‘On the Tube, I saw the father I’d never met – and was happy to find that I had nothing to say to him’, New Statesman, December 2017. Access at: wwwnewstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/12/tube-i-saw-father-i-d-never-met-and-was-happy-find-i-had-nothing-say-him
19. Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, 2016
20. The list includes Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Lincoln, Clinton, Hitler, Gandhi and Stalin, just to name a few. See David Brooks, The Social Animal; A Story of How Success Happens, 2012, p. 132.
21. Ibid., p. 132
5 What Is and What Could Be: Imagination
1. Peter Walker, ‘White working-class boys should be more aspirational, says Labour minister’, The Guardian, January 2018. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2018/jan/03/white-working-class-boys-should-be-more-aspirational-says-labour-minister
2. Nick Chambers, Jordan Rehill, Dr Elnaz T. Kashefpakdel, Christian Percy, ‘Drawing the Future: Exploring the career aspirations of primary school children from around the world’, Education and Employers, January 2018. Access at: wwweducationandemployers.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DrawingTheFuture.pdf
3. Ibid., p. 32
4. Peter Walker, ‘White working-class boys should be more aspirational, says Labour minister’, The Guardian, January 2018. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2018/jan/03/white-working-class-boys-should-be-more-aspirational-says-labour-minister
5. ‘Young people’s career aspirations versus reality’, Office of National Statistics, September 2018. Access at: wwwons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/
6. The Sutton Trust, ‘Factsheet: Social Mobility’, Access at: wwwsuttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Socialmobility_SuttonTrust_Factsheet_.pdf
7. Romelu Lukaku, ‘I’ve Got Some Things to Say’, The Player’s Tribune, June 2018. Access at: wwwtheplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/romelu-lukaku-ive-got-some-things-to-say
8. Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, 2006
9. Ibid.
10. Dweck, Mindset, op. cit., p. 33: ‘Even in the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from.’ See also fs.blog/2014/09/mistakes/
11. Louise Reynolds, Jonathan Birdwell, ‘Rising to the Top’, Demos, October 2015. Access at: demos.co.uk/project/rising-to-the-top/
12. Francis Fukuyama, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition, 2018, chapter 11
13. Fukuyama, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition, op. cit., p. 107
14. Tom Payne, ‘Group of advertising executives claim they lost their jobs because they are “white, male, straight and British” after director announced plans to “obliterate” the Mad Men culture’, Daily Mail, November 2018. Access at: wwwdailymail.co.uk/news/article-6386683/Sacked-white-straight-male-advertising-executives-claim-discrimination.html
15. Elliot Major and Machin, Social Mobility and its Enemies, op. cit., p. 27
16. Ibid., pp. 38–39
17. ‘The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK’, The Equality Trust. Access at: wwwequalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk
6 Filling in the Blanks: Mentoring
1. Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, 2014, p. 93
2. Joanne Moore, Louise Higham, Anna Mountford-Zimdars, Dr Louise Ashley et al., ‘Socio-Economic Diversity in Life Sciences and Investment Banking’, The Social Mobility Commission, July 2016. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549994/Socioeconomic_diversity_in_life_sciences_and_investment_banking.pdf
3. Rob Davies, ‘How well-heeled City types leave you brown and out in finance’, The Guardian, September 2016. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/business/2016/sep/02/city-of-london-dress-code-brown-shoes-finance
4. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, op. cit, p. 217
5. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, op. cit., p. 220
6. ‘Why the myth of meritocracy hurts kids of color’, The Atlantic, 2017. Access at: wwwtheatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/internalizing-the-myth-of-meritocracy/535035/
7. E. B. Godfrey, C. E. Santos and E. Burson, ‘For better or worse? System-justifying beliefs in sixth-grade predict trajectories of self-esteem and behavior across early adolescence’, Child Development, 2017. Access at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12854
8. ‘Why the myth of meritocracy hurts kids of color’, op. cit.
9. John T. Jost, ‘A theory of system justification: Is there a nonconscious tendency to defend, bolster and justify aspects of the societal status quo?’. Access at: wwwapa.org/science/about/psa/2017/06/system-justification.aspx
10. ‘Why the myth of meritocracy hurts kids of color’, The Atlantic, op. cit.
