Higher education and UK elite formation in the twentiethcentury

Gareth Williams Æ Ourania Filippakou

Published online: 2 May 2009� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract This study examines the proposition that mass higher education is, in practice,

less a network of more or less homogeneous activities than a series of concentric circles in

which elite institutions remain at the centre, but are surrounded by increasingly wide bands

of universities and colleges, that are less and less likely to set graduates on the road to elite

status the further they are from the centre. After a brief review of the classical and

subsequent literature on elites and elite formation, the empirical study uses data from the

very long established annual publication Who’s Who to make a quantitative analysis of the

higher education background of all 120,000 Who’s Who entries born in the twentieth

century. It finds that Oxford and Cambridge remained the dominant route to elite status

throughout the century, though their share fell from about a third to about a quarter of the

total. There were big rises in the contribution of other leading universities that have come

to be known as the ‘Russell Group’. An analysis by main occupational categories shows

that the political elite broadened its educational catchment area more than other groups.

The so-called ‘public’ (i.e. independent) secondary schools also continued to make con-

tributions much larger than their numbers warrant. The main conclusions are that Bour-

dieu’s notion of ‘symbolic capital’ offers a useful contribution to the interpretation of the

continued dominance of well-known high status universities, and that while there was

considerable change throughout the century, in general it followed the British tradition of

being evolutionary and slow. In policy terms it concluded that the present government is

justified in seeking both to widen participation generally and simultaneously to increase the

number of people from modest economic and social backgrounds who attend the high

prestige universities.

Keywords Elite formation � Diversity in mass higher education � Symbolic capital �Higher education policy

G. Williams (&)Centre for Higher Education Studies, Institute of Education, London University, London, UKe-mail: g.williams@ioe.ac.uk

O. FilippakouSchool of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

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High Educ (2010) 59:1–20DOI 10.1007/s10734-009-9229-6

Introduction

Most empirical studies of elite higher education have treated the universities as the end-

point of a socialisation process, in which the greater the privileges individuals inherit at

birth, the more they acquire throughout their initial education until they reach university.

Elite higher education has meant access to higher education that is restricted largely, if not

exclusively, to those coming from privileged social groups. The diversification inherent in

mass higher education has radically changed the picture. This study considers the con-

tribution of different categories of universities to the production of the elites of later

generations. In broad terms it examines the hypothesis that mass higher education is in

practice less a network of more or less homogeneous activities than a series of concentric

circles (see Fig. 1) in which the elite higher education remains at the centre, but is sur-

rounded by increasingly wide bands of higher education that becomes less and less likely

to lead successful graduates to elite status.

However, an elite outcome is not necessarily the same as an elite entry. If one of the

central functions of education is to introduce members of each generation to an

understanding of the society in which they will be participants, the higher and better the

education achieved the more advantageous the social outcomes. So long as society

remains unequal there will be some inequality in access to higher education. Yet there is

some leakage in both directions. Elite universities provide one of the main paths through

which new elites are formed. Not all the children of the elite of one generation become

members of the elite of the next generation and some of today’s elites come from less

privileged members of yesterday’s society. This study examines the higher education

background of those who became members of UK elite groups during the twentieth and

early twenty-first century and how this changed as higher education expanded. The

analysis presented attempts to meet Giddens and Stanworth (1974, p. 20) requirement

that any study on the changing nature of elites ‘can only be adequately explored by the

gathering of trend data’.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Eliteformation

Professional

General skill upgrading

training

HIGHER EDUCATION

Fig. 1 Contrasting models of elite formation in a mass higher education system

2 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

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The concept of ‘elite’: a general overview

Classical elite studies, such those of as Mosca (1939), Pareto (1935), and Michels (1962)

assumed that the unequal distribution of power was inevitable but did not seriously

examine economic drivers of that power. But how do the new elites emerge?

Pareto identified two types of elites: the governing and non-governing elites with the

former possessing the largest share of power. For Pareto, revolution and any other forms of

political change are the result of an elite becoming inadequate or decadent and then being

opposed and replaced or overthrown by the new emerging elite.

One of the main areas for elite studies is elite formation and power, where power

is understood as the potential to determine outcomes on three dimensions (Pusser and

Ordorica 2001, p. 162): ‘the first dimension is that of the actors, structure, and

process of decision-making (Weber 1946); the second addresses the control of the

political agenda; the third dimension is the process of shaping and incorporating

perceptions, cognitions, and preferences into a dominant ideology (Pusser and Ordo-

rica 2001, p. 162). Social class theorists, such as Burnham and Mills, claimed that the

class-structure of society, based on economic status, was the determining factor. For

these authors elite power comes from the control of economic production (Burnham

1942).

During the 1950s, the work of Wright Mills (1958) became influential. Mills analysed

the links between military, corporate, and political leaders and claimed that most citizens

were relatively powerless in relation to this closely knit and to some extent self perpetu-

ating elite. Mills was writing in the USA in the postwar period, which saw a leading

general elected as president, and the prestige of large corporations that had played an

important role in equipping the victorious armed forces with equipment and managerial

manpower, was high. However, the notion that membership of this elite was open to all

with the talent and ambition has remained a powerful myth in the US. Not so in the UK,

where the idea of the elite remained associated with the notion of a hereditary social elite,

partly synonymous with the titled aristocracy but extended to include those who were able

to live the lifestyle and, in particular, attend the type of schools and universities, used by

the aristocracy. Those few who managed to become members of the elite often did so

through educational achievement but occasionally as a result of success in marriage,

business, the prestigious professions or even the arts. The successful few were seen by

academic commentators as being ‘sponsored’ or admitted by the existing elite before they

could really join it. This contrasted with the image of contest mobility in the US, which

was perceived as open competition (Turner 1960; Morgan 1990). Turner later described

contest mobility as ‘… a system in which elite … status is the prize in an open contest and

is taken by the aspirants’ own efforts … Since the prize of successful upward mobility is

not in the hands of an established elite to give out, the latter cannot determine who shall

attain it and who shall not’ (Turner 1960, p. 72). Sponsored mobility, on the other hand,

refers to an educational system in which: ‘…elite recruits are chosen, by the established

elite or their agents, and elite status is given on the basis of some criterion of supposed

merit and cannot be taken by any amount of effort or strategy. Upward mobility is like

entry into a private club where each candidate must be ‘sponsored’ by one or more of the

members. Ultimately the members grant or deny upward mobility on the basis of whether

they judge the candidate to have those qualities they wish to see in fellow members’

(Turner 1960, p. 72).

