Lee Elliot Major
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
He 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
His 2018 Penguin book Social Mobility and Its Enemies, authored 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]
Major and Machin's follow-up book What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Social Mobility? is being published by SAGE in 2020.[8] Major and Machin argue that the Covid-19 pandemic will widen education and economic inequalities.[9]
Major's 2019 Bloomsbury book What Works?, authored with Steve Higgins, 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 evidence informed approach to teaching.[11]
Career
Major 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 2002-04.
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.
Honours
He was awarded an 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
- ^ https://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/education/staff/profile/index.php?web_id=lee_elliotmajor University of Exeter, Graduate School for Education
- ^ https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/inequality-must-be-addressed-professor-social-mobility-1361715 Inequality must be addressed', says the UK's first professor of social mobility, The I Newspaper Friday, 10th January 2020
- ^ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-it-feels-to-rise-from-bin-man-to-professor-lvz3j582n How it feels to... rise from bin man to professor, The Sunday Times, 3 November 2019
- ^ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/27/social-mobility-good-education Social mobility requires far more than a good education, The Guardian, 27 Sep 2018
- ^ https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-social-mobility-trap-education-schools-equality-jobs-work The social mobility trap, Prospect Magazine, December 2019
- ^ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n02/adam-swift/what-s-fair-about-that What's fair about that? London Review of Books, January 2020
- ^ https://www.ted.com/talks/lee_elliott_major_how_can_we_level_the_playing_field_of_life/transcript?language=en How can we level the playing field of life? | Lee Elliot Major | TEDxExeter
- ^ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/21/downward-mobility-a-reality-for-many-british-youngsters-today Downward mobility 'becoming a reality for much of British youth' The Guardian
- ^ https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/04/29/covid-19-could-leave-disadvantaged-children-with-learning-loss-of-six-months/ Covid-19 ‘could leave disadvantaged children with learning loss of six months' Express and Star, 29 April, 2020
- ^ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/28/education-closing-private-schools-labour-inequality-league-tables Education needs an overhaul, but closing private schools is not the answer The Guardian
- ^ 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
- ^ https://www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/sutton-trust-appoints-first-chief-executive/ Sutton Trust appoints first Chief Executive
- ^ https://www.suttontrust.com/research-paper/great-teaching/ What makes great teaching? October 2014
- ^ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37011068 A new model for social mobility? BBC News August 2016
- ^ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/mar/03/cuts-university-places-clash-classes-poorer-students-lose-loans Back-door cuts to university places could provoke "clash of the classes", The Guardian, 3 March 2020
- ^ 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)
- ^ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/04/university-students-should-drafted-national-service-boost-social/ University students should be drafted into a 'national service' to boost social mobility, Government adviser says, The Daily Telegraph, 4 April 2020
- ^ https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/staff/person.asp?id=10798; http://www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/People/Lee-Elliot-Major
- ^ https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_719804_en.html Leading social mobility expert awarded OBE
- ^ https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/cbeebies-honorary-graduations-sheffield-1.672305 University of Sheffield News
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