Sam Friedman is a sociologist of class and inequality, and his research focuses in particular on the cultural dimensions of contemporary class division. He is currently writing a book with Aaron Reeves (under contract with Harvard University Press) exploring how the British elite has changed over the last 120 years. Here they will build on their recent work – examining the propulsive power of Britain’s most elite private schools and the changing nature of elite culture – to provide a radical new understanding the British elite. Bringing together the entire historical database of Who’s Who, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, genealogical records, Probate data, and 100 in-depth interviews, they analyse the 100,000 individuals that have shaped Britain over the last 150 years. The story they uncover looks notably different to prevailing narratives. Certainly, Britain’s upper echelons are no longer a closed shop. But neither are they in terminal decline. They show that while the elite has become both significantly more open, in terms of social origins and schooling, and more diverse, in terms of gender and ethnicity, this progress has now stalled and, in many areas, processes of elite reproduction have been rejuvenated. Indeed they show how wealth and position are increasingly overlapping, suggesting the return of a ruling class who wield both increasing economic and symbolic power. And, significantly, just as this elite pulls away, so it also masters a careful public performance of ‘ordinariness’ to head off public suspicions of snobbishness and self-interest.
Alongside this project Sam continues to research social mobility into Britain’s higher professional and managerial occupations, building on his book (with Daniel Laurison) The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged. Recently he has extended this work to look at how progression is shaped by class background within the UK Civil Service. This project has also involved looking more closely at the double disadvantage women face in such elite occupations. Specifically, he finds that men from working-class backgrounds are more likely (than women) to identify as coming from a working-class background, to talk openly about their background, and to feel comfortable displaying embodied markers of their origin. In contrast, women from working-class backgrounds overwhelmingly choose to conceal their backgrounds in the Civil Service, presuming that such disclosures will only leave them vulnerable to negative judgment. Continuing this focus on intersections between class and gender, he has also recently asked - with Aaron Reeves and Eve Worth – Is there an Old Girls Network in the UK? They find that over the last 120 years alumni of the most elite girls private schools have been around 20 times more likely than other women to reach elite positions. Yet such schools have also been consistently less propulsive than their male-only counterparts. They argue this is rooted in the ambivalent aims of girls elite education, where there has been a longstanding tension between promoting academic achievement and upholding traditional processes of gendered social reproduction.
Sam is on the editorial board of the American Sociological Review, Sociological Forum Cultural Sociology.
Sam is also Director of the MSc in Inequalities and Social Science at LSE's International Inequalities Institute.
You can access his full CV here.
Selected Publications
Books
Friedman, S., Laurison, D. (2019) The Class Ceiling: why it pays to be privileged. Policy/University of Chicago
Savage, M., Friedman, S. et al (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. Penguin: London
Friedman, S. (2014) Comedy and Distinction. Routledge: London
Journal Articles
Friedman, S. (2022) Climbing the Velvet Drainpipe Class Background and Career Progression within the UK Civil Service, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
Worth, E., Reeves, A., Friedman, S. (2022) Is there an old girls’ network? Girls’ schools and recruitment to the British elite, British Journal of Sociology of Education
Ashley, L. Boussebaa, M., Friedman, S., Harrington, B., Heusinkveld, S., Gustafsson, S., Muzio, D. (2022) Professions and inequality: challenges, controversies, and opportunities, Journal of Professions and Organization
Friedman, S. (2022) (Not) bringing your whole self to work: The gendered experience of upward mobility in the UK Civil Service, Gender, Work and Organisation
Moor, L. and Friedman, S. (2021)Justifying inherited wealth: Between ‘the bank of mum and dad’ and the meritocratic ideal, Economy and Society
Friedman, S., O’Brien, D., McDonald, I. (2021) ‘Deflecting Privilege: Class Identity and the Intergenerational Self’ Sociology
Friedman, S. and Reeves, A. (2020) ‘From Aristocratic to Ordinary: Shifting Modes of Elite Distinction’ American Sociological Review
Toft, M. and Friedman, S. (2020) ‘Family Wealth and The Class Ceiling: The Propulsive Power of The Bank of Mum and Dad’ Sociology
Reeves, A., Friedman, S., Rahal, C., Flemmen, (2017) 'The Decline and Persistence of the Old Boy: Private Schools and Elite Recruitment 1897-2016', American Sociological Review 82 (6) 1139-1167
Winner of 2018 European Academy of Sociology Best Article Award
Friedman, S., O’Brien, D. (2017) ‘Resistance and resignation: responses to typecasting in British acting’ Cultural Sociology, 11 (3) 359-376.
