Culture is Bad for You is a welcome and necessary addition to the literature on cultural production and consumption. These differences in childhood cultural engagement set up lifelong divergences in the chances of different demographic groups making it into cultural occupations. There are exceptions to this, where some forms of culture do more to challenge social inequalities, but overall we conclude that culture primarily reinforces existing inequalities. The book shows how unpaid work is endemic to the cultural occupations, excluding those without money and contacts. Using data, case studies and sharp analysis, the result holds to account a culture that isn't just a reflection of a rigged society - but an engine of it.

Dr Brook used data on schools in areas of social deprivation, with a high proportion of pupils claiming free school meals, mapping this against concentrations of people working in creative and cultural industries who could be approached to become mentors. What does this mean, and what is the relationship between inequalities in the cultural sector and inequalities in wider society? It is experienced differently according to social class: for those from middle class origins, with the most economic, social, and cultural resources, unpaid work is an investment in their career.This excellent book will be the go-to source on the extraordinary inequality in the creation and consumption of ordinary media for a long time to come. There really is an arts emergency, the reality of the class crisis is shocking, but this book shows how we can do something right now to change things.

Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries, and the 2020 book – Culture is Bad for You. it must have been Thatcher, and student fees, and people not being able to draw the dole while they develop their bands anymore’. Our social mobility work looked back, from people born in the 1950s to people born in the 1980s, early 90s, and for each decade, looked at what proportion of people from different social class backgrounds got into creative jobs. The colour of a scarf, the accent of a conversation, can unite people or divide them, and the smallest detail can play its part in signalling who are allies and who are enemies, as much for elites as for citizens in a democracy. Thus, at times the British public demanded more comprehensive vaccination coverage from the welfare state; at others they eschewed specific vaccines that they thought were dangerous or unnecessary.

She says the sector is particularly affected by entrenched social mobility inequalities that go back decades. Should we be aiming to protest the unequal situation of working-class people, seek representation on strategic bodies like Compacts? Our analysis shows that engagement in many forms of government supported culture are, at best, a minority concern. Culture is bad for you also theorises the mechanisms underpinning the long-term and long-standing class crisis in cultural occupations. Orian Brook is an AHRC Creative and Digital Economy Innovation Leadership Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Dave O'Brien is a Chancellor's Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh Mark Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods at the University of Sheffield -- .

Sadly, as Culture is bad for you demonstrates, what counts as ‘risky’ in the cultural sector is, very wrongly, associated with women, ethnic minorities, and those from working class origins. Vital reading for anyone working in culture and interested in equality - this book gives us the reasons to make change, the actions are up to us. Ongoing class, race and gender inequalities make a myth of the idea of meritocracy – that with hard work and talent it is possible to succeed, regardless of your background.Book Review Culture is bad for you: inequality in the cultural and creative industries by Orian Brook, Dave O´Brien, Mark Taylor, Manchester University Press, 2020, 384 pp.