The Oxbridge Delusion

Oxford and Cambridge are arguably the most famous universities in Britain, if not the world. Their reputation far exceeds that of other universities and is often linked with academic excellence and social upheaval. The spires of the Oxford Bodleian library are recognised worldwide and the universities form a long established tradition of leaders attending them, the question is; does an Oxbridge education really give you that much of an advantage?

Some may argue yes, an obvious indication of their success can be seen by the fact that many of those in the top professions have attended Oxbridge, with more than 80% of high-court judges and 38% of MP’s attending either Oxford or Cambridge. This figures makes the obvious choice of most bright student when asked where they want to attend, to be Oxbridge.

However, despite many of the most high-profile jobs being taken by Oxbridge alumni, the starting graduate salaries surprisingly is higher at other ‘less profile universities’, London-Southbank university for example, despite being less reputable than Oxbridge is in the top 10 universities with the highest graduate-starting salaries along with Manchester, Warwick and the London Universities. Oxford and Cambridge came fourth and fifth on the list with average graduate earnings being £28,000 a year, a mere £3000 over the national average. With students from less competitive universities receiving on average, higher-starting salaries, why the obsession with Oxbridge?

Listening to Michele Obama’s speech, telling inner-city girls to aim for Oxbridge, wouldn’t it be fair to assume that Oxbridge would be accessible to those who work hard enough? However this assumption is often unfounded since despite being the ambition of many bright teenagers, to attend Oxbridge, there still exists to this day, a long established socio-cultural link between Oxbridge colleges and the leading private schools.

There is a hugely disproportionate representation of privately educated students at Oxbridge, and research conducted by the Sutton Trust Charity shows that private school students are 55 times more likely to get accepted into Oxbridge than public-sector students. Five private schools, including Eton, Westminster School, St Pauls Girls, St Pauls Boys and the City of London School for Girls, in the years 2009-10, sent more students to Oxbridge than 2000 lower performing schools combined. This is a clear sign of social elitism still being practised at these two universities, and despite Cambridge claiming that more than 50% of their undergraduate-intakes are from state-schools, this is still hugely disproportionate seeing as state-schools make up 80% of students whilst 20% coming from private schools.

Despite being reputable amongst employers and academics alike, and having arguably the finest pool of academics attending, the Oxbridge dream is often just a dream for many since the universities are evidently too elitist to be deemed as accessible to even the hardest working students. This makes the choice of applying to a less renowned but more accessible university be seen as an option to bright teens, who must also be reminded that despite being one of the most famous universities, success isn’t limited to Oxbridge.

Do Grammar Schools Really Improve Social Mobility?

Grammar schools have existed for hundreds of years, during this time they have been attributed to enabling a growing sense of social progress by allowing students to have the capacity to climb up the social ladder. Their success is undoubtedly evident in the school league tables, as a growing number of grammar schools are frequenting at the top of the list, therefore competing with top private schools. But are grammar schools really improving social mobility?

To answer this question, we must first examine how successful grammar schools are in providing students, a top class education that they wouldn’t have got otherwise. Plainly from the sheer quality of education, we can see that grammar schools often provide the right environment for bright kids, since the sexually segregated environment can be argued to provide optimum levels of concentration and also allows for a greater sense of maturity by the students. This combined with the excellent facilities and teaching often seen at grammar schools undoubtedly contributes to the often stellar grades achieved by students who attend these schools.

Further justification of the success of grammar schools can be seen by the ‘Outstanding’ rating that more than 90% of grammar schools receive from Ofsted, compared with the 17% national average. Also, of the top 100 schools in the UK, grammar schools make up an astonishing 55 of them. This clearly shows their accomplishment in competing with even the best private schools, some of which charge more than £45,000 a year. The school at the top of the 2011 school league table, ‘Colchester Royal Grammar School’ managed to get 25 of its pupils to Oxbridge, whereas ‘St Pauls’ private school achieved slightly less admissions with 19 of its students gaining a place at Oxbridge. This could be seen as a sign of upward social mobility, since students from grammar schools are often able to contend with and sometimes even defeat their counterparts from private schools.

