In a Class of Their Own
Educational Segregation & Elite
Reproduction in 21st Century Britain
Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Problem Statement 5 Key Concepts 6 Economic Inequality 6 Natal Class 7
Social Mobility and Social Reproduction 8
Millennials 9
Gaps in Existing Research 10
Research Questions 12
Context and Theoretical Framework 13
The Challenges of Class Analysis 13
The Persistently Empty Coffin 13
Where Now for Class Analysis? 17
Educational Institutions and Elite Reproduction 20
A Psychosocial Theory of Elite Educational Segregation 20
The UK Educational System 24
Private Education 24
Fees and Affordability 26
Fee Assistance 27
Destination of Pupils 27
Clarendon Schools 28
Clarendon Characteristics 31
Eton College 31
Moves Towards Mass Education in the 20th Century 32
The Rise and Fall of the Grammar Schools 33
Hiding in Plain Sight 34
“Education, education, education” 34
The ‘Golden Triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London 37 The Great Admissions Gaps: Geography, Ethnicity and Class 39
Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI) 40
Embodied vs. Institutionalised Cultural Capital 40
The Golden Triangle vs. Higher Education’s Gilded Age 40
The Increasing Value of Embodied Cultural Capital 41
The Sociodicy of Meritocracy 44
From ‘Conspicuous Leisure’ to ‘Overt Overwork’ as Status Signifier 45
Social (Im)mobility 46
Research Methods 49
Reflections on Research Motive and Positionality 49
Research Design 50
Epistemological and Ontological Stance 50
Sampling Strategy 51
Data Collection Methods 52
Surveys 52
Interviews 53
Data Analysis 53
Quantitative data analysis 53
Qualitative Data Analysis 54
Methodological Reflections 54
Quantitative Data 54
Qualitative Data 55
Ethical Considerations 56
Research Design Limitations 57
Findings 60
What social and political views do elite private school-educated British millennials
express? 60 Schism 64 Gender 64 Race 66 Continuity 68 Economic Inequality 68
How do elite private school-educated British millennials place themselves and their peers
within UK socioeconomic structures? 71
London 73
Brexit 75
How do elite private school-educated millennials view the UK educational system? 78
Parental duty, choice and commitment to learning 79
Conclusion 83
Bibliography 85
Abstract
Despite more than half a century of free secondary education in the UK, the wealthiest parents are still able to guide their children into positions at the upper echelons of British society with striking precision. The UK therefore remains a society with a significant degree of social reproduction at the highest socio-economic levels. While the role of the most prestigious higher educational institutions in these processes has been widely scrutinised, the propulsive power of expensive private secondary-level institutions remains an important yet underexplored avenue of elite (re)production. The statistical relationships are striking: Reeves et al., (2017) show that alumni of the Clarendon schools, a small group of nine of the UK’s most expensive and exclusive schools, are still 94 times more likely to join the elite than their peers. It therefore appears that parental choice practices in the marketplace of education continue to operate to consolidate class positioning at the higher levels, thereby compounding social exclusion. Building on these insights, this mixed methods research explores the experiential and attitudinal effects of elite private schooling on recent alumni (aged 23-30) of the Clarendon schools, and the ways in which early adulthood has consolidated or contested the legacies of their childhood value systems. This conceptualisation of privilege in 21st century Britain follows Bourdieu, Savage and Sayer in its articulation of class not merely as a descriptive category but rather a ‘loaded moral signifier’ with implications for stigma and habitus as well as distribution of material resources. This research employs strong understandings of social exclusion as a relational phenomenon that social actors at all levels are involved in perpetuating, not just the excluded or marginalised.
It finds a socially liberal, London-centric but globally mobile group of young people who do not necessarily see themselves as a cohesive social class despite their circles (professionally and socially) being largely limited to others of their own natal class. Socially liberal but economically agnostic, they condemn gender and racial inequality while endorsing the motivational potential of high salaries to foster excellence and nurture talent. Many can be characterised as implicitly endorsing a paradoxical form of hereditary meritocracy. Previous research characterises this worldview as ‘post-ideological liberalism’. Most perceived the socioeconomic desegregation of education as an extremely unlikely and quixotic aim even if among those who considered it a utopian ideal.
1.
Introduction
Britain’s private schools provide a well-resourced education to the children of the wealthy through a form of educational segregation premised on parental choice and the inherent value of de facto excellence. The ongoing effects of this segregation are clear in higher educational and professional outcomes of alumni; Boris Johnson’s recent ministerial cabinet, for example, has the highest proportion of privately educated individuals in a government cabinet for a generation. Yet Johnson’s cabinet is also the most ethnically diverse cabinet in history (Clarke 2019). While seemingly incongruous, these statistics tell us something about the shape and character of inequality in 21st century Britain - and the cultural rhetorics of those who benefit from it. Through embracing rhetorics of choice, freedom and individualism, social and political elites provide a neat justification for the increasing participation of women and minorities in positions of power, while socially and democratically legitimising the distribution of wealth and power which they benefit from. While a wealth of data lays bare the structural determinants of success in modern Britain, the cloistered social and professional lives of the wealthiest and their children mean they do not have to examine the comforting yet implausible belief that such success is reflective of individual merit rather than circumstances of birth.
Within this context, a small group of elite private schools have been highlighted as historical and ongoing engines of privilege (Green and Kynaston 2019; Reeves et al. 2017). The alumni of these nine schools, collectively referred to as the Clarendon schools, dominate UK political and economic life, with alumni still 94 times more likely to join Britain's powerful elite than their peers (Reeves et al. 2017). Despite this, public debate in the UK is characterised by a lack of willingness to grapple with the fundamental inequities of our educational systems, and to acknowledge the incompatibility between these inequities and the realisation of a meritocratic society (Green and Kynaston 2019). A further debate yet to be had is such principles of what Piketty calls meritocratic extremism stand up to closer scrutiny as a procedural justification of the kind of inequalities of outcome that we see in Britain today - inequalities which many would argue are far too stark regardless of how they are determined.
British cultural and political elites have historically been composed of individuals from a small socioeconomic pool, often educated at an even smaller pool of expensive private boys’ schools referred to in this research as the Clarendon schools. From the end of the 19th century until the post-war period of the 20th century the connective thread between these educational institutions and the UK’s positions of power and influence gradually narrowed, with many presuming it would continue to do so until it more or less snapped completely. It was envisaged that this would render the ruling classes more representative of the country as a whole, and therefore more deserving and able to occupy such positions.