Bennett (2005) has identified two types of elites: traditional elites, which are based on

kinship, landownership, or religious status and the new elites, which are based on

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 3

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educational qualification, management and bureaucratic or distinctive cultural skills. He

also suggests that there are strong connections between managerial, political, and

bureaucratic elites and the notions of technocratic expertise, while ‘in more recent usage—

media and sporting elites, for example—elites are affected by the principles of fame and

celebrity and the new forms of distinction and power arising from contemporary media’

(p. 101).

Entry to traditional and new elites is determined by distinctly different characteristics.

The organization of traditional elites is governed by the logic of closure and narrowness.

These may be affected in several ways. For example, marriage to a member of another

status group may be prohibited (for example, the Hindu caste system) or made very

difficult. In certain societies certain elite groups endeavour to create social closure by the

technique of elite self-recruitment (Weber 1946). What this means is that they erect bar-

riers to entry, which means that elite recruitment is not open to all on an equal basis. The

organization of the new elites, in contrast, is governed by the logic of openness and

breadth, as it is possible for all social groups, horizontally as well as vertically, to seek

access. The contrast is between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ patterns of recruitment. This distinc-

tion is similar, but not identical to, Turner’s notion of open and contest mobility.

Specific entry paths may exist for new elites, either because of the legacy of previous

structures or because they are constructed anew as society and the economy changes.

Becoming a member of the new elite as an ‘outsider’ is not easy but it is possible. Paths

into traditional elites are set with little or no leeway, for the new elites they are (relatively)

open. Thus the contrast between two types of elites is: traditional elites, specific paths and

controlled entrance; and new elites, open entrance and (relatively) random paths (Table 1).

The dominance of higher education as the currently most potent route for individuals

from all social groups to enter elites means that these institutions and practices have

considerable influence, indeed not only on the elites but also on the formation of all social

groups. The values and procedures of higher education are shaping and reshaping the

patterns of elite recruitment.

Higher education, elite formation and forms of capital

Bourdieu’s theory of capital helps to bridge the gap between studies of class and studies of

elites, and to examine the role of education in social reproduction and in facilitating social

mobility. In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Bourdieu (1984)

posits that social class position reflects four kinds of capital that are interconnected:

economic, social, cultural and symbolic. According to Bourdieu, members of lower classes

have not only little economic capital but also less valuable social and cultural capital.

Everyone inherits varying types and amounts of cultural capital that are reproduced

through what he refers to as the habitus, or ‘internalised, embodied, social structures’

(Bourdieu 1984, p. 468). For example, those born into upper classes will have access to

elite institutions and hereditary privileges (from private schools to attending the opera) that

function to reproduce their elite cultural capital and social location. Likewise, members of

Table 1 Profiles of eliteformation

Recruitment Pathways Access

Traditional elites Closed Narrow Heredity or sponsorship

New elites Open Broad Competition or ‘luck’

4 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

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the working class will reproduce their social location through their habitus by engaging in

lower status activities—such as playing snooker and watching TV. The concept of habitus

and cultural capital are valuable because they link individuals with macrostructures, pro-

viding a greater understanding of how structure is reproduced by individuals in action.

Clearly education and especially higher education can make a significant contribution to

the cultural capital an individual is able to accumulate.

Bourdieu, defines social capital as ‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources that

are linked to a possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relation-

ships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (Bourdieu 1986, p. 248). He also suggests

that the relationships and the assets made available through the relationships are a sig-

nificant part of the meaning and power of social capital. Networking is widely thought to

be one of the main reasons why some universities are more sought after than others.

However, from the viewpoint of higher education’s role in elite formation an important

but relatively neglected term, closely related to these forms of capital but introduced later

by Bourdieu (1993), is the idea of symbolic capital. Symbolic capital is an important

characteristic of all the elite groups. It relates to a person’s reputation and value as per-

ceived by others. It is context based and depends on others’ perceptions. Such value, and

the power that accompanies it, is built up over time. Bourdieu (1993, p. 37) describes the

concept of symbolic capital as ‘being known and recognized and is more or less synon-

ymous with: standing, good name, honour, fame, prestige and reputation’, all important

elements that characterise elites. Thus symbolic capital is defined through its function of

mediating power through prestige, and can be associated with economic, social or cultural

capital. Symbolic capital can give value and recognition to all the other forms of capital.

The evaluation of an elite individual is always a combination of the various forms of

capital. In that sense, it might be said that symbolic capital legitimises the elites to other

members of the group and to other social groups. It gives them access to status, power and,

often, wealth.

Traditional elites (for example aristocracies) tend to have economic, cultural and social

capital but they also inherit symbolic capital from previous generations—which ensures

their elite status. In other words, traditional elites are born with symbolic capital, while

potential new elites may have other forms of capital but lack symbolic capital until, in

some way they can ‘earn’ it through performance. A classic example in the UK were the

nineteenth century entrepreneurs who earned large amounts of money through ‘trade’ but

whose ‘new money’ did not give them elite status in the eyes of the traditional elites. But

two generations attending Oxford or Cambridge could often do the trick. For traditional

elite groups, symbolic capital always exists and thus is an important difference between

traditional and new elites (Table 2).