While the success of grammar schools is clearly evident, however we must not forget the criteria of social mobility. We must now scrutinize how well the working class are often assisted through grammar schools. Grammar schools are clearly very ethnically diverse, but how socially diverse are they? Research by the ‘Sutton Trust’ as shown that the majority of grammar school pupils are from middle class backgrounds, this can also be seen by the fact that 4.5% of pupils attending grammar school are eligible for free school meals, as opposed to the national average of 15.4%. This is not a good sign, since how can grammar schools be seen to be improving social mobility if they are mainly assisting middle class families as opposed to working class families?

The average household income for students at grammar schools is over £45,000, which is more than 30% higher than the national average. This suggests that not enough working class students attend these schools. A reason for this could be a result of the frequent attitude shared by working class parents that the school their child attends, does not make a difference to their attainment. We have established this to be largely false, since going to a grammar school has been shown to be significantly more advantageous for students than attending a comprehensive. This attitude, combined with the lack of adequate preparation for, and the high costs of tuition towards the 11-plus entrance exams, acts as a deterrence for working class parents, and significantly lowers the chances of their children gaining entrance into grammar schools and consequently hinders their potential for social mobility.

In essence, it would be fair to conclude that although grammar schools can be seen to be largely beneficial for those who attend it, as demonstrated by the high grades often achieved by students there. They can’t, however be seen as improving social mobility since the pupils are for the most part middle class, so in a way grammar schools can be viewed by middle class parents, as a free alternative to sending their children to private schools. This henceforth forces me to conclude that the merits of grammar schools are invariably undermined by the fact that they only allow for restricted social mobility since they simply do not do enough for the working class.

Cavour, Garibaldi and the Making of Italy

Battle of Calatafimi -1860

The unification of Italy was the product of several underlying events. Many individuals have contributed to these events but historians are in dispute as-to which of them were more important in causing the unification. My aim is to try and determine who played a more important role in the unification of Italy; Garibaldi or Cavour. I believe that Garibaldi played a more important role and the Italian Unification would not have occurred if not for his actions. The purpose of my dissertation would be set to prove this claim.

Cavour could be argued to have played a significant role in the unification since the developments made in Piedmont during his term as Prime minister made the blue-prints for the united Italy and made annexation of other states possible since improvements in Piedmont were the envy of liberals from other states. By the end of 1851, Cavour signed trading treaties with states including; Portugal, France, Britain and Belgium which not only improved diplomatic relations with them, but also increased imports and exports by near 300%. Industrialisation and the building of nearly 800km of railways also contributed to the Piedmontese economy and developed a sense of national consciousness since trade and commute between the states were made possible. All of this contributed to the eventual unification since Piedmont had a good reputation as a modernised state as a result of the socio-economic and political reforms made by Cavour, This growth made Piedmonts role as the potential natural leader of the peninsula in the event of unification more evident as we can see by the subsequent annexation of other states during 1860-1. However it could be argued that the growth seen in Piedmont during the prime ministerial reign of Cavour was a natural consequence of the Statuto, granted in 1848 by Charles Albert. So by this fact, Piedmont was seen as a more liberal and forward thinking state which logically would have appealed to middle class liberals from other states, which can be seen by the radical increase in the population of Piedmont after the establishment of the Statuto. So the developments in Piedmont might not necessarily be entailed to work by Cavour, but more crucially the Statuto.

Also, Cavour’s assistance in the Anglo-Franco alliance during the Crimean War of 1855 by sending 15,000 Piedmontese soldiers, dramatically improved relations with the English and French. This could be seen as evidence for Cavour’s importance in the Italian Unification since Piedmont was then invited to the post-war Congress of Paris in 1856. This was a clear sign of Piedmont’s growing diplomatic stature and also allowed Cavour to raise the ‘Italian Question’ of expelling Austrian dominance in Italy; which aroused the sympathies of the French Emperor, Napoleon III. The involvement in the war could be seen as a catalyst to improved diplomatic relations with the French, since it eventually led to the 1858 Plombieres meeting that formally declared the Piedmontese-Franco military alliance against the Austrians in 1859. Cavour played a huge role in all of this, since his pragmatist approach to Politics led to improved relations with other countries and ensured Napoleons support in sending 200,000 troops to drive the Austrians out of Italy and henceforth making the cause of unification more realistic. However, it could be said that the Piedmontese involvement in the Crimean war was not a result of Cavour’s will, but instead Cavour was pressured by Victor Emmanuel to join the war or risk being replaced by a more ‘pro war’ prime minister such as Count Thaon de Revel. Also, the treaty of Plombieres might not actually be solely a result of Cavour’s pragmatic diplomacy with the French, but instead could be the consequence of Orsini’s attempted assassination of Napoleon in early 1858 which in some way, might have created a spark in Napoleon’s conscience that triggered him into action and led to the arrangement of the meeting at Plombieres. These two claims severely undermine Cavour’s role in the Anglo-Franco diplomacy and in promoting the secret meeting at Plombieres, so it could suggest that Cavour didn’t really play an important role in two events which undisputedly contributed significantly towards the eventual unification of Italy.