7 What Does it Sound Like? Language
1. Before this, as early as the thirteenth century, there were unsuccessful attempts to use the Arabic script, and then in the 1920s a script resembling the Ethiopian system was tried.
2. ‘Why Somali is harder than your language’, Loving Language, March 2013. Access at: lovinglanguage.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/why-somali-is-harder-than-your-language/
3. Ibid.
4. Safia Aidid, ‘The Cafe Talkers of Somalia’, Popula, August 2018. Access at: popula.com/2018/08/01/the-cafe-talkers-of-somalia/
5. Or is it luck? Perhaps the Somalis simply make good lawyers. I was amused to come across a letter written in 1953 by a Somali soldier of the British Army named Ibrahim Haji Hassan, who complained of Somali ‘Coffee Shop Lawyers’ who undermined the colonial government with their constant debating and gossiping.
6. Albert Shanker Institute, ‘The Early Language Gap is About More Than Words’. Access at: wwwshankerinstitute.org/audio-visual/early-language-gap-about-more-words-0
7. CAN and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), ‘Bercow: Ten Years On’, I October 2018. Access at: wwwbercow10yearson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/337644-ICAN-Bercow-Report-WEB.pdf
8. UCL Institute of Education and the Communication Trust, ‘What are Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN)?’. Access at: wwwthecommunicationtrust.org.uk/media/600984/ite_resource_2.pdf
9. Ibid.
10. Michael Marmot, Peter Goldblatt, Jessica Allen , et al., ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives: The Marmot Review’, 2010. Access at: wwwinstituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review/fair-society-healthy-lives-full-report-pdf.pdf
11. Green and Kynaston, Engines of Privilege, op. cit., p. 101
12. Emily Schutzenhofer, ‘Evaluating the Effects of Refugee Experiences on Cognitive and Social-Emotional Development in Refugee Children in the Primary Care Setting’, July 2018. Access at: med.virginia.edu/family-medicine/wp-content/uploads/sites/285/2018/08/Schutzenhofer_IFMCProjectFinal080818.pdf
13. I CAN and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), ‘Bercow: Ten Years On’, October 2018. Access at: wwwbercow10yearson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/337644-ICAN-Bercow-Report-WEB.pdf
14. Sally Weale, ‘Trainee teachers from northern England told to modify their accents’, The Guardian, May 2016. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2016/may/12/trainee-teachers-from-northern-england-told-to-modify-their-accents
15. For examples, see The Story of British Pathé, BBC Four, August 2011. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jzm14
16. ITV Tonight Regional Accents Survey, ComRes, September 2013. Access at: wwwcomresglobal.com/polls/itv-tonight-regional-accents-survey-2/
17. Professor Sophie Scott, ‘Prejudice about regional accents is still prevalent in Britain’, UCL News, wwwucl.ac.uk/news/2017/dec/prejudice-about-regional-accents-still-prevalent-britain
18. Ze Wang, Aaron Arndt, Surendra Singh, Monica Biernat and Fan Liu, ‘“You lost me at hello”: How and when accent-based biases are expressed and suppressed’, International Journal of Research in Marketing, vol. 30, no. 2, 2013, pp. 185–96. Access at: portal.idc.ac.il/en/main/research/ijrm/documents/frthcoming per cent20ijrm per cent20d-12–00014_wang per cent20et per cent20al per cent20.pdf
19. David Crystal, January 2013. Access at wwwdavidcrystal.com/?id=3106
20. Rosemary Bennett, ‘Brummie accent is perceived as “worse than silence”’, The Times, April 2008. Access at: wwwthetimes.co.uk/article/brummie-accent-is-perceived-as-worse-than-silence-9m2xmdgcqjq
21. Daniel Lavelle, ‘The rise of “accent softening”: why more and more people are changing their voices’, The Guardian, March 2019. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/society/2019/mar/20/ugly-rise-accent-softening-people-changing-their-voices
22. Professor Sophie Scott, ‘Prejudice about regional accents is still prevalent in Britain’, UCL News, wwwucl.ac.uk/news/2017/dec/prejudice-about-regional-accents-still-prevalent-britain
23. Sally Weale, ‘Trainee teachers from northern England told to modify their accents’, The Guardian, May 2016. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/education/2016/may/12/trainee-teachers-from-northern-england-told-to-modify-their-accents
24. Louise Tickle, ‘Accent snobbery boosts demand for elocution lessons’, The Guardian. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/small-business-network/2016/oct/14/accent-snobbery-boosts-demand-elocution-lessons
25. Kit de Waal, ed., Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers, 2019
26. Lillian May, Krista Byers-Heinlein, Judit Gervain, and Janet F. Werker, ‘Language and the Newborn Brain: Does Prenatal Language Experience Shape the Neonate Neural Response to Speech?’, Frontiers in Psychology, April 2011. Access at: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177294/ See also Katherine D. Kinzler, Kristin Shutts et al., ‘Accent trumps race in guiding children’s social preferences’, Social Cognition, August 2009. Access at: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096936/
