ABSTRACT
The debate surrounding elitism moved to the top of the news agenda after a speech made by Gordon Brown on 25 May 2000 blamed the ‘old boy network’ for Oxford University’s refusal to award a place to a state-educated student from Tyneside, Laura Spence. This debate was intensified when the Sutton Trust, a philanthropic educational body, published a report on 5 June 2000 concluding that even when equal grades have been achieved, students from independent schools are 25 times more likely to gain a place at the so-called ‘top’ 13 universities. The report suggested that future members of the elite were drawn from an ‘extraordinarily narrow field’, stating that 40% of the entry to Oxbridge came from the 7% of students who attended independent schools.