Another reason why Cavour can be seen as playing an important part in the unification is seen by his deeply intellectual and pragmatist political approach. Even before gaining a seat in the government, he was seen to have tried to raise national awareness through his publication of ‘Il Risorgimento’ in 1847, a newspaper which became the official voice for the ‘Italian National Movement’. After the meeting at Plombieres, Cavour was also able to ‘justify’ the war with Austria by strategically placing the Piedmontese army near Magenta, which then threatened Austrian security and caused them to eventually declare War on Italy. This clever diplomatic move ensured that Austria did not receive support from sympathetic countries such as Russia, which then gave the Piedmontese-French Armies the upper hand in defeating the weakened Austrians and henceforth conquering some northern states. By doing this, Cavour made Piedmont the most dominant power in the peninsula which then allowed annexation of other states possible. This is clear proof of Cavour’s importance in the unification since his realist, carefully calculated method allowed him to make well thought decisions which evidently led to a good outcome. However, it could be argued that the war with Austria was only won because of French intervention, which has we argued earlier, could simply be a result of the attempted assassination of Napoleon III making him ‘realise’  his role in assisting the Italian cause. Also, Cavour had promised to raise a force of 100,000 men; however he only managed to raise 60,000 men to match the French army of 200,000. So the success of the war could be argued to be largely a result of French pre-eminence than Cavour’s part. This then undermines Cavour’s role and importance in the war and henceforth the Unification of Italy since his contribution could be seen as minimal.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, is arguably one of the most renowned Italian patriots of the 19^th century, and could be argued to be more important in the unification of Italy than Cavour.  Originally from Nice, Garibaldi trained in South America prior to 1848, where his formidable skills as a commander was developed by his raising of a legion of Guerrilla fighters, which certainly made him useful during later battles. Cavour’s agreement at Plombieres to cede Nice and Savoy to France could be seen as defeatist towards the unification aim since if implemented, could mean that Italy would never truly be unified since two of its regions belonged to France. In reaction to the ceding of Nice; his birthplace, Garibaldi organised a force which became known as ‘The Thousand’ on April 1860 in order to sail south and help liberate Italy. This shows that Garibaldi was a more active participant in the unification since he actually intended to unite Italy, unlike Cavour whose soul intention was to make Piedmont the most dominant force in the peninsula.

Garibaldi’s decision to sail south and rally the Sicilian revolutionaries can be seen as one of the most important steps towards the unification since Cavour cared more for maintaining diplomatic relations with France than for the complete unification of Italy since he didn’t want to interfere with Sicily for fear that it might diminish his Plombieres agreement, and make Piedmont seem like an unnecessary threat to France, Whereas Garibaldi, not wanting the job to be left incomplete, decided to liberate Sicily by landing his ‘red shirt’ army of volunteers to Sicily, where he gained thousands of more recruits on his arrival. Garibaldi then fought the Neapolitan army at Calatafimi on 15 May 1860, which resulted in a sensational victory for his troops. Cavour was against Garibaldi’s Sicilian expedition from the start, this can be proved by his letter to his envoy at Paris where he states; “Garibaldi has become intoxicated by success...He is planning the wildest, not to say absurdist, schemes...if the Bourbons have to fall, it should not be by Garibaldi’s agency” This quotes clearly shows Cavour’s antagonism towards Garibaldi’s aim to liberate Italy, which could be an argument that he didn’t want or intend Italy to be unified. So by this argument Garibaldi played  a more important part in the unification since he actively set out to unify Sicily and Naples, whilst Cavour only considered annexing the Kingdom of Naples out of fear that Garibaldi would grow too powerful and possibly compromise Piedmont relations with France and Europe.

