Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CHANGINGELITES (Changing elites: how social and institutional change has altered the processes of elite formation over time?)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-02-01 bis 2023-07-31
Elites reveal the nature of inequality, allowing us to see the underlying structure of society. But, elites can also be the engines of inequality, driving forward changes ensuring the accumulation of power. So, when the people occupying elite positions change it says something about how the production of inequalities may have changed too. Most would agree (despite the paucity of data) that elites are different today than they were; but, what is contested is whether such changes signal a radical restructuring of the processes of elite formation. Two questions remain unresolved: 1) how has the composition of elites changed over time? and 2) did the major social, political, and economic upheavals of the last 200 years reconfigure elites through altering processes of elite formation? It has been difficult to answer these questions because of limited longitudinal data on elites. CHANGINGELITES will address these questions by creating a catalogue of the elite that is without equal in its empirical and temporal scope. This data set will combine information on education (schools and universities), club membership, parental wealth, economic capital, and family structure for around 120,000 people born since 1800. Alongside this data, we will also conduct 100 interviews with elites born in different periods, illuminating the varied trajectories that underpin this huge historical database. CHANGINGELITES will both shed light on the social composition of elites over time and seek to explain the changes and continuities within elites by exploring how institutional and policy shifts constrain and enable processes of elite reproduction. This ambitious, interdisciplinary study will radically alter our understanding of elite reproduction but, more than this, it will speak to a contradiction seen in many countries recently between the opening up of elite institutions and the massive accumulation of wealth, and in so doing will seek new ways to understand how inequalities are produced.
At the time of writing (Sept 2021), we have performed the following tasks:
1. Interviewed 23 elite women
2. Collected and cleaned millions of probate records from 1858 until 1990
3. Updated and reanalyzed data from our main source on the British elite.
4. Prepared a survey that we will use to collect data from elites.
5. Published one article in the American Sociological Review
6. Published one article in BMJ Global Health
7. Submitted an article to Sociology of Education
8. Presented our findings at two international conferences.
1. Interviewed 23 elite women
2. Collected and cleaned millions of probate records from 1858 until 1990
3. Updated and reanalyzed data from our main source on the British elite.
4. Prepared a survey that we will use to collect data from elites.
5. Published one article in the American Sociological Review
6. Published one article in BMJ Global Health
7. Submitted an article to Sociology of Education
8. Presented our findings at two international conferences.
We have already pushed the state of the art forward through our first publication in the American Sociological Review. This paper asks: How do elites signal their superior social position via the consumption of culture? We addressed this question in a novel way by drawing on 120 years of “recreations” data (N = 71,393) contained within Who’s Who, a unique catalogue of the British elite. Our results reveal three historical phases of elite cultural distinction: first, a mode of aristocratic practice forged around the leisure possibilities afforded by landed estates, which waned significantly in the late-nineteenth century; second, a highbrow mode dominated by the fine arts, which increased sharply in the early-twentieth century before gently receding in the most recent birth cohorts; and, third, a contemporary mode characterized by the blending of highbrow pursuits with everyday forms of cultural participation, such as spending time with family, friends, and pets. These shifts reveal changes not only in the contents of elite culture but also in the nature of elite distinction, in particular, (1) how the applicability of emulation and (mis)recognition theories has changed over time, and (2) the emergence of a contemporary mode that publicly emphasizes everyday cultural practice (to accentuate ordinariness, authenticity, and cultural connection) while retaining many tastes that continue to be (mis)recognized as legitimate.
Our data collection is also pushing the state of the art forward too by combining unique data sets together to provide an unparalleled view of elites. over time. We are still not quite ready to publish the results from this phase of the project but we hope to be able to do this soon.
Our data collection is also pushing the state of the art forward too by combining unique data sets together to provide an unparalleled view of elites. over time. We are still not quite ready to publish the results from this phase of the project but we hope to be able to do this soon.