27. Appiah, The Lies that Bind, op. cit.
28. Lynsey Hanley, Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide, 2016, p. 42
29. Hugh Muir, ‘Izzit or innit in our best interests?’, The Guardian, 2013. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/24/izzit-innit-black-culture-doesnt-depend-on-slang
30. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit., p. 128
31. Appiah, The Lies that Bind, p. 218
32. A portmanteau of ‘fake’ and ‘Jamaican’, because it was perceived to be based on the English spoken by Caribbean immigrants.
33. Benn Quinn, ‘David Starkey claims “the whites have become black”’, The Guardian, August 2011. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/13/david-starkey-claims-whites-black
34. Ibid.
35. Lisa O’Carrell, ‘David Starkey’s Newsnight race remarks: hundreds complain to BBC’, The Guardian, August 2011. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/media/2011/aug/15/david-starkey-newsinght-race-remarks
36. Urszula Clark, ‘You are what you speak’. Access at: www2.aston.ac.uk/research/research-impact/case-studies/you-are-what-you-speak
37. Will Millard and Amy Gaunt, ‘Speaking up: The importance of oracy in teaching and learning’, Impact, May 2018. Access at: https://impact.chartered.college/article/millard-importance-of-oracy-in-teaching-learning/
38. https://www.tes.com/news/call-teachers-learn-about-oracy
8 Be Useful to Yourself First: Employment
1. Bridge Group, Socio-economic Background and Early Career Progression in the Law, Summary Report, September 2018, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c18e090b40b9d6b43b093d8/t/5cd180d73cfb160001436429/1557233888333/03+Research+2018+Progression+law.pdf. The data gathered related to over 2,800 early career professionals and interviews with current and former employers from eight leading UK law firms, including Magic Circle firms: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Dentons, Hogan Lovells, Holman Fenwick Willan, and Pinsent Masons.
2. Bridge Group, Socio-economic Background and Early Career Progression in the Law, op. cit.
3. Robert Booth and Aamna Mohdin, ‘Revealed: the stark evidence of everyday racial bias in Britain’, The Guardian, December 2018. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/02/revealed-the-stark-evidence-of-everyday-racial-bias-in-britain
4. ‘Modern love: the internet has transformed the search for love and partnership’, The Economist, 18 August 2018, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/08/18/modern-love