Moreover, Cavour’s government and aims were too centred on the middle-upper classes of Italy, whilst he wholly neglected the needs of the Italian working class. Whereas Garibaldi gained mass support from the peasants, and their inspiration from him allowed them to justly desire Italy to be unified. The lack of support from the masses caused huge problems in previous years and Italy wouldn’t truly be unified if the peasants didn’t feel a part of the new kingdom. This would have left a division between ‘legal Italy’ and ‘real Italy,’ so Italy would be unified by name but not by culture or mutual consent of its inhabitants. Garibaldi, assisted in building the feeling of national consciousness through his popular campaign to unify Italy, which arguably played a very significant part in the eventual unification of Italy, so he could be said to be more important than Cavour in that sense. Whilst, Cavour’s campaign to annex different states in the peninsula, could be seen more as a method of ‘Piedmontisation’ than unification, since most of the institutions, laws, customs of Piedmont were imposed on the other states. So a sense of national identity wasn’t clear as a result of his actions, which then shows how ultimately more important Garibaldi was in the unification as a result of his contributions in building national consciousness.

Garibaldi, also appears to be more dedicated to the cause of unification since in spite of being a radical republican at heart, he was willing to compromise his feeling for the greater good of the country since after declaring himself ‘dictator’ of Sicily in 1860. He dashed his republican ideologies by formally handing over his conquests to King Victor Emmanuel on the 7^th of November. Henceforth, Garibaldi was politically isolated and his ‘red shirts’ were disregarded despite the fact that he had completed the conquest of nearly half of the peninsula in the name of the Piedmontese king. Seven years after this, and Rome still wasn’t unified, so Garibaldi attempted to recuperate it on the ‘3^rd of November 1867.’ Despite the horrible failure, this is a strong argument in favour of his importance since he showed a strong dedication to the cause of unity. Although others may argue that his attempt at Rome was simply a result of his innate warrior spirit which made him want to rage war by using the Italian cause as an excuse. Some might argue that since Garibaldi did most of the work, he was more important. Cavour didn’t have a clear plan to unify Italy. But Cavour being the pragmatist politician used Garibaldi’s military expeditions to his advantage by corresponding with Garibaldi and arranging the handing over of his expeditions to Victor Emmanuel. So his lack of ‘intention’ in capturing in acquiring Sicily and Naples is an argument for his lack of importance.

In conclusion, it’s very difficult to try and determine who was more important in the unification of Italy; Cavour or Garibaldi, since they had different approaches and actions, Cavour being more of a political thinker and acting according to his set of pragmatist political ideologies, whilst Garibaldi being braver and believed more in direct action than deep calculated thought. However, although Cavour can be seen to have kick-started the events that leaded to the unification, he never quite finished it since he was content to leave the other states not unified. Whereas Garibaldi finished the unification since he went out to conquer the states which Cavour dared touch for fear of diminishing diplomatic relations and financial resources. Garibaldi’s conquest led to the acquisition of nearly half of the peninsula and an increased feeling of national consciousness from the masses, which admittedly led to the unification. So for this reason, I believe that Garibaldi was supremely more important than Cavour in the unification cause.

The Characteristics Of A Person

Leonardo Da-Vinci's Vitruvian Man

Defining a person in philosophical terms is very complicated since various attributes contribute to the general acknowledgement of an individual as a person.  Therefore in order to find out what it means to be a person, we must first analyse and evaluate the key characteristics of personhood and how important they are in the subsequent labelling of an individual as a person.

Various characteristics contribute to the classification of an individual as a person and one of the prime and most obvious ones is ‘being human.’ Since all the people that we know of are humans, it is therefore rational to assume that all persons are humans. However there are certain exceptions to this, for example a dead individual is still technically human however they are not a person anymore although they once were. Other exceptions to this include fertilised egg cells which can be biologically classified as human being but are not people yet, which then gives their mothers the authority to abort them.  Being a human being is necessary to being a person however it’s not sufficient and needs to be combined with other qualities in order to be classed as a person.

Another characteristic that contributes to being classified as a person is the possession of a network of faiths and beliefs. Most animals can be said to have some degree of beliefs, for example a deer hearing a distress call in the forest would be led to believe that its fellow deer’s are in danger of some sort, so acting on this belief might run away to protect itself from this danger. This is an example of a belief since there’s no proof that the other deer is in danger and the noise could have been made by other animals including humans. In order to qualify as a person, a more complex range of interrelated beliefs is necessary, which then gives the animals mental life a more sophisticated level of thinking which can be attributed to personhood. Most living adult humans possess such level of mental ability which could then assist us in their classification as persons.

