Sam Friedman

Born to Rule on The Economist’s Top 10 Politics and Current Affairs books of the year 🎉🎉🎉🎉 www.economist.com/culture/2024...

Is conservatism more deeply embedded in sociology than we think? From hierarchy and authority to family, community and tradition, explore the conservative ideas that have shaped the discipline. Attend our Annual British Journal of Sociology Lecture on 4 November 👇️ buff.ly/FXn3k8D

1. Congrats on the NYT coverage! 2. Anyone who wants to know more about class-origin pay gaps in top jobs (higher professional and managerial occupations)!in the US can see me & Sam Friedman's paper in Social Forces - overview & links at daniellaurison.com/the-class-ce...

The Senior Fundraising and Grants Manager will lead the development and delivery of a fundraising strategy that supports Runnymede’s long-term sustainability and ambitions for impact 👇 www.runnymedetrust.org/careers/seni...

The People and Culture Manager will lead and develop our people function, ensuring colleagues have a positive, consistent and inclusive experience throughout their time at Runnymede 👇 www.runnymedetrust.org/careers/seni...

Why do so many influential people emphasise humble beginnings while downplaying privilege? @samfriedman.bsky.social and @aaronreeves.bsky.social explore why elites often present themselves as "ordinary" and what this reveals about class, status and legitimacy in Britain. buff.ly/rHF2j25

Performing ordinariness & presenting as “common people like you” has become a trend among UK elites & politicians. @aaronreeves.bsky.social & @samfriedman.bsky.social @lsesociology.bsky.social look at the surprising effectiveness of this strategy, & its limitations @lsepoliticsblog.bsky.social

New paper w @samfriedman.bsky.social. We know elites try to convince ppl that they're ordinary via their class origin or their taste. But what happens when those attempts at ordinariness fail, and does this affect how we think about inequality. journals-sagepub-com.lse.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10....

Why do elites pretend to be common people? By @samfriedman.bsky.social and @aaronreeves.bsky.social of @lsesociology.bsky.social. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

New! We know elites work hard to be seen as ordinary.But do people believe them?We use experiments to explore what happens when performances of ordinariness are undermined (and why this matters for income inequality) Paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Blog: blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

last minute PhD opportunity on stereotypes, social networks, and social inequalities at @ucl.ac.uk @ioe.bsky.social @sriucl.bsky.social, two fully funded 4-year positions are available! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

"Today’s elite may see itself as more meritocratic and down-to-earth, but do its claims of progressive social change stand up?" Class privilege continues to shape who reaches the top, write @samfriedman.bsky.social & @aaronreeves.bsky.social fabians.org.uk/common-people/

The new issue of Contexts is out! As the new Books Editor, I'm particularly jazzed about @joyamisra.bsky.social's banging review of RF Kuang's Katabasis, but lots of great public-facing work in here!

Just out in @socialforcesfan.bsky.social some of our work comparing Elites in Brazil and South Africa! Using a small survey with random sample of CEOs, legislators, and top bureaucrats in both countries, we unpack the contradictory ways elite think about merit and taxation and redistrution.

My Labour PPC backstory: I grew up in a single parent family on a council estate in East London My Tory PPC backstory: my grandparents were small businessmen My Reform PPC backstory: my grandparents came to this country legally My Restore PPC backstory: I am descended from white Rhodesians

Our book Trigger Points is now out in open access. Huge thanks to Mike Savage for a terrific foreword and to Michèle Lamont, Silja Häusermann and Daniel Ziblatt for their kind words. Link below: @mikesavagelse.bsky.social @mlamont.bsky.social @siljahausermann.bsky.social @dziblatt.bsky.social

Summer School: Class, Culture & Discontents 📆 July 23rd - 24th 📍London Full programme with all star line up ⭐ 23rd July feat @darrenchetty.bsky.social @jolittler.bsky.social @jasnijjar.bsky.social etc on prison education, meritocracy, colonialism, war + more www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/summer-sch...

🎙️ Who really runs Britain? In this podcast, @samfriedman.bsky.social and @aaronreeves.bsky.social unpack the “elite within the elite”, the factions shaping the UK’s future, the importance of being “meritocratically legitimate” and the myth of being “just ordinary”. Listen now 👇

Who really runs Britain — and why do they insist they're just ordinary? Great fun convo withLSE profs @samfriedman.bsky.social & @aaronreeves.bsky.social authors of Born to Rule with @peteryork.bsky.social on his Peter York's Culture Wars House Party Podcast 🎧 podfollow.com/peter-yorks-...

Drawing on qualitative interviews with middle-class households aged 30 to 39 in Paris, this paper examines how parental financial support is negotiated among homebuyers and renters and how it affects family relationships. #EarlyView in #BJS ➡️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

This looks like excellent and fascinating work! Somewhat surprisingly it resonates with what @samfriedman.bsky.social and I found in the UK, i.e., access to elite positions (beyond just politicians) has been fairly stable across C20 among people born into wealth www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

This is fascinating - and very very important. Don't be put off by the pic. @samfriedman.bsky.social with #DavidMarr #LateNightLive www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Great paper! Worth a read

Please join us online on Wednesday March 11 (tomorrow!) at 3pm for @samfriedman.bsky.social (LSE) and Rose Butler (Deakin) for our next online seminar "Class Diplomacy: Cross-Class Friendship and Social Mobility'

🧵on my new paper "Synthetic personas distort the structure of human belief systems" w Roberto Cerina I'm v excited about... 🚨 Do synthetic samples look like human samples? We compare 28 LLMs to the 2024 General Social Survey (GSS) to find out + develop host of diagnostics...

