Bryan Boyle

👀 👀 👀

Unpaid work is killing class diversity in the creative industries - The Sutton Trust Our alum, Bethany, discusses the prominence of unpaid work in the creative professions.

✍️ "In creative and media-adjacent careers, the ladder often starts with free labour."

Many young people in this country simply cannot afford to work free, but many industries still normalise free labour as a route into a career.

This must be tackled.

This was the result of a memorable workshop we organised at the European Centre for the Study of Culture and Inequality, supported with the help of @brispo-vub.bsky.social and the @vubrussel.bsky.social. It's always wonderful to see presentations turn into print! Congrats to all contributors!

Socializing Inequality | Class, Culture and Cognition in Early Childho This book examines the processes through which children effectively 'inherit' their position in the social world. It asks: How does class inequality affect

Take a look at this new edited volume from @dvandebroeck.bsky.social, Maaike Jappens, and Annette Lareau on "Socializing Inequality: Class, Culture and Cognition in Early Childhood", published by Routledge.

www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/1...

I’m looking for three PhD students for my new ERC project, starting 1 September. The goal is to understand how firms shape inequality in workers’ careers—using population registers.

Please spread the word! Deadline is March 8, more info here (see projects 4-6):

ics-graduateschool.nl/vacancies/

Bryan's article is not only a great read but also highly topical - offering a glimpse into the hidden labour processes in the elite world that surrounds the likes of Epstein and the (con) artist formerly known as Prince Andrew

Please support University of Essex staff. Please, sign the petition below.

lnkd.in/eY4BJEPm

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks also to @ursulahuws.bsky.social and her team for all of the great editorial work to make it possible.

Guest edited by @sebchauvin.bsky.social, Claire Cosquer, and Julien Debonneville, the issue aims to approach domestic work "not merely from the standpoint of professions and services but by considering the varied forms of domesticity shaped by diverse social and spatial conditions".

Very happy to be a part of this special issue on “Hierarchies of Domesticity – Spatial and Social Boundaries", which is out now in @wolgjournal.bsky.social!

www.scienceopen.com/journal-issu...

There is a genre of "AI" labor that is as horrofying to read as Upton Sinclairs The Jungle—and just as important data-workers.org/michael/

I am happy to share that my article: Family Feelings: affective ties and the reproduction of wealth in super-rich families was among the five most read articles in Emotions and Society in 2025!
@bupjournals.bsky.social

Here you can access the collection:

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

Postdoctoral Position at the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” Deadline: 20 February 2026, 12:00 pm CET

🚨 Postdoctoral Position at the University of Konstanz 🚨

We’re hiring a post-doc for our @excinequality.bsky.social project on political elites and decision-making.

4-year position | Deadline: Feb. 20 | Start: Sept 2026

Please share widely 🙏

The ad is here stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/f...

Cambridge college to target elite private schools for student recruitment Exclusive: Trinity Hall’s new policy described as a ‘slap in the face’ for state-educated students

A college spending resource on this instead of access efforts, given the woeful current state of access (particularly to unis like Cambridge), is a regulatory failure. Unis should have access targets and face real consequences if they don't meet them.

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

First official working day of 2026 - and we'll restart our attempts to understand what to do with our political economy.

On Wednesday, I'll give a talk at the Max Plank Institute in Köln on whether limitarianism is compatible with capitalism (open to the public): www.mpifg.de/events/43416...

International Fellowships 2026 The International Fellowships Programme enables researchers to work for two years at a UK institution with the aim of building a globally connected, mobile research and innovation workforce.

Are you outside of the UK and want to come do a post-doc with me? Consider using this opportunity.internal EOI deadline is Jan 29th so you will need to get in touch before 15th. Only projects on remote/flexible working, ideal worker culture, gender roles
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

Inequality and moral meaning-making in the admissions consulting profession Abstract. Prior research has described how middle-class and affluent families draw on private supplemental educational resources to help their children mai

New in @socprobsjournal.bsky.social w/ @estelabdiaz.bsky.social: the rapid growth of the admissions consulting industry has raised questions about inequality, privilege, and merit. We combine two original data sources to ask how consultants make sense of their work.
academic.oup.com/socpro/advan...

Our neighbours at @tcdpoliticalsci.bsky.social are hiring 3 (!) tenure-track faculty members:

– Assistant Professor in Political Economy
– Assistant Professor in International Politics
– Assistant Professor in Political Science

Deadline: 15 Jan 2026
More details: jobs.tcd.ie
@tcddublin.bsky.social

Me and @runestahl.bsky.social are hiring a future PhD fellow to study climate and class

www.cbs.dk/om-cbs/job-o...

📣 Call for doctoral researchers!
For our International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy we’re seeking doctoral researchers with a master’s degree in sociology, political science, economics, or a related field.

Please share widely! s.gwdg.de/LNzUNa

Feeling very lucky to be able to give this talk at the University of Copenhagen tomorrow!

www.sociology.ku.dk/about/calend...

Major research project to explore inequalities in museum attendance - Museums Association University of Leicester announces four-year initiative to address sector’s engagement and benefit gap

Major research project to explore inequalities in museum attendance 😍

www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour...

Waarom ze aan de VUB uitzonderlijk de straat optrekken: ‘We hadden meteen het werk moeten neerleggen’ Er komt een cruciale week aan voor de VUB. De Vlaamse regering bespaart vanaf 1 januari fors in het budget voor het Brussels hoger onderwijs. Van vakbonden tot studenten, professoren en decanen: op 11...

Good luck to my colleagues at the @vubrussel.bsky.social protesting against the Flemish government’s cuts to higher education this Thursday. Article (in Dutch) below www.demorgen.be/nieuws/waaro...

Waarom ze aan de VUB uitzonderlijk de straat optrekken: ‘We hadden meteen het werk moeten neerleggen’ Er komt een cruciale week aan voor de VUB. De Vlaamse regering bespaart vanaf 1 januari fors in het budget voor het Brussels hoger onderwijs. Van vakbonden tot studenten, professoren en decanen: op 11...

Good luck to my colleagues at the @vubrussel.bsky.social protesting against the Flemish government’s cuts to higher education this Thursday. Article (in Dutch) below www.demorgen.be/nieuws/waaro...

We’re offering a full-time, three-year position in a dynamic research group.

The CNRS is breaking free from the Web of Science From January 1st 2026, the CNRS will cut access to one of the largest commercial bibliometric databases, Clarivate Analytics'

CNRS cancels Web of Science in order to focus on qualitative evaluation and promoting the development of open databases.

www.cnrs.fr/en/update/cn...

Simon Kuper on the big, beautiful flattery industry
on.ft.com/4ot93aZ

Therapy Culture for the Business Class: Exploring How CEO Peer Groups Make and Legitimate Elite Cohesion In the current context of extreme economic inequality and rising concentrations of income and wealth at the top, the social processes through which elites restrict the wider population's access to re...

New article out now 🚨
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@sheffielduni.bsky.social

While researching the wealthy business class in and around Manchester, I stumbled upon CEO peer advisory groups — little-known but powerful sites of elite cohesion. 🧵