Autonomy is a feature which differentiates persons from animals since in order to be a person you must have a high level of control over your life and your reaction to certain things, and your actions should not be based primarily on instincts. An example of this is seen in the occasion where fireworks are shot in the air, a bird after hearing the noise would be startled and would react to its survival instincts by flying far away from the noise despite not knowing if it’s in harm by it or not. However a human being after hearing such noise might acknowledge the noise has being loud but would also understand that it doesn’t place them at any danger. This degree of autonomy and reason enables humans to have sufficient control over their own lives, which in my opinion is vital for personhood.

Moreover, Individuality and personality is a crucial element which separates humans from other animals. Our ability to develop our own unique personalities is imperative to the classification as a person since this enables us to differentiate ourselves from everyone else around us. I believe that the human propensity to be able to develop individual personalities for themselves is just as common as it is for a spider to spin webs. The ability to be an individual is just as engraved in human nature as it is for a dog to bark. However, having a personality alone is not sufficient enough to gain personhood since many animals including chimps and dogs have clearly defined personalities however they aren’t persons since they often lack most of the other necessary characteristics of personhood.

On top of that, one aspect of personhood is also the ability to understand aesthetic and ethical values. This is often not seen in animals since they are unable to appreciate certain concepts such as morality or what is right and wrong. This aspect is however seen disproportionally in humans and they are able to fluently understand the idea of right and wrong and the concepts of beauty to such an extent that it would be right to grant them personhood. However although this ability is one that is often seen in persons, I don’t believe that its necessary for being a person since there are several other ways to be a person without actually having this ability. So although it’s a frequent tendency for persons to hold this ability, it’s not wholly necessary in the branding of personhood.

The ability to communicate is another element which most persons seem to have; this skill is displayed most eloquently by humans since they have the ability to communicate using language. However other animals have developed sophisticated communication methods, for example dolphins and chimps are able to communicate with each other rather elaborately. This is a vital element of personhood, but in hindsight the human ability to communicate far surpasses any other animal that it would be right to grant any human with sophisticated communicating and speaking skills, personhood. Nevertheless, the future possibility of androids who could possibly demonstrate highly complex communicating skills similar to humans poses a problem since they might lack some of the other qualities of personhood such as logic and reasoning but still present eloquent speaking skills. So therefore although being able to communicate is a frankly important aspect of personhood, it still isn’t sufficient for personhood.

Being able to reflect on your own past experiences and feelings as well as appreciating other people’s one’s is a very complex yet vital characteristic of personhood. The level of complexity required in order to perform this task is so high that the only animals that we believe can do this are humans, which therefore makes it likely that most humans are in fact persons. Part of being reflective doesn’t just include remembering your past experiences and feelings but you will also need to be able to imagine having different ones and this involves a high level of self awareness. This skill makes humans able to learn more effectively since the process of learning requires an adequate amount of reflection in order to be effective. I believe that this is a necessary skill which would constitute a vital part of personhood.

Being creative is yet another characteristic of a person. Creativity requires an intricate level of imagination which cannot be imagined in animals but can be seen vividly in humans. Creativity does not just include being able to produce things such as art since even elephants have been known to command an adequate skill for painting. However although they might have clearly produced creative pieces of art, however there is dispute as to whether or not that art constitutes any sense of meaning or perhaps even emotions which could have inspired it. This would normally require a great deal of self awareness which is normally seen in humans and rarely seen at a similarly complex level in other humans. For this reasons I believe that being creative is an important attribute in the definition of a person.

In conclusion, I believe that to define a person is a very complicated and ambiguous task since various aspects constitutes a person. However it’s clear that all persons that we know of are humans but that does not necessarily mean that all humans are persons since some humans might lack certain vital attributes of personhood. In occasions such as this I recommend the Cartesian dualist approach to this, since although the physical requirements of being a human being is necessary, the human being must also have a working human mind in order to be classified as a person. Essentially both matter and mind ultimately contribute to the classification of a person, since a working human mind normally has all the characteristics of a person which are listed above. So I believe that it’s fair to conclude that all humans with a working mind are persons.

By Ola Sanni