Quote:
Originally Posted by llamaorama
I wonder if it's an outcome of what types of industries are present, how they filter job candidates, and also where the talent is coming from.
I'd hypothesize the most pedigree-oriented scenario would exist in very soft, niche occupations like writing or fashion that are hard to get into and stand out, in a location with high availability of privileged people from nearby elite schools.
The least pedigree-oriented occupations would be in things like tech where skill is measured in demonstrated experience and certifications, in cities that never had a lot of bourgeois liberal arts schools and who source their workforce from all over the country and world.
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I'd say that is probably true. Like 10023 says it can be a thing in certain circles in London (and elsewhere in the UK probably to a lesser extent) but how much you actually experience that will depend very much on the type of sector you work in and the people you hang out with I think.
If you are looking to get into the higher echelons of the legal sector in London it might be a huge thing from what little I know of that world, a hugely disproportionate number of High Court judges for example come from those elite schools, and it is also the case for some other industries like those you mention where connections to people already in that sector are very important. I think it can be much more difficult for people without those connections to get opportunities in those industries.
But then again the big majority of people don't work in those niches and it's not nearly such of a thing beyond those sectors. You'll see it written about a lot in the media, but then the media is one of those sectors where it is a big thing, so they are maybe extrapolating their own experiences more widely when they are writing those articles.
Those people very obsessed with lineage and pedigree in terms of which elite private school you went to are a thing, and they probably won't accept you very easily if you don't come from that background, but for 90% of the population I guess that's not really something that would ever affect them anyway as they are not wanting to be accepted by those people.
All in all I'd say it's an issue in certain professions, and those professions can be some of the more lucrative ones, so it is an issue that affects social mobility, but mostly in quite specific niches of the society/economy. Once you get down to the regular middle classes or below outside those niches then none of them will have gone to those elite schools anyway so it's not a topic that is of much interest.
There is a hierarchy of universities of course, I guess that is similar in most countries where some are more prestigious than others. Generally it's Oxford/Cambridge first, then the 'Russell Group' Universities, then the rest, though some might have specific specialisms that bump you further up the reputation ladder if you studied there in those particular specialist fields even if the university generally isn't so well regarded.
One unusual part of the UK for caring what high school you went to is Northern Ireland. Several friends of mine from there have mentioned that 'what school did you go to?' is a very common question when two Northern Irish people meet each other. The answer is a tacitally understood code explaining whether that person is Protestant or Catholic as the school system there is still largely segregated.
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