‘Posh boys’ are turning to geography as a soft option
GEOGRAPHY has become a “soft option” for students from privileged backgrounds expected to enrol at universities, an Oxford University professor has claimed.
Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at Oxford, said geography departments often had “some of the narrowest and poshest social profiles” when looking at the backgrounds of students.
In an article published in Emotion, Space and Society, he also argued that geography was now shedding its “macho” image, as more women took up the subject.
“Climate catastrophe, growing global inequality and the rising popularity of inter-disciplinarity has helped,” said Prof Dorling. “But geography in the UK has become a soft option for those who come from upper-middle class families where increasingly you are expected to go to university, especially for those who are privileged but are not actually that good at maths, or writing or reading.”
Prof Dorling went on to say that at the start of the Seventies, boys from top public schools were not always expected to go to university, with some going directly into the military or jobs in the City. But, by the end of the decade, parents increasingly expected them to attend university.
“Geography’s association with the English upper classes and uppermiddle classes can be traced back to that time,” he says.
Prof Dorling adds: “Knowing this helps you understand why so many went into finance (they had family connections) and why British geography departments so often are found to have some of the narrowest and poshest social profiles when the backgrounds of students across an entire university in England are assessed.
“All this is changing, but if we don’t admit to this legacy, we will not easily understand ourselves.”
Geography became an acceptable university subject more than 100 years ago, and acquired a tough image associated with climbing mountains and exploring, the academic also indicates.
However, he added that image had been changing in recent years as the subject was attracting increasing numbers of women.