Recent history has proven this assumption ill-founded in some regards, but correct in others; while the UK’s social and political elites are drawn from an increasingly sexually, racially and gender diverse pool of individuals, the propulsive power of this group of elite educational institutions has held remarkably steady in the early 21st century. These schools remain incredibly expensive and socially selective, drawing their students from the wealthiest families both in the UK and increasingly around the world, and Clarendon alumni are still far more likely than their peers to enter the most exclusive universities and professions. The way that individuals conditioned by these elite educational environments understand and make sense of inequalities through shared cultural rhetorics is therefore a matter of sociological importance that concerns everyone in our interconnected global system. Despite this, there is a lack of research which interrogates how the growth of economic inequalities continues to democratically coexist with the seismic sociological shifts in other spheres. Nor is it known whether some insight into this can be found from understanding how educational elites conceive of their own and others’ socio-political positions, and whether this can tell us anything about the processes that foster and sustain inequality in 21st century Britain. This research seeks to begin filling this lacuna.
3.
Key Concepts
3.1.
Economic Inequality
Economic inequality is an indicator of how material resources are distributed across society. Economic inequality can be operationalised in different ways. Measures usually aim to capture
pay, income or wealth inequality in either absolute or relative terms. Common indicators1 include: the Gini coefficient (a relative measure which can be used to assess pay, income or wealth inequality); the percentage of households earning less than 60% of median income (a measure of relative poverty qua income); the percentage of people living on less than $1.90 a day (a measure of absolute poverty); and the gender/race pay gap, which describes one way in which wage distributions vary by gender or race. Different measurements of inequality result in differing assessments of precisely which societies are more or less unequal (OECD 2019b). As such, selection of measurement instruments is not value-neutral.
The Gini coefficient of income after taxes and transfers captures income distribution after the effects of redistributive government intervention to blunt inequality. This is sometimes used over pre-tax measures to more accurately capture the population distribution of ‘take home’ or disposable income. It should be noted that tax avoidance and use of tax havens by the wealthy obscures the true relative income and wealth of the richest, driving the Gini coefficient downwards and presenting populations as more equal than they actually are (Blazko 2019). Given that approximately $32 trillion globally is estimated to be hidden in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenue, the true picture of inequality is likely to be much more stark than official figures suggest (Tax Justice Network 2012).
Additionally, the Gini coefficient is a measure of relative income which does not take into account issues such as accumulated wealth , or absolute income levels (Moyes 2007). This2 means that the Gini coefficient of two populations may be the same, while individuals at equivalent positions (e.g. 50th percentile) in both distributions may have vastly different material conditions. Despite these limitations, such measures are nevertheless useful for examining economic inequality.
3.2.
Natal Class
Unidimensional income/occupation-based individual class schema such as the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) , the UK’s official measure of social class, do3
1 Pay inequality is a reflection of differences in money received through paid employment, whereas income inequality also considers investment returns, dividends, rental income and any other sources of income. Wealth inequality is a reflection of how assets rather than income are distributed, which may include the value of property, savings and investments.
2 Sweden is an example of a country that has a low Gini coefficient for disposable income but a high wealth disparity (Domeij and Flodén 2010)
not (directly ) take family background into account (ONS 2019d). These systems are therefore4
inappropriate for discussing the class status of children or young people, who either do not have an occupation, rendering NS-SEC classification impossible, or are at an early stage of their career. This makes assessing final class destination, and therefore rates of social mobility difficult (further discussion below), as this requires comparison between final and starting socioeconomic positions (Rose et al. 2005; Drever et al. 2004). Given the centrality of these age groups to this research, I follow Giddens (e.g. Stanworth and Giddens 1974) in using the term natal class to refer to the earnings, professional backgrounds, and social and cultural capital of an individual’s main childhood care-givers (such as parents).
3.3.
Social Mobility and Social Reproduction
As with inequality, social mobility is a multi-faceted concept with many standard operationalisations (OECD 2018). The concept aims to capture rates of individual or group movement from their current socioeconomic position (known as intragenerational mobility), or from the positions of their parents or grandparents (intergenerational mobility) (ibid.). Intergenerational social mobility is the equal and opposite phenomenon to social reproduction (e.g. Lambert et al. 2007). Intergenerational mobility and reproduction are of most relevance to this research.
The Sutton Trust (2017) suggests that lower social mobility results in less economically productive societies with lower levels of social cohesion and wellbeing (pg.5). The OECD (2018) reports that inequality is intimately linked to social mobility, as socioeconomic status “heavily influences employment prospects, job quality, health outcomes, education and other opportunities (including access to relevant networks)” (pg.3). Researchers differentiate between social mobility which is hampered either by ‘sticky floors’ preventing upward mobility for those born into lower socioeconomic strata, or ‘sticky ceilings’ associated with opportunity hoarding at the top (ibid., pg.14). The UK ranks roughly in the middle for both perceived and actual mobility of earnings over one generation, somewhat bucking the trend in terms of the relationship between high inequality and low intergenerational social mobility. However, of particular salience to this research, the OECD (2018) reports that British society is characterised by a high degree
4 I include this caveat because of the causal relationship between an individual’s NS-SEC and that of their father (see e.g. Wing Chan and Boliver, 2013)
of opportunity hoarding and social reproduction at the top, making sticky ceilings a more significant barrier in this national context (ibid., pg.31).
3.4.
Millennials
Study participants were born between 1988 and 1996 and are currently aged 23 - 30, a generation sometimes referred to as ‘millennials’ . In the UK this age cohort are more highly 5 educated, less Eurosceptic and less hostile to immigration than the two generations before them (Fox and Pearce 2017). Despite their higher levels of education, they are also the first generation of the century to be less likely than their parents to own property (Willets 2010), and the labour markets they face at the nascent stages of their career are increasingly precarious (Sloam and Rakib Ehsan 2017).
Prior research has characterised them as ‘Blair’s babies’ (Grasso et al. 2017), the generation in full-time education from the mid-90s to the 2010s. This appears in retrospect to be an era of widespread optimism. Politicians championed the forces of self-interest, competitiveness, and a form of liberal individualism centred around material consumption (Rodolfo 2019). This generation left school at or close to the apex of the global financial crisis of 2008 and have therefore lived their early adult lives in an era of “populism, political division, identity politics, nationalism and social media”, and increasing collective concern about global ecological crises (Grasso et al. 2018, pg.216; Rodolfo 2019). Savage and Williams (2008) argue that the scale of growing inequality seen in this period means “There is no historical precedent for such regressive redistribution within one generation without either change in legal title or economic disaster such as hyper-inflation.” (pg.1) A range of explanations have been posited to link the above factors to observed declines in party political membership among this demographic on the one hand (Grasso et al. 2018), and the resurgence in youth activism that has bolstered Corbyn’s Labour party on the other (Sloam and Henn 2019).
