Social mobility and the professions

[briansloan]

So the government is on a drive to promote social mobility, with particular focus on apparently "elitist" professions. I'm in favour of this in principle. In some cases, the statistical bias towards those who are privately educated means that the profession in question cannot possibly reflect the diversity of the available raw talent

Comments

[anonymous]

I almost totally agree, but isn't it the case that sometimes academic and professional evaluation systems are inherently flawed - that is, that they do not recognize certain types of talent which the profession as a whole would benefit from? Would not the profession change for the better if less trained-to-be-arrogant-but-knowledgeable people performed this role?

Francesco

[briansloan]

Yes, true, and that has to be addressed. The difficulty is in separating those who have the talent but not the opportunity from those who simply don't have the talent (for whatever reason). For example, if a potential barrister has an ingrained and irreversible sense of inferiority because of his deprived background such that he can't string a sentence together, he probably can't and shouldn't be a barrister. There are risks involved in selecting people who don't prima facie have the ability/qualifications but could have the ability if a lot of time and effort is invested in them. In some cases the risks might be too great, unfair as it is. In those cases, the changes have to come from wider society.

[anonymous]

Matthew Taylor at the RSA has an interesting take on social mobility: http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/public-policy/is-social-mobility-a-good-thing/