Higher education as a means of acquiring symbolic capital

Like economic capital, symbolic capital can be accumulated. Bourdieu argues that the

accumulation of symbolic capital is just as ‘rational’ as the accumulation of economic

capital, particularly since capital may be converted from one form to another, ultimately in

order to gain advantages in the form of additional wealth, power, allies and marriage

partners. Once acquired, symbolic capital can reproduce itself and grow—or decline:

‘When one knows that symbolic capital is credit, but in the broadest sense, a kind of

advantage, a credence, that only the group’s belief can grant to those who give it the best

symbolic and material guarantees, it can be seen that the exhibition of symbolic capital

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 5

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(which is always expensive in material terms) makes capital go to capital’ (Bourdieu 1993,

p. 120).

Traditionally higher education has been associated with the formation of the symbolic

capital associated with elite membership. Even in mass higher education the acquisition of

a degree brings with it some kudos, though some degrees count more than others. It is

difficult, however, to claim that in a mass higher education system, higher education is

concerned mainly with preparing people for elite status. Mass higher education is extre-

mely diverse and, increasingly, institutions have different roles and missions. In such a

wide-ranging higher education system, therefore, different universities and courses can be

seen having different roles in elite formation. Attendance at some universities is in itself

evidence of the acquisition of symbolic capital, but higher education in general also

enhances social, economic and cultural capital, and thus indirectly helps to produce

symbolic capital.

The central assumption of this study is that in the UK the decline of the symbolic capital

of traditional elites over the twentieth century was accompanied by the rise of other forms

of symbolic capital formation, especially that provided by some types of higher education.

The questions it explores are:

• Is the idea of symbolic capital that traditional elites possessed still a useful concept?

• Did pathways to elite status become broader and more random than once they were?

• Which aspects or which types of higher education contribute to the formation of elites

in a mass system?

When Martin Trow wrote his influential OECD paper introducing the term ‘elite’ into

the higher education policy discourse, the term in the US tended to signify institutions

which provided pathways into the existing elite but Trow considered that the notion of an

elite education changed as higher education expanded. ‘Elite higher education is concerned

primarily with shaping the mind and character of the ruling class as it prepares elite

students for broad elite roles in government and the learned professions. In mass higher

education the institutions are still preparing elites, but a much broader range of elites which

includes the leading strata of all the technical and economic organisations in the society

…’ (Trow 1974, p. 63). However, as enrolment levels approached 50% of the population

Table 2 Forms of capital and elite groups

Forms ofcapital

Cultural Social Economic Symbolic

Examples Knowledge, skills,education, andadvantages that a personhas, which give them ahigher status in society

Resources based ongroup membership,relationships,networks ofinfluence andsupport

Commandovereconomicresources

Resources available to anindividual on the basisof honour, prestige orrecognition

Traditionalelites

Family Networks retainedfrom childhood

Inherited Kinship, landownership,or religious status

New elites Education Changing socialnetworks

Earned Educational qualification,management andbureaucratic skills,political assets, ordistinctive culturalskills

6 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

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HE institutions ‘are training not primarily elites, either broad or narrow, but the whole

population, and their chief concern is to maximise the adaptability of that population to a

society whose chief characteristic is rapid social and technological change’ (Trow 1974, p.

64).

However, a model of mass higher education that was implicit in Trow’s original paper

but which was not much taken up by academic and political observers until recently

(though Gellert 1999 was a partial exception) is that in practice mass higher education

consists in effect of a series of concentric circles with concentrated elite preparation at the

heart and progressively lower density of elites as they approach the outer limits. This

contrasts with a system in which elite formation is randomly spread throughout all higher

education institutions. The contrast is depicted in Fig. 1.

For Trow ‘elite’ was largely synonymous with merit, and higher education was the main

pathway by which the meritorious of each generation could become members of the elite of

the next generation. In the UK, however, it was often taken to indicate the institutions

which helped the existing social elite to reproduce themselves and new elite members were

sponsored into the ways of traditional elites. This has bedevilled the higher education

policy debate in England into the twenty-first century. The percentage of students from non

fee paying schools is considered to be one of the key indicators of ‘widening participation’

and hence the extent to which a university is opening up opportunities to enter the ‘elite’ to

broader social groups. There remains much political concern that leading universities, such

as Oxford and Cambridge, are still recruiting too many of their students from amongst

those who have had privileged social and economic backgrounds.

Data sources and methodology

The annual publication Who’s Who, from which most of the empirical evidence used in this

study is taken, began publication soon in 1849. At that time the word elite referred to the

leading members of respected social groups, without pejorative implications of privilege or

exploitation of others, a meaning it has retained in such journalistic expressions as eliteathletes participating in mass marathons.

In this study UK elites are defined as those individuals whose names are included in

Who’s Who, which claims to be ‘the definitive directory of everyone who’s anyone in

Britain…(T)he book aims to list people who, through their careers, affect the political,

economic, scientific and artistic life of the country’ (Who’s Who 2008, p. 4). Each annual

issue contains over 33,000 short biographies of living noteworthy and influential indi-

viduals, from all walks of life. Approximately 1,000 new entries are added every year.

Since 2005, a searchable version of Who’s Who has been available on the worldwide web,

spanning 100 years, containing over 120,000 short biographies of every entry in Who’sWho since the late nineteenth century. This comprehensive online edition provides a

unique database to explore changes in the higher education background of elite groups

during the twentieth century.

Some people are included ex officio, others on the basis of fairly well defined levels of

achievement. All members of both Houses of Parliament have a place, including, in recent

years, members of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and UK members of the

European Parliament. All permanent secretaries and deputy secretaries in the Civil Service

are included as are judges, vice-chancellors and military officers of the rank of General,

Admiral and Marshall of the Royal Air Force. Bishops of the Church of England are

included as are equivalent leaders of many other religious denominations. All members of

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 7

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the hereditary aristocracy are invited to have an entry when they inherit the title. Other

entries have less specific rules. Many university professors are deemed to be distinguished

enough (though a far smaller proportion than in earlier years) as are leading members of

professional organisations and trade unions and chairmen, chief executives and some other

directors of leading companies.