5 This term has no strictly associated time period, but usually begins with those born in the late 1980s, and ends with those born in the late 1990s (Dimock 2019)
4.
Gaps in Existing Research
Although there is a large body of research exploring social mobility, inequality, and education, there are significant gaps in the literature, particularly at the intersection of these phenomena. Class analysis has traditionally shied away from considering the socio-economically advantaged as objects of research, focusing instead on the ‘sticky floor’ behaviours and attitudes of the working classes and the marginalised (Savage 2015). The existing research on social reproduction of higher social strata often employs large-N quantitative methodologies (e.g. Wakeling and Savage 2015) which are not able to shed light on the micro-social, emotive and attitudinal processes that influence how individuals conceive of and reproduce class categories (as argued by Sayer (2002)). Where qualitative research on educational institutions qua elite reproduction does exist, it usually focuses on those still being educated by these institutions rather than investigating the persistence (or lack thereof) of the kinds of psychosociological effects mentioned above. In addition, such research generally considers individual institutions separately rather than by type, often focusing on current students of single private schools (e.g. Khan 2015) or universities (e.g. Brownet et al. 2016). Furthermore, while the inequities of British higher education have been been subjected to scrutiny (e.g. Brown et al. 2014), the role of socio-economic educational segregation of children and teenagers in these processes has been under-examined, despite the interrelated nature of these inequities (The Sutton Trust 2018). Educational segregation between different socio-economic groups matters for two main reasons, both of which are under-explored in the sociological and psychosocial literature surrounding elite identity formation and social (re)production. Firstly, because of the reference group hypothesis, whereby the homogeneity of our reference groups (i.e. the similarity in education, occupation and income among our family and friends), results in a distorted ‘subjective sample’ on which we base our cognitive beliefs and norms about the world, from which we generalise to wider society (Evans and Kelley 2004). In other words, “Comparisons are not made in a cultural vacuum; rather they rely on culturally shared ideas of evaluative criteria” (Hecht 2017, pg.7). Although this psychological phenomenon is not limited to elite groups, Khan (2011), who has conducted extensive research into educational privilege in the US and elites more generally, suggests that it is particularly important to understand how elite educational institutions affect this bias as their alumni are more likely to be in positions of power later in life. The skew of their reference groups therefore potentially has population-level
ramifications, which makes understanding the sample skews of policy-makers a matter of immediate concern to everyone in society.
Secondly, segregation has implications for increased inter-group stereotyping and prejudice. The effects of segregation on inter-group prejudice manifests in legitimising ideologies, described by Bourdieu as sociodicies, which emphasise positive characteristics of fellow ingroup members, and corresponding negative perceptions of outsiders (Bigler et al. 2001). However, the majority of research that does consider psychosocial mechanisms often neglects the developmental significance of childhood as a key period for formation of stereotypic and prejudicial beliefs (an oversight highlighted by Bigler et al. (2001)). Experimental studies by Bigler et al. (2001) provide compelling evidence that this phenomenon is particularly pronounced for children in higher-status groups, even if the characteristics chosen to signify status, such as t-shirt colour, are randomly assigned and carry no wider social significance. The most potent biasing contexts were emphasis from teachers that these characteristics were salient as an identifying characteristics, and higher assigned relative status of ingroup members. It is important to understand whether childhood school is a persisting identity category for Clarendon alumni, and the extent to which social segregation continues into adult life, as these factors may plausibly act to either consolidate or erode these biases.
The lack of consideration of the unique advantages conferred by a Clarendon school education above those provided by other private schools also presents a substantial gap in the existing research. For example, Kynaston (2019) considers ‘private education’ a homogenous category in his figures reporting that privately educated British 25 year olds earn 17% more than similar children of the same age, which is not reflective of the considerable differences within the sector. The earnings gap between Clarendon millennials and their peers is likely to be much larger, but a lack of prior research in this area renders this claim speculative.
In addition, the medium and long-term consequences of the multitude of socio-political forces acting on the millennial generation are as yet unclear. Many seem to pull in opposite directions, and few studies have examined how they intersect with race, gender, class and geography in 21st century Britain. It is clear, however, that the private school wage premium (or gap, depending on vantage point), even for those at this early stage of their careers, is significant.
5.
Research Questions
This research is positioned at the nexus of several under-explored research areas, outlined above, that I contend are important for understanding the role of the UK elite private education system in the intergenerational transmission of wealth, influence and upper-class identities in 21st century Britain.
The present study seeks to illuminate this previously under-examined area through exploring three research questions:
1. What social and political views do elite private school-educated British millennials express?
2. How do elite private school-educated millennials view the UK educational system, and to what extent do they feel they are benefited/handicapped by their own educational background?
3. How do elite private school-educated British millennials place themselves and their peers within UK socioeconomic structures
These questions are of importance because, as well as being socially segregated from the majority of society, those educated in elite schools are also substantially over-represented in the occupations that have the largest influence over the UK population. Therefore, gaining an insight into the experiences and opinions of this group, and the forces which shape them, could have substantial social, political and economic implications.
6.
Context and Theoretical Framework
6.1.
The Challenges of Class Analysis
6.1.1.
The Persistently Empty Coffin
“Each decade we shiftily declare we have buried class; each decade the coffin stays
empty”
Richard Hoggart, introduction to 1965 edition of George Orwell's ‘Road to Wigan Pier’
The many components that dictate an individual's social class are complex, interacting and ever-shifting, presenting many challenges to the empirical study of class systems and social hierarchies (Savage et al . 2013). Class identity has variously been associated with the earnings, profession, status, and cultural capital that an individual accrues over their lifetime (ibid.). It has also been defined in relation to the earnings, profession, status, and cultural capital of one’s parents (a concept referred to in this paper as natal class), as well as an individual’s social network, or, particularly for women , sexual or marriage partner. 6
The relative weighting of each of these factors - for instance, is someone who works in a low-paid manual occupation who was born into an aristocratic family ‘working class’ or not? - within class hierarchies is contentious. Similarly, the positioning of real-world social actors - which is the ‘higher class’ profession, nursing or land surveying? - has also been widely debated. As such, both the relative weighting of class signifiers, and positions in the social hierarchy are subject to a constant seesawing between theoretical and empirical revision. This makes the operationalisation of class particularly context-specific. The acceleration of globalism further complicates this theoretical and empirical task (Goldthorpe 2002).
