Lee Elliot Major OBE is Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter, Britain's first professor in the field. His work is dedicated to improving the prospects of disadvantaged young people.[1]
Early life and education
editHe grew up in Feltham, west London, and lived in a shared house on social security after his parents split up.[2] He worked as a dustman and street cleaner for a summer.[3] He attended Isleworth and Syon School and Richmond upon Thames College. He gained a BSc in physics and PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Sheffield, and an MSc Science Communication at Imperial College, London, in 1994.
Books
editHis book Social Mobility and Its Enemies (2018), written with Stephen Machin, documents the problem of Britain's low social mobility.[4][5][6] In his TEDx talk in 2019, Major describes an "escalating arms race of education" in which the poorest children are increasingly ill-equipped to fight.[7]
In their follow-up book What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Social Mobility? (2020), Major and Machin argue that the Covid-19 pandemic will widen education and economic inequalities.[8][9]
Major's book What Works? (2019), written with Steve Higgins, a professor of education at Durham University, provides best bets to teachers for improving outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.[10] It extends the work of Major and Higgins as co-authors of the original Sutton Trust-EEF toolkit. Major advocates an approach to teaching that is informed by evidence.[11]
Career
editMajor was an education journalist working for The Guardian, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and Research Fortnight. He was Director of Policy at the Wellcome Trust between 2002 and 2004.
In 2006 he joined the Sutton Trust becoming its first Chief Executive in 2014.[12] From 2011 to 2019 he was a trustee of the Education Endowment Foundation. He was co-author of What Makes Great Teaching.[13]
Appointed as a professor of practice at the University of Exeter's Graduate School of Education in 2019, he is focused on the impact of research, working closely with school leaders, universities, employers and policy makers. He regularly features in the national media. He argues that social mobility is about securing decent jobs in local communities not just catapulting a lucky few to the top.[14] He has warned that there will be a 'clash of classes' as students compete for elite university places.[15][16] He has proposed a National Tutoring Service to help schools.[17]
He is an associate member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, an associate of LSE's Centre for Economic Performance, a visiting fellow at the LSE's International Inequalities Institute, and an honorary professor at the UCL Institute of Education.[18]
He serves as a governor at William Ellis School, and a trustee of the Ted Wragg Trust.[citation needed]
Honours
editHe was appointed OBE in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to social mobility.[19]
In 2017, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Sheffield for services to education.[20]
References
edit- ^ "profile | School of Education | University of Exeter". education.exeter.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ Woode, David (10 January 2020). "'Inequality must be addressed', says the UK's first professor of social mobility". inews.co.uk. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ Major, Lee Elliot. "How it feels to... rise from bin man to professor". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "Social mobility requires far more than a good education | Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin". the Guardian. 27 September 2018. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-social-mobility-trap-education-schools-equality-jobs-work The social mobility trap, Prospect Magazine, December 2019
- ^ Swift, Adam (13 January 2020). "What's fair about that?". London Review of Books. Vol. 42, no. 02. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ Major, Lee Elliot (13 June 2019), How can we level the playing field of life? | Lee Elliot Major | TEDxExeter, retrieved 15 November 2022
- ^ "Downward mobility 'becoming a reality for much of British youth'". the Guardian. 21 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "Covid-19 'could leave disadvantaged children with learning loss of six months'". www.expressandstar.com. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "Education needs an overhaul, but closing private schools is not the answer | Lee Elliot Major and Steve Higgins". the Guardian. 28 September 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ https://play.acast.com/s/tes-the-education-podcast/380f1891-dac3-4a93-a3c6-9392432accf3 Podagogy - Season 7, Episode 2 - social mobility with Lee Elliot Major
- ^ "Sutton Trust appoints first chief executive". Sutton Trust. 10 December 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "What makes great teaching?". Sutton Trust. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "A new model for social mobility?". BBC News. 12 August 2016. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "Back-door cuts to university places could provoke 'clash of the classes'". the Guardian. 3 March 2020. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/HEPI-Policy-Note-20-Social-Mobility-Challenge-FINAL.pdf Social mobility and elite universities, December 2019 (HEPI Policy Note 20)
- ^ Turner, Camilla (4 April 2020). "University students should be drafted into a 'national service' to boost social mobility, Government adviser says". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/staff/person.asp?id=10798; http://www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/People/Lee-Elliot-Major
- ^ "University of Exeter". www.exeter.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ "Head of CBeebies awarded honorary degree from University of Sheffield - Archive - News archive - The University of Sheffield". www.sheffield.ac.uk. 10 January 2017. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