5. Project Implicit is accessible at: implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
6. Ibid.
7. Eric Luis Uhlmann and Geoffrey L. Cohen, ‘“I think it, therefore it’s true”: Effects of self-perceived objectivity on hiring discrimination’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 104, no. 2, November 2007. Access at: wwwsciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597807000611
8. Ibid., conclusions
9. Lord Justice Singh, Sir Mota Singh Memorial Lecture, November 2018. Full text available at: wwwjudiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/speech-lord-j-singh-racial-equality-and-the-law-lecture-13-nov2018.pdf
10. ‘Hate crime: the facts behind the headlines’, October 2016. Access at: wwwcivitas.org.uk/content/files/hatecrimethefactsbehindtheheadlines.pdf
11. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us about Who We Really Are, 2017, p. xi
12. ‘Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets’, The Guardian, 9 July 2017. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/09/everybody-lies-how-google-reveals-darkest-secrets-seth-stephens-davidowitz
13. ‘Racial prejudice in Britain today’, September 2017, http://natcen.ac.uk/media/1488132/racial-prejudice-report_v4.pdf
14. ‘Unpaid internships are damaging to social mobility’, Social Mobility Commission, October 2017. Access at: wwwgov.uk/government/news/unpaid-internships-are-damaging-to-social-mobility
15. The Social Mobility Index, The Social Mobility Commission. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/496103/Social_Mobility_Index.pdf
16. Dave O’Brien, ‘Why class is a far bigger problem in publishing than you think’, The Bookseller, March 2019. Access at: wwwthebookseller.com/blogs/why-class-far-bigger-problem-publishing-you-think-979436
17. Friedman and Laurison, The Class Ceiling, op. cit.
18. I wrote about the experience in an article for Prospect magazine, April 2017. Access at: wwwprospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-case-for-a-wild-card
19. Sarah Butcher, ‘Student with sandwich board seen seeking employment outside Liverpool Street Station’, eFinancial Careers, June 2012. Access at: news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/104328/student-with-sandwich-board-seen-seeking-employment-outside-liverpool-street-station
20. Robert H. Frank, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, 2016; and see ‘The role of luck with Robert Frank’, at wwwyoutube.com/watch?v=IaphLWikHb0
21. Hanley, Respectable, op. cit., p. xi
22. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell spends a great deal of time on the particular focus on 10,000 hours.
23. Avery Hartmans, ‘Jeff Bezos’ parents invested $245,573 in Amazon in 1995 – now they could be worth $30 billion’, Business Insider, July 2018. Access at: wwwbusinessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-parents-jackie-mike-amazon-investment-worth-2018-7?r=US&IR=T
24. Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, David Barstow and Gabriel J. X. Dance, ‘4 Ways Fred Trump Made Donald Trump and His Siblings Rich’, The New York Times, October 2018. Access at: wwwnytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/trump-family-wealth.html
25. Grayson Perry, ‘If you have ever felt a class apart, this column is for the likes of you’, The Guardian, January 2010. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/31/grayson-perry-social-mobility
26. Ibid.
27. This is a transcript from the documentary: wwwbbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b081h7gf
28. This example comes from ACAS, the conciliation service that seeks to provide resolutions to disputes between employers and employees.
29. Zack Adesina and Oana Marocico, ‘Is it easier to get a job if you’re Adam or Mohamed?’, BBC’s Inside Out, February 2017. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38751307
30. Ibid.
31. Hadley Freeman, ‘Mindy Kaling: “I was so embarrassed about being a diversity hire”’, The Guardian, May 2019, wwwtheguardian.com/film/2019/may/31/mindy-kaling-i-was-so-embarrassed-about-being-a-diversity-hire
32. Sathnam Sanghera, ‘I’m no role model for diversity’, Financial Times, May 2005. Access at: wwwft.com/content/4372301c-c30a-11d9-abf1-00000e2511c8
33. ‘Who, What, Why: What is name-blind recruitment?’. Access at: wwwbbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34636464
34. More about Contextual Recruitment can be found at: contextualrecruitment.co.uk/index.php
35. ‘We’re doing jobs that didn’t exist 20 years ago’, BBC, Access at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z6rkscw
36. Stephen Hawking, ‘This is the most dangerous time for our planet’, The Guardian, December 2016. Access at: wwwtheguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality
37. That is, not the kind of low-paid, insecure transient jobs that have made up the majority of new jobs in the past decade.
Conclusion
1. Social Mobility Barometer, ‘Public attitudes to social mobility in the UK’, December 2018. Access at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/762966/Social_Mobility_Barometer_2018_report.pdf
2. Just 22 per cent of those aged twenty-five to forty-nine think that their housing situation is better than that of their parents compared to 60 per cent of those aged sixty-five.