In the introduction to Class Analysis and Social Transformation (2000), Savage complained that the conceptual cupboard of classical class theory was looking “a little dusty”. Compared to other sociological identity categories like gender, race, or sexuality, class analysis has indeed suffered from a range of theoretical problems and relative academic neglect. Part of the issue is, as suggested above, that class is a less ascriptive and a more multi-dimensional, contested
6 As this point suggests, other organising or identity categories such as gender have an interactional effect with class (Skeggs, 1997)
characteristic than even gender, race or sexuality (Sayer 2002). Indeed, some sociologists (e.g. Beck and Willms 2004) have even gone so far as to suggest that class is now a ‘zombie concept’ that no longer has relevance due to the erosion of traditional class divisions. Social class is therefore a notoriously nebulous, contentious concept in both its ontology and epistemology. Despite these challenges Savage (2000) is a firm advocate of the rehabilitation of class analysis on the grounds that “property, organization/authority and skill/expertise are significant structuring devices in producing social division” (ibid., pg.20). He therefore advocates more ‘hands-on’ empirical examination of the ways in which property, cultural capital, organisational processes and individualisation are related to one another.
6.1.2.
Theories of Elites Rehabilitated
British sociology has a particular historical association with class and elite analysis partly due to the 20th century survival of the English aristocracy who were not overthrown through revolution as they were elsewhere in western Europe (Giddens 1974). Despite this, class analysis has traditionally focused on the ‘problematic of the proletariat’ (Savage 2015) to the detriment of collective understandings of elite class formation and composition. In recent decades there has been renewed academic and public interest in the wealthy and powerful (Davis and Williams 2017), and growing recognition that reproduction of social class is intimately linked with the power of those at the top (Giddens 1974). This has been particularly prominent since the financial crisis of 2008 which called into question much received economic ideology and brought the behaviours of ‘the 1%’ under scrutiny (e.g. Dorling 2014).
I focus here on those recent theorists (e.g. Savage 2008; Khan 2012; Piketty 2014) who consider the implications of present day capitalist relations for the accumulation of wealth and influence, rather than the classical elite theories of Pareto and Mosca. By ‘present day’ I refer to an era beginning in the early 1980s, marked in the UK by a deregulation of markets (particularly in the financial sector) and privatisation of state-owned companies under the Thatcher administration (Davis and Williams 2014). This continued with the ‘third-way’ politics of Blair’s New Labour government that presented the global economy as something states “could not resist and so had to adapt to” (ibid., pg.14).
Since the 1970s, the UK has become a more economically unequal country by all standard measures. The UK currently has the second most unequal income distribution of any European OECD country, second only to Lithuania (OECD 2019a), according to the Geni coefficient. Of all
36 OECD countries only 6 (Mexico, Chile, Turkey, the United States, Lithuania and South Korea) score higher on this indicator (ibid.). In particular, the income and wealth of the upper and middle classes have diverged in recent decades, while the poorest and the middle have remained roughly in tandem (Irvin 2008). Between 1979 and 2012, the income share of the UK’s top 1% of earners more than doubled, from 6% to 13% (WID by Alvaredo et al. 2017). Furthermore, this group also saw their share of wealth rise, from 23% to 28% between 1980 and 2010 (Piketty 2014). Along with other ‘Anglo-Saxon’ countries , increases in UK top income and7 wealth shares in the late 20th and early 21st century are some of the sharpest in the Global North, and contribute to the UK’s position as one of the most unequal countries in the region
(Piketty 2014).
These trends are salient to this research as inequality has been documented as both a cause and effect of childhood social segregation (Musterd 2005; Bjorvatn and Cappelen 2003) and is
7Anglo-Saxon countries are considered to be Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States
closely implicated in wider social, cultural and political relations and opportunities (Savage 2015). We observe connections between the economic, spatial, social, cultural, and the political in how tastes cultivated by the wealthy come to be marks of distinction (Bourdieu 1984), and in the overwhelming maleness of those at the upper end of the UK income distribution who are also disproportionately based in London (IFS 2019).
Savage and Williams (2008) suggest that at a global level these changes amount to “the most rapid and dramatic shift of income, assets and resources in favour of the very rich that has ever taken place in human history” (pg.1). These shifts can be partly attributed to a reduced reliance on Keynesianism economic principles in favour of a liberal free market ideology (Palley 2004) which “emphasizes the efficiency of market competition, the role of individuals in determining economic outcomes, and distortions associated with government intervention and regulation of markets” (ibid., pg.1). This has resulted in the deregulation and subsequent expansion of the financial sector, and the jettisoning of welfare state provision (Hopkin and Blyth 2004). The 2010-2014 Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition government entrenched these processes with a programme of austerity that ‘systematically dismantled’ Britain’s social safety net at the same time as funding tax cuts for the wealthy (undocs.org 2019). In 2019, a United Nations (UN) envoy decried the ‘tragic social consequences’ of these policies which left 1.5 million people of the world’s fifth largest economy destitute in 2017 despite the ‘immense wealth’ of London, a ‘leading centre of global finance’ (ibid.).
Piketty’s (2014) analysis of cross-national data shows that increases in top income shares have been much sharper in the US and the UK in recent decades when compared to those in the rest of Europe, and Japan. Piketty argues that the norms and historically shaped institutional differences outlined above constitute important explanations for this rising income inequality (ibid.). Not only have absolute levels of inequality increased in the Global North since the 1980s, but intergenerational social mobility has also decreased, a decline observable in the UK even before the global financial crisis of 2008 (Machin and Vignoles 2005). Brown (2013) suggests that “Sociology’s inconvenient truth is that the high rates of mobility achieved in the second half of the twentieth century are explained by ‘absolute’ changes in the occupational structure, rather than from a narrowing of inequalities in life-chances.” (pg.681)
Concerted efforts to outline what these shifts might mean for UK class analysis are still in their infancy with many researchers suggesting that traditional frameworks are no longer fit for
purpose. For example, Hey et al. (2017) argue they necessitate a “new tone in epistemological and methodological approaches shrouded in the concrete class divisions of contemporary capitalism” which reflect the impact of de-industrialisation, globalisation, and the ascendance of liberal market ideology on social stratification and elite (re)production.
6.1.3.
Where Now for Class Analysis?
In recent decades there has been a revival of interest in class in British sociology (e.g. Savage et al. 2013; Le Roux et al. 2008; Bottero 2005), recognising both the legacy of the UK’s rigid pre-industrial class structure (Giddens 1972) and the recent impacts of burgeoning inequality driven by deregulation, financialisation and globalisation since the 1980s (Davis and Williams 2017), accelerated by the effects of austerity since 2010.
The UK’s official socio-economic classification system, the NS-SEC, is based on Goldthorpe’s system of class stratification by employment relations (ONS 2010). This schema places individuals into one of 8 analytic classes from 1. Higher managerial, administrative and professional to 8. Never worked and long-term unemployed, based on their conditions of occupation (employee, employer, self-employed or unemployed) and employment relationship (routine, semi-routine, technical or service employees) (Goldthorpe 2007). These 8 classes are, in turn, nested into 3 classes roughly corresponding to upper,middle and working occupational classes.
Despite its considerable influence Goldthorpe’s schema is not without its issues. Due to reliance on fixed aspects of an individual’s current occupation it frequently excludes family care-givers (disproportionately women) and students altogether, and misrepresents those in part-time work (Rose et al. 2005). Another consequence of its reliance on deductive assessments of employment conditions is the difficulty in integrating these class divisions with wider cultural and social activities and identities, which empirical work suggests NS-SEC classifications fail to map onto (Savage 2000). However it is important to note that pursuit of a single socio-economic schema of domination and stratification is quixotic. As is widely documented (e.g. Jackson 2009; Kimmel 2014) class identities continue to intersect with other systems of social classification such as race and gender (Crenshaw 1989) often mediating how they are manifested (Stanworth and Giddens 1974) rather than perfectly mapping onto them. The further question of why we should expect class divisions to relate to cultural and social identities is a more foundational one and will be addressed throughout this paper.
In 2013 the largest ever British survey on class was conducted online by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the aim of which was to gather a large amount of descriptive data. More than 160,00 people responded, providing information about their professional8
status, income, educational background, social connections and hobbies. Based on analysis of this data, Savage (2013) suggested that the processes discussed above have rendered the traditional upper, middle and working class divisions somewhat redundant in 21st century Britain. Instead Savage (ibid.) proposed a 7 category classificatory system: the elite; established middle class; technical middle class; new affluent workers; traditional working class; emergent service workers; and the precariat. I follow Savage et al. (2013) and Le Roux et al. (2008) in their Bourdieusian emphasis of class in 21st century Britain as a multi-dimensional characteristic which stratifies individuals along hierarchies that relate to an individual’s social and cultural, as well as economic capital (ibid.). This classification emphasises the consolidation of a wealthy elite that has pulled away from the rest of the population, along with a blurring of the old boundaries between middle and working class. While Savage’s (2013) classificatory system is not beyond critique (e.g. May 2015; Bradley 2014), most of these issues are not central to the purposes of this research which focuses on a socioeconomic stratum differentiated by high income and a narrow range of occupational backgrounds. This group is therefore adequately captured in Savage’s (2013) highest-earning ‘elite’ group, which comprises approximately 6% of the UK population.
8 The scale of the response and the widespread interest in the results lends more support to the suggestion that the UK’s ‘coffin of class’ remains stubbornly empty.
Figure 2. Overview of the ‘Elite’ from Savage (2013)
Image source: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22000973
Savage has recently renewed his calls for a shift away from the mainstay of class analysis, which has traditionally focused on the ‘problematic of the proletariat’ (Savage 2015), and towards analyses of wealthy elites. Drawing on a theoretical framework underpinned by Bourdieu and Marx, Savage suggests that the contemporary field of power in the UK is “a scene of internal contestation and dispute between the most powerful and well-resourced agents from different sectors and professions, such as the financial, political, legal and journalistic elements” (Savage et al. 2015, pg.309). As suggested above, such contestations have huge ramifications that concern us all. Analyses of power have for too long been diminished by a lack of interrogation into the values and practices of the institutions that convert wealth into social and political power; this leads to an unquestioning acceptance of such practices that is incommensurable with their historical and continued influence.
6.2.
Educational Institutions and Elite Reproduction
The democratisation of access to education in the UK, which began in the early 20th century, was intended by its architects to create a more level playing field of opportunity (Halsey 1975). This vision has not been fully realised, and a large body of statistical evidence indicates that secondary level educational environment remains a significant mediator of an individual’s natal class and their socio-economic status later in life (Green, Henseke and Vignoles 2016).
Reeves et al. (2017) suggest this failed materialisation can be partly attributed to the strong ties between UK elites and a small group of expensive private secondary schools which strengthen the adhesive power of the UK’s ‘sticky ceilings’ (OECD 2018). They suggest that within these institutions:
“A classical academic curriculum, distinct extracurricular activities, and a boarding school structure all combine to provide an unmistakable educational experience which signals elite status to occupational gatekeepers who grant advantages that are hoarded from outsiders” (pg.1140).
Recent research suggests that the advantages of signalling this kind of educational background through embodiment of a particular sort of habitus have become greater in UK elite professional recruitment in recent years (Friedman and Laurison 2019). The increasing importance across a broad range of competitive sectors from the media to law, of mastering a form of ‘studied informality’ characterised by the use of knowing, ironic humour and casual referencing of high brow cultural touchpoints (ibid.), has ensured continued advantages for the young adults educated in segregated environments that successfully instill an understanding of how to embody these mannerisms and values. This suggests that an examination of the social practices of natal elites is more essential than ever if we wish to understand social reproduction in the UK today.
6.2.1.
A Psychosocial Theory of Elite Educational Segregation
British society is one of the most unequal in the Global North, and its educational system, at all levels, is one of the most intensely hierarchical. This parallel is not coincidental, but rather it appears that the two phenomena are symbiotic.
Bourdieu (1974) argues that given its primary role in the reproduction of existing class relations, the education system operates as a “conservative force” consolidating the existing social hierarchy. Bourdieu’s focus was primarily on higher education, which neglects the particular importance of childhood as a developmental period. Bourdieu viewed academic qualifications as the dominant form of ‘institutionalised’ cultural capital, contributing to class reproduction precisely because the distribution of such qualifications reflects and socially legitimises power differentials between social groups. This is implicitly recognised by the parents who send their children to elite private schools, the majority of whom claim to do so because of the better academic results their students attain. In an ostensibly liberal, democratic society, private schools must walk a careful tightrope; on the one hand the exorbitant fees they charge must be worth the investment because of the advantages children gain relative to pupils in the state sector; on the other, the schools must claim that they do not confer such a large advantage that the sector is viewed as socially unjust.
Academic examinations are one way of evading the horns of this dilemma, enabling students from higher-class backgrounds to disguise their family privileges as ‘gifts of nature’, premised on the meritocratic myth (Brown et al. 2016) that examination performance reflects differences in innate ability. Meritocracy can therefore be seen as a form of sociodicy which serves to mask the structural determinants of inequality, thereby legitimising an (inaccurate) view of the fair determination of academic and professional success (Bourdieu and Passeron 1979). Bourdieu suggests that such myths are a form of symbolic violence, allowing groups and individuals to claim that distributions of cultural and embodied capital are reflective of attributes such as ‘giftedness’ on the part of the wealthy and successful. Consequently, these are seen as reflective of personal failings on the part of the socioeconomically disadvantaged. In the context of private education, which parents readily acknowledge enables their children to achieve better results than children from poorer families, such meritocratic sociodicies often wither under scrutiny.
The educational segregation of children has historically been problematised primarily when it occurs a) along ethnic/racial lines and b) within state education. This is still the case in the present era (see Sohoni and Saporit 2009; Boger and Orfield 2005) when segregation is primarily the product of informal barriers such as choice architecture (Reay 2004), rather than legislation as was the case in the pre-civil rights era American South. Contrastingly, the thriving
and influential private school system has not been generally characterised as an instance of segregation of children along natal class lines, despite the parallels in the way that attendance fees and entrance criteria operate to exclude pupils from specific socioeconomic groups. 9
Research across educational settings has demonstrated that “when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic children infer that the groups differ in important ways and develop increased intergroup bias” (Halpern et al. 2011). This is observed even when individuals are randomly assigned to these groups (Sherif et al. 1961), and when the characteristic chosen carries no wider social significance outside the confines of the experiment, such as t-shirt colour (Bigler et al. 1997). In one experiment of particular salience to understanding how educational segregation might contribute to elite reproduction, researchers created a fictional history of prior high achievement for one randomly selected t-shirt group. Despite the fact that this socially insignifiant characteristic was randomly distributed among the children and was unrelated to children’s own achievements, Bigler later commented that "the high status children became exceptionally biased… the highest levels of stereotyping and prejudice I’ve seen in any of our studies come when the teachers label the groups, and those posters in the room show that the kids’ own group is a very successful group." (Bigler, quoted in Dwyer 2019, emphasis added).
Bigler et al. (2001) concluded that the effects of segregation and group differentiation on the randomly assigned high and low-status groups were significantly more pronounced on the higher-status children, causing them to display more outgroup prejudice, and more in-group favouritismthan the lower-status assigned children. Bigler et al. (2001) concludes this suggests “some interesting (and counterintuitive) ideas for intervention strategies. Young children might, for example, benefit from exposure to information that emphasizes the shortcomings of those high-status groups to which they belong” (pg.1160). As this thesis research shows, suggestions of this nature have not been taken up by early 21st century providers of elite education, who emphasised the ability and ‘giftedness’ of pupils relative to other children.
There are therefore clear parallels between these experimental conditions, and the way that Clarendon schools label and segregate individuals with reference to characteristics that have historically been associated with high achievement and social position. Specifically, a trio of
9Such as the requirement of passing a Latin exam to qualify for a scholarship at Westminster School, and interview processes more generally
characteristics has been used to select and segregate Clarendon student bodies from other British children:
1.
High familial socio-economic status2.
Maleness3.
Academic ‘giftedness’Given that these characteristics are all associated with higher status more broadly, there are developmental and social implications of this form of childhood segregation in light of Bigler et al.’s research. As discussed above, this form of social conditioning has been shown to consolidate and reinforce bias from a young age. If the salience of these characteristics is emphasised to children, and associations with childhood school persists into adulthood as an identity category, there are implications for how ingroup favouritism exercised by Clarendon alumni in positions of power (sometimes referred to as ‘gatekeepers’) and prejudice against those seen as outgroup members contributes to social reproduction. Convincing empirical evidence of gatekeepers acting to shepherd fellow, younger ingroup members into British elite occupational opportunities is documented by Friedman & Laurison (2019). It is not suggested that these processes need to operate at a conscious level to be effective, as the authors suggest they are often understood by individuals as innocent processes of ‘talent spotting’ (ibid.).
The damaging implications of childhood segregation have been long been recognised by civil rights activists in relation to racial segregation. In 1953 activist Robert L. Carter wrote that: “..segregation, prejudices and discriminations … potentially damage the personality of all children - the children of the majority group in a somewhat different way than the more obviously damaged children of the minority group … The culture permits and, at times, encourages [majority group children] to direct their feelings of hostility and aggression against whole groups of people the members of which are perceived as weaker than themselves. They often develop patterns of guilt feelings, rationalizations and other mechanisms which they must use in an attempt to protect themselves from recognizing the essential injustice of their unrealistic fears and hatreds of minority group.” (pg.70, emphasis added).
Carter uses majority as a synonym for dominant/privileged, an equivalence which breaks down in the context of UK elite education. This suggests a peculiarity of the UK’s educational system:
the persistence of a two-tier system in a democratic context, despite the fact that benefits are enjoyed by a small minority of the population. Khan (2011) suggests that meritocratic ideologies are key to understanding how such ‘democratic inequality’ persists in these circumstances. I would also add that, in relation to Clarendon school alumni, guilt feelings and rationalisations are used in attempts to protect individuals from recognition of the arbitrariness (and therefore, in neoliberal meritocratic ideology, the undeservedness) of the socioeconomic privileges they currently enjoy, rather than simply to justify fear and hatred of disadvantaged groups.
6.3.
The UK Educational System
Education in the UK is a devolved matter over which each of the constituent countries of the union (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) has jurisdiction. Country-specific variations in structure and policy (such as higher education fees) therefore make it difficult to discuss education in the UK as one cohesive system.
Broadly speaking though, there are 5 stages of education from Early Years (age 3-5) to Higher Education (age 18+). These are described in appendix 1. The educational system has changed significantly since the beginning of the 20th century. For this reason, as well as changes to regional control described above, it is not always easy or fruitful to draw far-reaching comparisons across either time or space as key concepts and types of data collected may differ (Aldrich, Dean and Peter 2013).
6.3.1.
Private Education
Private schools in the UK are funded primarily by gifts, endowments and tuition fees paid by parents directly to the school. These schools do not have to comply with many of the regulations and conditions that apply to government-funded schools, which are free to attend, and private schools do not have to follow the national curriculum or employ teachers with specific qualifications. This differs significantly from the regulation of private schooling in countries such as France, where the majority of private schools are ‘sous contrat’ (under government contract), charge modest fees (sometimes as low as €300 annually) and must follow the same curriculum as any other school, taught by teachers employed directly by the state (Ministère de l'Éducation nationale et de la Jeunesse 2019).
Around one in 16 students (6-7%) under 18 in the UK is privately educated, which is not prima facie a significant proportion of the population (LSE events 2019). Due to globalisation and the international prominence of British private schools, a growing proportion of this number are pupils with families living abroad (Green et al. 2017). The proportion of children of UK-resident families currently in private education is approx. 5.8% (ibid.), lower than the figure of 7% commonly cited in research and media (ibid.). This proportion has remained remarkably static over the last 30 years despite steep increases in fees (discussed further below). One in five private schools is single-sex only, and around one in four still take boarding pupils. Both of these characteristics are far more common in the private than state sector (see Figure 3. below). Only 2% of Scottish pupils are educated privately, and in Northern Ireland there are just 14 private schools (ibid.). As the figures show, within England private schools are concentrated in London and the South East.
Figure 3. School Characteristics in England and Wales Source: Green et al. 2017
Due to particularities of their historical development, the most expensive fee-paying schools in the UK are sometimes referred to as ‘public schools’. This terminology runs counter to both intuition and international terminology; internationally, schools that are funded primarily by gifts, endowments and tuition fees paid by parents directly to the school are usually referred to as
private schools. Outside of the UK, schools that are funded by the state are, by contrast, sometimes referred to as public schools. This can cause confusion when discussing the British educational system in a broader context. To avoid this, I will refer to fee-paying schools in general as private schools, and non-fee paying schools as state schools. I will therefore avoid use of the term ‘public school’ as far as possible other than in direct quotations.
6.3.2.
Fees and Affordability
There is no legislative cap on private school fees which have increased steeply in recent decades. In 2016 average annual day fees were £13,623 (approx. €16,600 ) (ISC 2017), 10
whereas in the same academic year (2015-16) schools received £4,900 per pupil at state-funded primary schools, and £6,300 per pupil at state-funded secondary schools (IFS 2018). Private fees have consistently risen above inflation (Green et al. 2017) with average boarding and day feestrebling in real terms between 1980 and 2016. Boarding fees rose from £10,622 to £30,651 in this period, while junior school day fees rose from £4,002 to £12,234 (all in 2016 prices) (Green et al. 2017). For context, the median UK disposable household income for financial year 2016/17 was £27,300 . Average 2016 boarding fees per child in the UK were11 therefore 112% of the median annual disposable household income for the same year. Several studies (Green et al. 2017; Butler and Lees 2006) have linked the stability of the sector’s population despite these considerable fee increases to the growing concentration of wealth and income at the upper ends of the UK population distribution discussed above.
Spending on state-funded pupils also rose significantly in real terms between 1980 and 2016, more than doubling in this period (IFS 2018). The last decade has seen a partial reversal of this trend with real terms cut in the state sector of 8% since 2010 (ibid.).
Consequently, resource allocation to the private and state sectors is not proportionate to respective populations (LSE events 2019). Despite being responsible for the education of 1 in 16 students, the private sector employs 1 in every 7 teachers and spends 1 in every 6 British educational pounds (LSE events 2019). These figures do not take into account the sizeable estates, assets and endowments that many private schools enjoy. This yawning resource gap is particularly apparent when we compare the kinds of facilities students in the two sectors have
10 Based on the 2016 average exchange rate of GBP to EUR (Statista 2019)
11 Disposable income is the “amount of money that that all of the individuals in the household sector have available for spending or saving after income distribution measures (for example, taxes, social contributions and benefits) have taken effect” (ONS 2019)
access to. For example private schools are more than 10 times as likely as state schools to have a swimming pool (ISC 2016; Whittaker 2019).
While pupils overwhelmingly come from the highest income families, not all high income families privately educate their children. Even at the 95th percentile of the income distribution only around 1 in 7 families send their child to a private school, however participation is almost 0 below the 45th income percentile groups . Green et al. (2017) therefore characterise private12 education as a luxury good for the rich, with near-zero income elasticity of participation at lower income levels. Conditional on income at the 98th percentile, they estimate income elasticity of demand to be 0.57 (ibid.).
6.3.3.
Fee Assistance
Approximately 1% of students at private schools are on full bursaries, meaning they are not charged any direct fees. Independent Schools Council (ISC) schools spent roughly 4% of annual fee income on fee assistance for current students in 2016. Means-tested bursaries reached a high point in 2014 when 8% of pupils were able to access these (Green et al. 2017); therefore the majority of school place allocation (92%) was still entirely dependent on parents’ ability to pay school fees as advertised.
Despite claims from the ISC (2016) and other lobbying bodies that recent increases in fee assistance have made private schooling less socio-economically exclusive, a comprehensive meta-analysis by Green et al. (2017) concluded that there has been no change in the last 20 years in the proportion of private school parents from the top income decile or the highest NS-SEC category of managerial and professional classes.
6.3.4.
Destination of Pupils
There are broader consequences to these imbalances. Attending a private school improves a child’s chances of getting into a Russell Group university (widely considered to be the ‘top-tier’) by more than 1.5 times, even when statistical controls are included for NS-SEC natal class, ethnicity, and school leaving exam results (Bolivar 2013). This last control variable (exam results) is particularly telling, as even students who manage to achieve the same results in state
12Non-zero participation at these income levels is attributed to financial assistance from extended family, and bursaries or scholarships.
schools as their privately educated peers, despite the above resource disparities, are significantly statistically disadvantaged in university admissions (ibid.).
Private school alumni go on to dominate senior positions across a huge range of sectors, as Sutton Trust and ISC figures (see Figure 4., below) suggest. For example, 65% of senior judges, 44% of newspaper columnists and 64% of the current Conservative government cabinet were privately educated, as were 67% of all Oscar winners and 63% of Nobel prize winners (Sutton Trust ref; ISC 2017). This means private school alumni are over-represented by a factor of between 7 (newspaper columnists) and 10 (Oscar winners) times in these fields compared to 13 what would be expected if there were no advantage for the privately educated.
Figure 4. Educational Background across British professions Source: ISC 2016
6.3.5.
Clarendon Schools
The Clarendon schools are a small group of nine particularly influential and expensive schools within the private sector, listed in Figure 5 below, which have been highlighted as historical and ongoing engines of privilege (Green and Kynaston 2019; Reeves et al. 2017). These schools
13Based on today’s figures; these may not be reflective of discrepancies between private and state school alumni in categories that cover a large time-range such as all Oscar and Nobel Prize winners
emerged from the 14th to 17th centuries as charitable institutions established to educate ‘poor and needy scholars, of good character’ alongside fee-paying ‘ruling class boys’ (Gillard 2018). These schools were public in the sense that access was not restricted by religion or to those from local areas. They retain their charitable status to the present day, with some corresponding obligations to evidence ‘public benefit’ only laid out as recently as the Charities Act of 2006 (Green et al. 2017).
Figure 5. Clarendon School Characteristics Overview
Source: various: institutional websites, author’s own calculations Type Established Gender Admission of
Girls Student Body Age Number of Students Former pupils School Fees Boarding Day
Charterhouse Day and
boarding 1611 Boys and Girls (sixth form only) 1971 (sixth form) 2021 (all years) 13 to 18 800 Old Carthusians £39,165 £32,364
Eton Boarding 1440 Boys N/A 13 to 18 1313 Old
Etonians £40,668 N/A
Harrow Boarding 1572 Boys N/A 13 to 18 800 Old
Harrovians £40,050 N/A
Merchant
Taylor's Day 1561 Boys N/A 11 to 18 1100
Old Merchant
Taylors
N/A £20,698
Rugby Day and
boarding 1567 Boys and Girls 1975 (sixth form) 1992 (all years) 13 to 18 810 Old Rugbeians £35,760 £22,437
Shrewsbury Day and
boarding 1552 Boys and Girls 2008 (sixth form) 2014 (all years) 13 to 18 800 Old Salopians £37,560 £25,770
St Paul's Day and
boarding 1509 Boys N/A 13 to 18 950
Old
Paulines £38,991 £25,908
Westminster Day and
boarding 1560 Boys and Girls (sixth form only) 1973 (sixth form) 13 to 18 747 Old Westminst ers £39,252 £27,174
Winchester Boarding 1382 Boys N/A 13 to 18 673
Old Wykehamis
ts
£41,709 N/A
The origin of the term Clarendon in relation to this group of schools lies in an 1861 government investigation of institutional malpractice. Due to complaints of financial mismanagement, disrepair of buildings, and general mistreatment of pupils, the Clarendon Commission was established to investigate the governance of the nine schools (Shrosbree 1988). By this time, 14
as in the present day, these schools were primarily fee-charging institutions which educated the sons of the English upper and upper middle classes. The term is not widely used by schools or alumni themselves to refer to their shared connection to a particular type of school, having been superseded by terminology such as ‘public school’ which refers to a larger group of socioeconomically exclusionary educational institutions (Gillard 2011).
The alumni of these nine schools have dominated many of the UK’s spheres of influence for centuries, being over-represented in fields such as law, economics, media, economics and politics (Reeves et al. 2017). In particular, the legacy of these exclusive, historically gender-segregated private schools at ‘incubating’ male political leaders is striking. To take one emblematic example, of the 55 Prime Ministers elected to office in Great Britain, 37 (67%) are Clarendon alumni (ibid.). A noteworthy 36% of Britain’s Prime Ministers were educated at just one of these schools, Eton College, which currently has a yearly intake of around 260 boys (Eton College 2019). Since Reeves et al.’s 2017 study Old Etonian Boris Johnson (elected July 2019) also appears on this list. This is one indication of these institutions’ continued prominence. Reeves et al. (2017) show that although the Clarendon-conferred advantage has diminished over time, even today alumni are 94 times more likely to be featured in Who’s Who than peers of their age group who attended any other school (Reeves et al. 2017). Who’s Who is an annual publication with brief biographies of influential people in British life, including judges, civil servants, politicians and notable figures from academia, sport and the arts (Ukwhoswho.com 2019). In 2016 Goldthorpe (creator of the NS-SEC), an author not usually inclined to hyperbole, labelled these kinds of advantages “unacceptably extreme” (Goldthorpe 2016, pg.100). Though
14 St Pauls and Merchant Taylor’s were eventually excluded from the enquiry after successfully arguing that they were ‘private’ rather than ‘public’ schools
stark, this advantage has decreased in the last 250 years. The same report shows that Clarendon pupils born in 1847 were 274 times more likely to end up in Who’s Who than someone born in the same year who attended any other school. The authors suggest that in addition to wider access to education, this decline has been driven by the waning influence of military and religious orders and the increasing participation of women in British public life (ibid.).
Clarendon Characteristics
The oldest of the Clarendon schools, Winchester College, was founded in 1382, while the most recently founded was Charterhouse in 1611. The rest were founded during or close to the Tudor period of 1485 - 1603. The average size of the student body is c.900, ranging from approximately 670 (Winchester) to 1300 (Eton).
Three of the schools, Eton, Harrow and Winchester, are boys’ single-sex boarding-only which means that students cannot attend as day pupils. In the UK there are only four such schools remaining, the only non-Clarendon school being Radley (Dbpedia.org. 2019). Overall, five of the nine schools admit only boys. Of the four that admit girls, two do so only at age 16 (known in the English, Northern Irish and Welsh educational system as sixth form entry), while two are co-educational at all ages. One more, Charterhouse, is due to become fully co-educational by the end of 2021 (Charterhouse 2017). All except Merchant Taylor’s admit pupils from age 13 to 18 . 15
Clarendon schools are typically more expensive than other private schools. Average day fees, which range from £20,698 to £32,364, are £25,727 per year. This is a substantial 47% higher than day fees at other UK schools that also offer boarding. Boarding fees are between £35,760 and £41,709 per annum, with the average standing at £39,144. This is 26% higher than boarding school fees nationally, and amounts to a staggering 133% of the median UK 2018/19 household disposable income (ISC 2017; ONS 2019). 16
Eton College
Although it is neither the oldest nor the most expensive, Eton College holds a particularly symbolic position in UK discourse, operating as a synecdoche for private education and the
15 Merchant Taylors’ allows admission at age 11
16Disposable income is the “amount of money that that all of the individuals in the household sector have available for spending or saving after income distribution measures (for example, taxes, social contributions and benefits) have taken effect” (ONS 2019c)