Had a great time talking to @drdaveobrien.bsky.social about The Division of Rationalized Labor. Listen to the podcast here: newbooksnetwork.com/the-division...

To develop a reasonable position on any proposed tax increase on the wealthy, we need to dispel the “millionaire exodus” narrative. III working paper by @samfriedman.bsky.social, @andy-summers.bsky.social, Victoria Gronwald, and Emma Taylor cited in a new article for TIME ⬇️

2025 #ThrowBackPaper (open access) Wealthy people tend to vote Tory. But do changes in wealth have an effect on vote choice? Drawing on an 11-year panel from 🇬🇧 we found that changes in patrimony (in terms of number & value of assets) is unrelated to vote choice www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This looks interesting. @petergeoghegan.bsky.social talks to @samfriedman.bsky.social. Sounds like Born to Rule is worth a read. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-really...

Matt Goodwin once wrote that Britain is ruled by a ‘woke elite’ that comprises *as much as 25 per cent of the population* If you want to watch an expert take down of this canard, @samfriedman.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale is very good democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-really...

Great new paper! A similar study in the U.K. is long overdue. A lot of elite employers in the U.K. have begun to take class background seriously, but universities remain woefully behind

Who really are the élite? Seems to matter given snake oil merchants like Farage and Trump like to cast themselves as “men of the people” when, in reality, they were brought up in conditions of priviledge…

Was a real pleasure to have @samfriedman.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale talking about who runs Britain. Would really recommend reading this and watching the interview with him

I spoke to the brilliant @petergeoghegan.bsky.social about the British elite and how they profit from the symbolic market for ordinariness democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-really...

work with me and @drdaveobrien.bsky.social as part of @creativepec.bsky.social! we're recruiting a postdoc to work on the arts, culture and heritage sectors using quantitative methods. please share, please feel free to email me directly with any Qs! jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Sheffiel...

This is a great opportunity to work on cutting-edge research!

What happens when venture capitalists try to reinvent housing in their own image? Find out in my new @ijurresearch.bsky.social article ‘Hyperscaling Housing’ It traces VC-fuelled attempts to aggressively scale real estate start-ups, and the devastating consequences for tenants.

Since the hegemon's eye is now focussing on Greenland, I recommend revisting our research note in @bjsociology.bsky.social on the Power elite in Greenland onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

On autosociobiography and social mobility: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @mikesavagelse.bsky.social @samfriedman.bsky.social

I’m hiring a postdoc! Flexible in terms of details, but I’m looking for someone to collaborate with on research about labor market inequality. I’ll review applications as they come in and the posting just went up here: apply.interfolio.com/178873

Paperback publication day for Born to Rule! 🥳👀🎄🎅

A thread of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that look like record covers... because that's EXACTLY what the world needs 1. Huey Lewis and the News: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Over the last five years @nuffieldfoundation.org funded @kittyjstewart.bsky.social @aaronreeves.bsky.social @katejandersen.bsky.social @jdportes.bsky.social @katejandersen.bsky.social and I to research the impact of the two-child limit & the benefit cap largerfamilies.study

The fight to end child poverty goes on. But today we must celebrate. It will make a real, lasting difference to families the breadth of the UK and I’m so grateful to everyone in @changingrealities.bsky.social & @cpaguk.bsky.social who have advocated tirelessly for its full abolition

New @creativepec.bsky.social report! “Who Stays and Who Leaves? Mapping Arts, Culture and Heritage Careers” pec.ac.uk/state_of_the...

We're always hearing about the "elite", but what does the data tell us about who really runs Britain? @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com reviews "Born To Rule" by @aaronreeves.bsky.social and @samfriedman.bsky.social

Mark Zuckerberg wants us to “tune in” with smart glasses. But tune in to what, exactly? My latest piece for The Perpetual Beginner is on smart glasses and the lost art of seeing open.substack.com/pub/theperpe...

Deadline approaching - November 3! Two postdoc positions at the GC-CUNY @stone-lis.bsky.social center in New York City. One position is focused on #mobility and #poverty, the other on #wealth and/or wealth #inequality. Info and link below. #EconSky #Sociology #PoliSciSky 👇👇👇 bit.ly/40TZR6J

🚨New Issue Out Now!! Open Access!! Navigate all the fresh #sociology with our clickable table of contents (contexts.org/articles/su2...), listen to the issue's companion playlist (open.spotify.com/playlist/5PB...), and read the "digest" (mailchi.mp/ea0c38553548...) to learn more!

Our former @ccmpswarwick.bsky.social and @sociowarwick.bsky.social graduate Dr. Sun Park is now doing great things at @ucdischool.bsky.social - including leading this amazing PhD project on AI & Heritage 👇 www.ucd.ie/ics/vacancie...