‘Each entry is in a standard form, full name and present post being followed by date of

birth and family details, education, career in date order, publications, recreations and

address’ (Who’s Who p. 5) Thus it is possible in principle to trace the higher education

institutions attended by all the biographies throughout the century. There are, however,

some practical problems. With 120,000 entries it is not possible to verify each individual

entry manually, without considerable resources. The online database allows limited

Boolean searching for keywords in the texts. It is possible to identify, for example, the

number of individuals in any particular occupational group with the word ‘Cambridge’ OR

Oxford somewhere NEAR the word ‘university’ under the ‘Education’ heading in any

occupational category. However, there are various practical problems arising from the fact

that individuals do not in fact standardise the way they refer to their almae matres. Some

Oxford and Cambridge graduates simply give the name of their college assuming that any

‘educated reader’ will know, for example that Balliol is part of Oxford University. This

problem also arises in London where Imperial College and LSE in particular do not always

mention the University of which they are part. Another problem is lack of consistency in

naming institutions. For example LSE is usually referred to as LSE but sometimes as

‘London School of Economics’, sometimes as ‘London Sch of Economics’, sometimes as

‘London Sch Econ’ and various combinations of these. An additional difficulty is that

between 5 and 10% of the entries had received at least some of their higher education in

other countries and it was not possible to identify a priori every university throughout the

world over the whole century. However, it was possible to search for the word ‘university’

NOT accompanied by the name of any UK higher education institution. In addition certain

institutions, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Trinity College Dublin, Ecole, Poly-

technique appeared often enough to be identified individually. Fortunately the search rules

allow the use of * and ? to indicate possibly missing words and letters. Other practical

problems were the Higher Education institutions that were not universities for all or part of

the period reviewed. A large amount of iteration and trial and error was necessary to find

algorithms that identified those who attended particular groups of institutions. A margin of

observational error is associated with all the estimates, though there is little reason to

suppose this increased or diminished over time.

The Who’s Who list is larger and broader than those included in many analyses of elite

groups, which have been qualitative studies of very small numbers at the top of political,

military and industrial pyramids (e.g. Sampson 1965, 1982; Giddens and Stanworth 1974;

Sutton Trust 2009). Yet the numbers in Who’s Who remain a tiny percentage of the

population. In the 2008 edition 33,116 living people were identified. This represents 0.09%

(or\1 in 1,000) of the UK population aged 30 and over. Once an individual is included on

the basis of achievement at a certain stage of his or her life they remain in each successive

edition until they die when their biographies are transferred to Who was Who. The biog-

raphies of all entries, living and dead, are included in the online edition.

Chart 1 shows the gender of the Who’s Who elite amongst individuals born in each

decade of the twentieth century up to 1965: thus it includes everyone in Who’s Who aged

about 40 and above. These will mainly be people who received their initial higher edu-

cation between about 1920 and 1990. These are supplemented by figures of those joining

the Who’s Who elite in each year between 1995 and 2008 during which time a separate

8 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

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on-line listing of those joining Who’s Who for the first time each year has been available.

Chart 1 shows the expansion in the proportion of women, from \5% of those born at the

beginning of the twentieth century to about 20% of those born in the 1960s. However,

among the new entrants between 1995 and 2008 the proportion of women did not rise

above about the 20% it had reached by the mid 1990s.

The online edition also identifies all its entries as belonging to one or more of 25

occupational groups.1 These groupings have been selected primarily for popular and

journalistic interest and do not correspond precisely to any conventional social science

categories. For this paper they have been aggregated into five groups, of which the three

largest broadly correspond to the three main categories of elite that have been identified in

the literature: the governing and political elite; the economic elite; and those who shape

perceptions, cognitions, and preferences. The occupational categories of the five groups are

shown in the ‘‘Appendix’’ and their composition in Chart 2.

Higher education of UK elites in the 20th century

The main concern of this paper is the higher educational background of these elites.

Long before the current vogue for university league tables, the UK has had an informal

recognition of the diversity of its higher education institutions and of the prestige of each

university within this range. This is in part a result of the long established academic and

financial autonomy of the universities, which has allowed each to determine its own niche

in the higher education market. A national market in higher education is also long standing

in that for much of the UK, leaving home to go to university has been a cultural norm.

Universities, therefore, recruited from a national pool of applicants and the currency with

which students ‘bought’ places during the post war period of generous financial subsidy

from government was their ‘A’ level (secondary school leaving examination) marks. Those

with the best marks were able to choose which university to attend while those with lower

Men

Women

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971

Men

1995

1998

2001

2004

2007

Women

Chart 1 Men and women in Who’s Who by date of birth or date of first entry

1 Some individuals are classified as belonging to two or more groups because they have achieved distinctionin more than one area of activity.

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 9

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marks had to settle for a university, which would accept them. A terminology has recently

been introduced in which a few universities are referred to as ‘selecting’ institutions, which

select students who compete for entry, and ‘recruiting’ universities, which compete

amongst each other for what potential students are available. However, the phenomenon

has been in existence for many years and it is to be expected that the former group of

institutions will provide a larger share of those who become the elite of each generation.

Over the century the classification of universities was further complicated by the entry

of new higher education institutions and the changing perceived status of existing higher

education institutions. The status of universities has been made transparent to a wider

clientele in recent years by the development national and international league tables and to

a large extent these have confirmed the informal rankings of universities which have long

existed in the consciousness of educated people in the UK.

For the present study a sixfold categorisation of universities was used, based on recent

conventions: Oxford and Cambridge; London; Other Russell Group (self designated

research intensive universities); Other pre-1992 universities (those which were incorpo-

rated as universities before the reforms of the early 1990s) post-1992 universities (those

institutions which have become universities since 1992): other HE institutions (for

example, Art, Music, Military, Agricultural Colleges). Higher education in other countries

constitutes the sixth category.

