Engines of privilege : Britain's private school problem

Last updated
Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem
AuthorFrancis Green
David Kynaston
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 9781526601278
OCLC 1101130802

Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem is a book by Francis Green and David Kynaston about Independent schools in the United Kingdom. [1] The books argues that the "educational apartheid" of independent (private) schools and state schools in the United Kingdom blocks social mobility, underpins a damaging democratic deficit, reproduces privilege through generations and deploys national resources unfairly.

Reviews

Published in 2019, the book received a range of reviews from commentators inside and outside private schools. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Writing in the Financial Times , Miranda Green wrote "we can expect the manifesto-writers at the next general election to pass magpie-like over these chapters ... The appeal to act is heartfelt." [9] . Hugo Rifkind described the book as doing "a fine job of explaining and damning Britain's private school problem' [10] in The Times , but also that "this powerful attack on public schools ends up an unintended advert for them". [10]

The poet Kate Clancy writing in The Guardian , described the book as "aloof considerations of educational issues" [11] while Patrick Derham, headmaster of the private Westminster School, argued that the book "misses an opportunity and falls short on the full account social mobility". [12]

Anne McElvoy wrote that the book "reminds us that many arguments recur down the decades". [13]

Related Research Articles

London School of Economics public research university in London, United Kingdom

The London School of Economics is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw for the betterment of society, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and established its first degree courses under the auspices of the University in 1901. LSE started awarding its own degrees in its own name in 2008, prior to which it awarded degrees of the University of London.

Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield British Baron and politician

Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, was a British socialist, economist, reformer and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He was one of the early members of the Fabian Society in 1884, who like George Bernard Shaw joined three months after its inception. Along with his wife Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Edward R. Pease, Hubert Bland, and Sydney Olivier, Shaw and Webb turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent political-intellectual society in Edwardian England. He wrote the original, pro-nationalisation Clause IV for the British Labour Party.

Malcolm Rifkind British politician

Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind is a British politician who served in various roles as a Cabinet minister under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including Secretary of State for Scotland (1986–1990), Defence Secretary (1992–1995), and Foreign Secretary (1995–1997).

Meghnad Desai, Baron Desai British economist and politician

Meghnad Jagdishchandra Desai, Baron Desai, is a British economist and Labour politician. He stood unsuccessfully for the position of Lord Speaker in the British House of Lords in 2011, the first ever non-UK born candidate to do so. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in 2008.

Imperial College Business School is a global business school in London, United Kingdom. The Imperial College Business School was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. As part of Imperial College London, a global leader in science and technology, they drive global business and social transformation through the fusion of business, technology and an entrepreneurial mindset.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) is a non-profit organisation that represents over 1,300 schools in the United Kingdom's independent education sector. The organisation comprises seven independent school associations and promotes the common interests of its private school members in the political arena, which includes the Department for Education and has been described as the "sleepless champion of the sector."

Richard Titmuss British sociologist

Richard Morris Titmuss CBE, FBA (1907–1973) was a pioneering British social researcher and teacher. He founded the academic discipline of Social Administration and held the founding chair in the subject at the London School of Economics.

The golden triangle is an unofficial grouping of research universities located in the cities of Cambridge, London and Oxford in the southeast of England. The triangle is occasionally referred to as the Loxbridge triangle, a portmanteau of London and Oxbridge.

David Glass (sociologist) British sociologist

David Victor Glass FRS, FBA was an eminent English sociologist and was one of the few sociologists elected to the Royal Society. He is also one of the very few people to be elected both Fellow of the British Academy and Fellow of the Royal Society. He was professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, 1948–1978.

Odd Arne Westad Norwegian historian

Odd Arne Westad FBA is a Norwegian historian specializing in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, where he teaches in the Yale History Department and in the Jackson Institute of Global Affairs. Previously, Westad held the S.T. Lee Chair of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, teaching in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Westad has also taught at LSE, where he served as director of LSE IDEAS. In the spring semester 2019 Westad was Boeing Company Chair in International Relations at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University.

David Thomas Anthony Kynaston is an English historian specialising in the social history of England.

British and Irish Modern Music Institute

The British and Irish Modern Music (BIMM) Institute is a group of eight independent colleges with over 6,700 students that specialise in the provision of BIMM education in Brighton, Bristol, Dublin, Birmingham, Manchester, Berlin, Hamburg and London.

London Stock Exchange Group British financial srvices company

London Stock Exchange Group plc is a British-based stock exchange and financial information company. It is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It owns the London Stock Exchange, as well as Borsa Italiana, LSEG Technology, Russell Indexes, FTSE International, and majority stakes in LCH and MTS.

Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall is a British investor and philanthropist.

Keir Starmer British politician and lawyer

Sir Keir Starmer is a British politician and barrister serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015. A member of the Labour Party, he is currently shadow Brexit secretary in the shadow cabinet. He was Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008 to 2013.

Shami Chakrabarti British Labour politician

Sharmishta "Shami" Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti, is a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and human rights activist. She served as the director of Liberty, an advocacy group which promotes civil liberties and human rights, from 2003 to 2016.

The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment is a research institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science founded in May 2008. The centre is a partner of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College and acts as an umbrella body for LSE's overall research contributions to the field of climate change and its impact on the environment. Furthermore, the institute oversees the activities of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP), a partnership between LSE and the University of Leeds.

The LSE–Gaddafi affair was a scandal in the United Kingdom that occurred as a result of relationship that existed between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Libyan government and its leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The NGO Gaddafi Foundation pledged to donate £1.5 million over five years to a research centre, LSE Global Governance, of which £300k were paid. In addition, LSE Enterprise established a contract worth £2.2 million to train Libyan officials. In 2008, the LSE granted a PhD degree to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, for a dissertation. Currently, allegations circulate that Gaddafi's thesis was ghost-written and/or plagiarised. In December 2010, Muammar Gaddafi addressed members of the School in a video link-up where he was addressed as "Brother Leader" and received an LSE cap previously given to Nelson Mandela. At the time of the 2011 Libyan Civil War, the relationship between the LSE and the Gaddafi regime, and the conduct of individual members of LSE's staff was called into question. As a result of the scandal, the LSE's Director, Sir Howard Davies, resigned on 3 March 2011, citing "errors of judgement". In a New York Times op-ed piece on 7 March 2011, Roger Cohen wrote, in reference to events that had transpired at the School, "It may be possible to sink to greater depths but right now I can't think how. ...The Arab Spring is also a Western Winter. ...How did we back, use and encourage the brutality of Arab dictators over so many years? To what degree did that cynical encouragement of despots foster the very jihadist rage Western societies sought to curb?"

Katrin Flikschuh

Katrin A. Flikschuh FBA is professor of political theory at the London School of Economics (LSE). Flikschuh's research interests relate to the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, metaphysics and meta-level justification in contemporary political philosophy, global justice and cosmopolitanism, and the history of modern political thought.

Ailsa Land British mathematician

Ailsa H. Land is an Emeritus Professor of Operational Research in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics. She is most well-known for co-defining the branch and bound algorithm along with Alison Doig whilst carrying out research at the London School of Economics in 1960. She is married to Frank Land who is also an Emeritus Professor at the LSE.

References

  1. Green, Francis; Kynaston, David (2019). Engines of privilege : Britain's private school problem. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN   978-1-5266-0127-8. OCLC   1108696740.
  2. Turner, Janice (2019). "The 7 per cent problem: Public life in Britain is dominated by the privately educated". newstatesman.com. New Statesman.
  3. Renton, Alex (2019). "Our public schools now resemble five-star hotels — with a Russian and Asian clientele". spectator.co.uk. The Spectator.
  4. "Engines of Privilege: Britain". lse.ac.uk. London School of Economics and Political Science. 2019.
  5. Goldstone, Ross (2019). "Engines of privilege: Britain's public school problem". British Journal of Educational Studies: 1–3. doi:10.1080/00071005.2019.1682278. ISSN   0007-1005.
  6. Hillman, Nick (2019). "Review of 'Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem'". hepi.ac.uk. Higher Education Policy Institute.
  7. Pearson, Allison (2019). "The idea of paying school fees is slowly becoming absurd". telegraph.co.uk. Daily Telegraph.
  8. Goldstone, Ross (2019). "Book Review: Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem by Francis Green and David Kynaston". blogs.lse.ac.uk.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  9. Green, Miranda (2019). "What to do about Britain's private school problem?". www.ft.com. London: Financial Times.
  10. 1 2 Rifkind, Hugo (2019). "Review: Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem by Francis Green and David Kynaston — unjust, elitist; please let my kids in". thetimes.co.uk. London: The Times.
  11. Clanchy, Kate (2019). "Engines of Privilege review – a challenge to Britain's private schools?". theguardian.com. The Guardian.
  12. Derham, Patrick (2019). "Book review – Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem". tes.com. Times Educational Supplement.
  13. McElvoy, Anne (January 31, 2019). "Two leading academics on how Britain should educate children". standard.co.uk. London: Evening Standard.CS1 maint: date and year (link)