Who are the academics? Investigating academia using the Great British Class Survey Seminar

This seminar will present early findings from an investigation of the characteristics of academics in the BBC’s Great British Class Survey (GBCS). Although the GBCS cannot claim representativeness, it nonetheless contains a large number of respondents identifying as academics together with rich detail about their social, cultural and economic capital, family background and education. I will consider academics’ place in the social structure drawing critically on the ideas of Bourdieu, Halsey, Gouldner and others.