Chart 3 shows how the number of Who’s Who entries from each of these six higher

education categories developed throughout the century. Not surprisingly the number of

prominent individuals without any higher education fell from more than a quarter of those

born in the early years of the century to just over one in ten of those who appeared in Who’sWho for the first time in 2008. The other consistent feature is the rise of the ‘other Russell

Group’ universities whose numbers increased fairly steadily from 10% of the total to 28% in

2007.2 London doubled its representation from 7% early in the century to 14% in the 2008

entry. These increases resulted mainly from the expansion of higher education and relatively

little from a decline in the contributions of Oxford and Cambridge, which accounted for

about a third of the total in the early years and about a quarter in the later period.

Agriculture Industry Business

Arts Media Sport

Law

Education Scholarship

Science

Government Public

Service

Aristocracy etc

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1901 1906 1911 1916 1921 1926 1931 1936 1941 1946 1951 1956 1961

date of birth

Agriculture

Industry Business

Arts Media

Sport

Law Medicin

Education

Scholarship Science

Government

Public

Service

Aristocracy

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Agriculture Industry Business

Arts Media Sport

Law MedicineMedicine

Education Scholarship

Science

Government Public Service

Aristocracy

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

year of 1st entry on elite list

Chart 2 Who’s Who entries by occupation and date of birth 1900–1965 and by year of first entry 1995–2008

2 The 2008 figure seems to be a bit of an aberration with a sudden big rise in the Oxbridge figure.

10 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

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However, the continued pre-eminence of Oxford and Cambridge remains the most

notable feature of the figures. Table 3 assumes that graduates of the 1920s and 1930s were

mainly born in the first two decades of the century. Amongst this birth cohort Oxford and

Cambridge produced about 30% of the country’s graduates but they accounted for 65% of

the UK graduate elite. London was responsible for about 15% of the elite graduates from

18% of the graduates and ‘other Russell Group’ universities 18% of the UK graduate elite

from 35% of the graduates and what are now ‘other pre 1992’ universities 2% of the

graduate elite from 17% of the graduates. Amongst the 1940s and 1950s birth cohort,

mainly graduating between about 1955 and 1975 and appearing in Who’s Who about

20 years later, Oxbridge was still supplying 33% of the elite UK graduates from about 10%

of the total graduates. London’s relative share of both graduates and elite had remained

more or less constant while ‘other Russell Group universities managed to double their

Who’s Who representation from a small increase in their share of graduates. The relativeincrease in ‘other higher education’s’ contribution to the elite as defined in this paper was

even more spectacular, a ninefold increase in the elite share from little more than a

doubling of the share of graduates produced.

The figures in Table 3 are based on some major assumptions about average ages of

graduation and of achieving distinction so they must be seen as giving indications of orders

of magnitude of change rather than precise estimates.

Table 4 takes the assumptions a stage further and examines the relative probabilities of

Who’s Who recognition by assuming that on average an individual graduates at the age of

25 and appears in Who’s Who from the ages of 40–50. The table shows that, on these

assumptions, every thousand male graduates from Oxford or Cambridge born in the first

15 years of the century produced 120 Who’s Who entries: the corresponding figure for

women Oxbridge graduates was about 21. In the post war period the probability of rec-

ognition for male graduates from these two universities fell to 105 per thousand for men

but rose to 26 for women. Graduates from other universities consistently had much lower

chances of appearing in the elite listings, and in all cases women continued to lag behind

men though the gap narrowed considerably. It needs to be noted that the dropping off of all

the figures for those born after 1949 is largely because many people are recognised by

Oxbridge

London

Other Russell Group

Other pre 1992HE Abroad

Other HE

NO HE

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%19

01

1906

1911

1916

1921

1926

1931

1936

1941

1946

1951

1956

1961

Date of Birth

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2008

Date of 1st appearance

Chart 3 UK elite formation in twentieth century HE of elites in all occupations

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 11

123

Who’s Who fairly late in their lives and many of the graduates of 1980 and later are still

advancing in their careers. However, the relativities between university types are not

seriously affected, so it is possible to say that amongst the 1949–1966 birth cohort, those

with Oxbridge qualifications were eight times more likely to have been recognised by 2008

than those from ‘other pre 1992’ universities and three times more likely than those from

‘other Russell Group Universities’. These relative advantages of an Oxbridge qualification

leading to Who’s Who recognition are actually higher than amongst those born early in the

twentieth century when the corresponding figures were less than twice as high for Russell

group universities and \4 times as high for the other pre-1992 universities. One effect of

mass higher education seems to have been an increase in the relative elite forming

potential of the two ‘elite’ universities.

Elite diversity

Higher education in elite universities is a better preparation for some elite groups than

others. Charts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 show the higher education background of five occupational

elite groups from early in the twentieth century up to 2008.

Table 3 Relative probabilitiesof Who’s Who appearance bygraduates of different universitytypes

Sources: Who’s Who onlineedition; UGC annual reports

University type andmain period of studyat university

Who’s Who UKgraduate entries(%)

UKgraduates(%)

1920–1939

Oxbridge 65 30

London 15 18

Other Russell Group 18 35

Other pre 1992 Universities 2 17

1955–1975

Oxbridge 33 10

London 14 14

Other Russell Group 35 38

Other HE 18 38

Table 4 Number of Who’s Whoentries per 1,000 graduates

Sources: Who’s Who onlineedition; UGC annual reports

Date of birth Oxbridge London Russell Other pre1992

Men

1902–1916 120 58 69 33

1944–1958 46 15 20 7

Women

1902–1916 21 5 6 3

1944–1958 26 9 10 3

All

1902–1916 105 39 52 24

1944–1958 42 14 17 6

1949–1966 24 5 8 3

12 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

123

Amongst those born in the early years of the twentieth century (Chart 1) Oxford and