Oakley, K. O’Brien, D., Friedman, S., Laurison, D. (2017) ‘Cultural Capital: arts graduates, spatial inequality, and the London effect on cultural labour markets’ American Behavioural Scientist 61 (12) 1510-1531
Friedman, S. and Laurison, D. (2017) ‘Mind the Gap: Financial London and Regional Class Pay Gap, British Journal of Sociology 68 (3) 474-511
O’Brien, D., Allen, K., Friedman, S., Saha, A. (2017) ‘Producing and consuming inequality: a cultural sociology of the cultural industries’. Cultural Sociology, 11 (3) 271-282.
Friedman, S., and Macmillan, L. (2017) Is London really the engine-room? Migration, opportunity hoarding and regional social mobility in the UK National Institute Economic Review, 240 (1). R58-R72
Laurison, D. and Friedman, S. (2016) The Class Pay Gap in Higher Professional and Managerial Occupations’ American Sociological Review, 81 (4) 668-695
Winner of 2016 ASA Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Section Best Article Award
Jarness, V. and Friedman, S. (2016) ‘‘I’m not a snob but…’ Class Boundaries and the Downplaying of Difference’, Poetics 61 14-25
Friedman, S., O’Brien, D., Laursion, D. (2016) ‘‘Like skydiving without a parachute’: How Class Origin Shapes Occupational Trajectories in British Acting’, Sociology 51 (5) 992-1010
Friedman, S. (2016) ‘Habitus Clivé and the Emotional Imprint of Social Mobility’, Sociological Review, 64 (1) 129-148
O’Brien, D., Laurison, D., Miles, A., Friedman, S. (2016) ‘Are the Creative Industries Meritocratic? An Analysis of the 2014 UK Labour Force Survey’ Cultural Trends, 25 (2)
Friedman, S. Savage, M. Hanquinet, L., Miles, A. (2015) ‘Cultural Sociology and New Forms of Distinction’, Poetics, 49 (4) 1-22
Friedman, S., Laurison, D., Miles, A. (2015) ‘Breaking the ‘Class’ Ceiling? Upward Mobility into British Elite Occupations’, Sociological Review 63 (2)259-90
Friedman, S. (2014) ‘The Hidden Tastemakers: Comedy Scouts as Cultural Brokers at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’, Poetics, 42 (2) 22-41
Savage, M., Devine, F. Cunningham, N., Friedman, S. Laurison, D. Miles, A. Snee, H., Taylor, M. (2014) ‘On Social Class, Anno 2014’ Sociology (Special Issue on British Social Class Debate) 48 (3) 1-20
Friedman, S. (2013) ‘The Price of the Ticket: Rethinking the Experience of Social Mobility’ Sociology 48 (2) 352-368
Friedman, S. and Kuipers, G. (2013) The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries’, Cultural Sociology (Special Issue on Field Analysis), 7 (2) 179-195
Friedman, S. (2012) ‘Cultural Omnivores or Culturally Homeless? Exploring the Shifting Cultural Identities of the Socially Mobile’, Poetics, 40 (3) 467-489
Friedman, S. (2011) ‘The Cultural Currency of a ‘Good’ Sense of Humour: British Comedy and New Forms of Distinction’, British Journal of Sociology, 62: 2 347-370