Pathways to the professoriate: institutional stratification in the academic career

In this talk I will examine the openness of pathways to the position of professor in UK universities. Recent research shows strong links between the university attended as an undergraduate and different graduate outcomes, such as earnings and social class destination. Similarly, entry to doctoral programmes is strongly conditioned by previous university attended. Using a unique, specially-compiled dataset, I investigate the institutional backgrounds of current professors in eight different disciplines to identify whether the road to the position of professor is broad or narrow. The results show some differences between disciplines, but within a relatively narrow range. I consider what this means for our understanding of processes of institutional stratification in higher education.