Cambridge dominated all the elites having a higher percentage than all other UK uni-

versities combined in all the occupational groups. By the final years of the twentieth

century and the early years of the twenty-first the Russell Group universities (including

London) made in total a considerably greater contribution than Oxbridge in all occupa-

tional categories, even though Oxbridge still provided a quarter of the total. It is partic-

ularly noteworthy that in recent years the Russell Group of Universities in total has

dominated the elites in the Education/Scholarship/Science category with Oxford and

OXBRIDGE

NO HE

LONDONOTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992HE ABROAD

OTHER HE

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

1901

1906

1911

1916

1921

1926

1931

1936

1941

1946

1951

1956

1961

1971

Date of Birth

NO HE

OXBRIDGE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992

HE ABROAD

OTHER HE

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

Date of 1st entry in Who's Who

1966

Chart 4 HE of elites in industry/business/agriculture 1900–2008

OXBRIDGE

NO HE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992HE ABROAD

OTHER HE

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

1901

1906

1911

1916

1921

1926

1931

1936

1941

1946

1951

1956

1961

Date of Birth

OXBRIDGE

NO HE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992HE ABROAD

OTHER HE

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

Date of 1st entry in Who's Who19

66

Chart 5 HE of elites in arts/media/sport 1900–2008

OXBRIDGE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992HE ABROAD

OTHER HENO HE

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1901

1906

1911

1916

1921

1926

1931

1936

1941

1946

1951

1956

1961

1971

Date of Birth

OXBRIDGE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992

HE ABROADOTHER HE

NO HE

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

Date of 1st entry in Who's Who

1966

Chart 6 HE of elites in education/scholarship/science 1900–2008

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 13

123

Cambridge particularly prominent, whereas other universities and other higher education

institutions have made a much better showing in the industry/business group. Government

and public service also draws most of its leading members from universities other than

Oxford and Cambridge, though they still account for about a fifth of the new entries each

year in this category at the beginning of the present century (Chart 7).

The ‘no higher education’ category is of some interest. Not surprisingly there are very

few in the Education\Scholarship\Science category and there are also relatively few people

without higher education who achieve eminence in government and public service.

However, lack of higher education does not seem to have been an insurmountable obstacle

to achieving pre-eminence in arts/media/sport or in industry/business/agriculture.

The most dramatic changes, however, are to be seen in the ‘aristocracy’ group,

admittedly as small group comprising about 5% of the total names in Who’s Who. Amongst

the aristocracy about 40% of those born early in the twentieth century had an Oxbridge

education while amongst those appearing for the first time in the twenty-first century only

15% had attended one of those universities. On the other hand of those borne in the first

two decades of the twentieth century about one-third had no higher education, and this

figure was, if anything exceeded by those appearing for the first time in the present

century.3 This may indicate the old aristocracy becoming decadent in the Paretian sense

and being replaced by new elites. It certainly shows that the traditionally elite universities

were becoming more open, less socially selective and more intellectually meritocratic.

Production or reproduction of elites

Ever since sociological discussion of elites began late in the nineteenth century there has

been debate about whether education, and especially higher education, is primarily one of

the main mechanisms through which existing elite groups pass on their privileges to their

genetic successors, or whether it is a means by which elite groups are refreshed with new

blood in each generation. It has been shown above that the percentage of Oxbridge

graduates appearing in Who’s Who on account of being members of the aristocracy fell

considerably during the twentieth century and it was suggested that this provides some

evidence of these universities becoming less socially elitist and more meritocratic.

The Who’s Who data make it possible to probe a little more deeply into the educational

background of the elites being considered in this paper. As well as details of their higher

OXBRIDGE

LONDON

OTHER

RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992HE ABROAD

OTHER HE

NO HE

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

100%

1901 1906 1911 1916 1921 1926 1931 1936 1941 1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971

Date of Birth

OXBRIDGE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELL

OTHER PRE 1992

HE OTHER HE

NO HE

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

Date of 1st Who's Who Entry

Chart 7 Higher education of government and public service elites 1900–2008

3 This figure omits those who succeeded to their titles below the age of 20 before which they cannot beexpected to have had some higher education.

14 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

123

education most of the entries in Who’s Who also give details of the secondary schools they

attended. About 200 of these schools belong to an organisation called the Headmasters’

and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC). These are fee-paying schools with a long and

powerful tradition of providing a robust academic and character-building curriculum for

the children of upper and upper middle class families. Ten of them claim to have been

founded before Oxford or Cambridge Oxford and many have strong links with these two

universities. Most are older than most UK universities (cf Drysdale 2007; Edwards 1957;

Gourlay 1951; see also Public Schools 2008). Many believe that these schools more than

the universities have been the prime institutions through which existing elites have passed

on their privileges—and symbolic capital.

Table 5 shows how the HMC schools fared as elite formers during the twentieth cen-

tury. They provided over 40% of the Who’s Who elite groups born in the first two decades

of the century and about a quarter at the end.4 However, amongst the HMC alumni who

achieved their elite status via Oxford and Cambridge the HMC proportion declined from

22 to 11% of the total entries. Conversely the number from these two universities

achieving elite status having had secondary education in other schools rose from 12% to

over 16% of the total. London showed similar trends, though on a lower base. Other

universities recruited more of their elite alumni from the HMC schools as the century

progressed. Their share of the HMC schools’ contribution to the elite rose from 4.2 to 7.4%

of the total. However, the largest rate of increase was amongst those from non-HMC

schools and ‘other pre 1992’ universities. They rose from 2.9% of the Who’s Who elite to

10.9% of the new entries at the end of the century.

