Michael Dunlop Young

Michael Dunlop Young, Baron Young of Dartington (born August 9, 1915 in Manchester , † January 14, 2002 ) was a British sociologist and politician. Young coined the term meritocracy .

Young was born to an Australian musician and an Irish painter and actress. He attended Dartington Hall School and studied at London University . He designed the election manifesto of the British Labor Party of 1945 and was thus significantly involved in its election success, but left politics in 1950 to devote himself to further social science studies. His study (with Peter Wilmott): Family and Kinship in East London , (often briefly cited as Fakinel ) is considered to be groundbreaking in Great Britain . