Sam Friedman

Biography

Sam is the author of Comedy and Distinction: The Cultural Currency of a ‘Good’ Sense of Humour and co-author of Social Class in the 21st Century.

His book with Daniel Laurison, The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged, was published in 2019. The book explores why it is that even when those from working-class backgrounds successfully enter Britain’s elite occupations, they face a powerful class pay gap.

He has worked on a project to analyse the 120-year database of Who’s Who – a unique catalogue of the British elite. This charts the shifting influence of Britain’s nine elite ‘Clarendon’ schools, including Eton and Harrow, and shows that while their propulsive power may have diminished over time, these schools remain extraordinarily successful channels of elite formation.