These figures show some signs of higher education helping in the process through which

relatively closed traditional sponsored elite was being displaced by more open new elites

winning their positions through contest. Paths to elite status were becoming broader. UK

higher education became somewhat less socially elitist and more meritocratic during the

century. Those who were able to buy an elite secondary education were relatively less

likely to appear amongst the elite of their generation by the beginning of the twenty-first

century than they were at the beginning of the twentieth century; and they were less likely

to do so via the route of the so-called elite universities and more likely to obtain their

higher education in lower status universities. Contemporary UK higher education is not

merely reproducing the elites of previous generations. But from an egalitarian point of

OXBRIDGE

NO HE

LONDON

OTHER RUSSELLOTHER PRE 92

HE ABROAD

OTHER HE

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

1901

1906

1911

1916

1921

1926

1931

1936

1941

1946

1951

1956

1961

1966

1Date of Birth

OxbridgeLondon

Other Russell

Other pre 92HE Abroad

Other HE

NO HE

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

Date of 1st entry in Who's Who971

Chart 8 Higher education of aristocracy 1900–2008

4 Preparation for elite status is far from uniform amongst these schools. Eton easily tops the list with over6,000 mentions, more than three times as many as any of the other schools. At the other extreme nearly 100of the schools had fewer than 100 mentions over the twentieth century.

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 15

123

view there is still a long way to go. Furthermore if membership of the aristocracy still

indicates possession of significant symbolic and other forms of human capital, many of its

members still appear not feel the need of a helping hand from higher education.

Methodological reservations

The concept of an elite is not a fixed one. There are elites in many walks of life and one

important question is the extent to which different elites are intertwined. How big and how

closed is an elite? This study has taken a pragmatic approach. Who’s Who claims to be a

source of information on people of influence and interest in all fields. It has been existence

for 160 years and in its present form for over a century. It contains more or less stand-

ardised information on the education of its biographies. It has for more than a decade

produced a readily searchable on-line edition. It is an unparalleled source of information on

changes in the profiles of the type of people it includes. But do these people constitute an

elite in any useful sense? This breaks down into two questions. Are all of those who have a

claim to be considered part of an elite included? Are all those who are included really part

of an elite?

Who’s Who has always been primarily a commercial venture. It needs to include

information about the individuals whom other ‘educated’ people are likely to be willing to

spend money finding out about. However, it explicitly eschews temporary celebrity or

wealth recently gained. It remains primarily a printed reference book and, therefore its

Table 5 UK elites in twentieth century: secondary and higher education background (percentages of totalWho’s Who entries)

Date of Birth First entry in Who’sWho between 1995and 2008 (%)1901–1920

(%)1921–1940(%)

1941–1960(%)

1960–1980(%)

Oxbridge HMC 21.9 18.3 13.5 12.0 10.9

Oxbridge other 12.0 13.7 15.5 16.5 16.1

London HMC 3.2 3.1 2.5 2.3 2.4

London other 6.4 7.7 7.9 5.6 8.2

Russell HMC 2.4 3.1 3.7 4.2 3.3

Russell other 7.2 9.7 14.9 13.7 15.4

Pre 1992 HMC 1.0 1.6 3.2 2.8 3.2

Pre 1992 other 2.9 4.7 10.8 10.7 10.9

Other HE HMC 0.8 0.7 1.0 1.0 0.9

Other HE other 3.8 3.7 4.5 6.4 4.5

Military HMC 3.1 1.3 0.8 0.4 0.7

Military other 2.7 1.2 0.6 0.1 0.5

Abroad HMC 1.1 1.5 1.1 0.8 0.9

Abroad other 6.3 7.0 5.8 4.3 6.8

No HE HMC 7.6 7.4 4.1 3.3 3.6

No HE other 17.5 15.3 10.1 15.8 11.8

HMC total 41.2 37.1 30.0 26.9 25.9

Other 2ary Ed total 58.8 62.9 70.0 73.1 74.1

16 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

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length is constrained on grounds of both cost and manipulability. The 2008 edition has

2,574 closely typed pages, similar to previous years. It is able to add each year approxi-

mately the number of new entries needed to replace those who drop out through death and

move to another place—Who Was Who.

Financial wealth in itself does not ensure inclusion. There is little correlation between

extreme wealth and Who’s Who inclusion. A check of a random sample of 100 of the

members of the Sunday Times 2008 list of the 2,000 richest people in the UK showed that

only just over a quarter of them were included though the fact that a high proportion of the

wealthy individuals are not UK citizens and are global rather than UK based, even though

included in UK rich list, complicates the picture. There was some concentration of those

included amongst the ‘super rich’ at the very top of the list. Clearly wealth in itself is not

considered by the editors of Who’s Who to be an indication of lasting influence or interest

However, the Chairs and/or Chief Executives of 85 of the companies in the FTSE 100 list

of the 100 biggest public companies registered in the UK are included. Those who are not

included appear to be either companies or individuals who have very recently joined this

list.

Sixty per of those named as the top 100 most influential people in the UK media world

by the Guardian Newspaper in 2008 are included and several of those who are not are

either not based in the UK, such as the inventors of the Google search engine, or whose

media prominence is recent and possibly transitory, such as stars of some popular tele-

vision programmes. About 70% of the people whose birthdays were reported in a sample of

the leading national newspapers, which is an indicator of prominence in the public eye

especially for the Arts-Media-Sport category, also appear in Who’s Who.

At the other end of the spectrum it may be asked whether all those included can really

be considered to be members of an elite. Once included, an individual stays on the list

forever. This potentially creates three problems. One is that some individuals may enjoy a

brief period of prominence or influence and then fall back into obscurity. A second

problem is that in order to minimise the first the editors may excessively cautious about

whom they include and this may explain in part the reluctance to include individuals who

have become rich or famous quickly. This is not theoretically a disadvantage. All the

literature about elites assumes a degree of permanence amongst those considered as elite.

The third difficulty which is apparent from the annual new entry lists is that some names

appear for the first time only late in their lives, on the basis of past, rather than current

achievement.

