Who Gets the Best Jobs? Social Mobility in Britain

Tags: capitalism, class, education, inequality, marx/marxism, theory, privilege, social mobility, wealth, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 60:00
Access: YouTube: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5 (note: this video quality is poor and beginning with part 2, the audio and video are out of sync; more info at BBC)

Summary: This BBC documentary discusses the structure and experiences of social mobility and social reproduction within Britain. As the BBC notes, "Britain is a less equal society than at any time since World War One. In Who Gets the Best Jobs, Richard Bilton investigates access to the professions and finds that the best jobs are being snapped up by an increasingly small gene pool of privileged, well-connected families. Getting a good degree matters more than ever and those from low income families can no longer easily work their way up from the bottom without the qualifications, contacts and social skills that their more fortunate counterparts make full use of." It discusses the role of rising inequality, (unpaid) internships, private schooling, social capital/networking, individual aspiration, the transmission of skills in middle-class households, cultural capital (although they do not use the term), the increasing competition for good jobs, and compares mobility in Britain to other countries.

Submitted By: Paul Dean

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