Other reservations concern the occupational categories. The Who’s Who editorial team

classify each entry according to recent occupations in which an individual may be

prominent enough to be included. Thus some people may be classified as belonging to

more than one occupational category, a few to several, for example a Member of Parlia-

ment who is also chair of a company and president of a charity. The average individual

included for the first time in recent years was prominent in about 1.4 of the Who’s Whooccupational groups or broadly that about one person in three was distinguished in more

than one area of activity. This lends credence to the view that various elites are interlocking

(cf. Wright Mills 1958).

There are similar reservations about the educational experiences recorded. Many peo-

ple, particularly, unsurprisingly, in the Education/Scholarship/Science group, record

experiences in several higher education institutions as being part of their education.5 This

5 This is different from career experiences in several universities, though a few entries seem to fudge thetwo.

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 17

123

means that the figures recorded show those who have had some higher education expe-

rience in a particular category of university, not that their initial formative higher education

experience was there, even though this is what we would really like to measure. More

sophisticated partly manual searches in later work may make this possible. The average

recent entrant recorded higher education at 1.25 institutions but amongst the ESS category

the figure was 1.56. These figures may indicate some overestimate of the Oxford and

Cambridge representation since it is not unusual for high achieving graduates from other

universities to seek a further qualification from a higher status university. However, the

fact that they do so may say something about the ‘symbolic’ elite conferring powers of

these institutions.

A final problem is that, apart from the aristocracy and a few sports and media indi-

viduals, most people are in their forties before they achieve the secure distinction that earns

them an entry in this elite listing. (Alexander the Great would not have appeared) More

importantly we can learn little about the effects of the massive higher education expansion

of the early 1990s because most representatives from these graduates are likely to be

entering the Who’s Who list during the next two decades.

These problems point the way to many opportunities for further work. However, the

figures cited in this paper can validly be interpreted as indicators of orders of magnitude of

long-term trends if not as sharply defined measures of immediate policy relevance. The

fact that comparable biographical information is available on several thousand prominent

individuals over a long period of time does make this a useful basis for exploring long term

trends in the educational background of elite groups in the UK.

Conclusions

In broad terms the data invite two possible narratives. One observes continuity, the other

sees change. The first stresses the continuing prominence of privilege, through the HMC

schools and Oxford and Cambridge, in the formation of UK elites. In the period 1995–

2008, despite producing not much more than 5% of the graduates Oxbridge still accounted

for over 20% of the members of the elite, and the HMC schools responsible for about 5%

of the school leavers nearly a quarter of the Who’s Who newly recognised elite. A graduate

from Oxford or Cambridge is still at least 3 times as likely to appear in Who’s Who as one

from another university.

However, even this narrative would need to take into account the fact that Oxford and

Cambridge are clearly no longer just the finishing schools of an existing social elite. The

percentage of the aristocracy and of the alumni of HMC schools who attended these

universities fell markedly over the twentieth century while the Oxbridge share in the

Education/Scholarship/Science category fell much less. This clearly suggests universities

which moved from being mainly institutions for the socially elite to reproduce their own

kind to being ones where intellectual excellence was the dominant consideration in

preparation for a new more open elite. However, according to this narrative, UK higher

education remains elite in the sense of a small number of schools and universities

continuing to produce a high proportion of those who move into elite positions in society.

There is still a clearly defined main road to elite status. Mass higher education has, in many

respects, provided congestion relieving side roads around this elite-producing main

highway.

The alternative narrative focuses attention on the progress that has been made in

broadening the pathways to elitism and the formation of open new elites. It draws attention

18 High Educ (2010) 59:1–20

123

to the rise of other universities. The rise of ‘other Russell Group’ universities from

accounting for 10% of the elite to over a quarter by the beginning of the present century

and the fact that nearly a third of the newly designated elite were educated in non HMC

schools and non Russell group higher education institutions are, according to this narrative,

the most important aspects of the empirical evidence. This narrative also draws attention to

the rise in the percentage of women in the elite groups and the rise in the proportion of elite

women from the ‘elite’ universities. The roads to elite status have multiplied and access is

more random. Sponsored elite formation is gradually giving way to contestation for elite

membership, but the long-standing British tradition of evolutionary social change is

continuing.

The first of the interpretations will used as a basis for claims that only firm national

policies can ensure equivalence between higher education institutions and that only radical

change can bring about greater equity in the distribution of life chances that higher edu-

cation offers. Their supporters will point to the continued dominance of Oxford and

Cambridge despite the massive expansion of other higher education institutions in the

twentieth century. The second reading of the data will appeal more to those who prefer

social and cultural change to be evolutionary. Oxford and Cambridge have changed and

their position in the profile of higher education pathways to elite status has been modified.

For a young person intent on achieving social prominence it still makes sense to try to gain

some educational experience in one of the two ancient universities, but graduates of other

universities are increasingly finding their way to the top of the social dungheap.

Both explanations help to make some sense of recent government policies in the UK

which have sought both to widen participation in higher education generally and to

increase further the proportion of young people from less advantaged social groups who

obtain places in Oxford or Cambridge. Some higher education increases the life chances of

most people but for those who aspire to leading positions in a wide range of activities a

qualification from one of these two universities remains a great help.

Appendix

See Table 6.

Table 6 Occupational Elite Groups

Who’s Who occupational categories Aggregated occupationalgroups used in this paper

Agriculture & food; building & heavy engineering; business & finance;manufacture & industry; trade & retailing, transport & communication,technology

Agriculture, business andindustry

Art; film, broadcasting & publishing; literature and journalism;music; sport & games; theatre and entertainment

Arts, media and sport(AMS)

Education & learning; scholarship & research, science, medicine Education, scholarshipand science

Armed forces & intelligence; politics and government,religion and belief; law & crime social welfare and reform

Government and publicservice

Royalty & aristocracy; individuals; travel & exploration Aristocracy etc.

High Educ (2010) 59:1–20 19

123

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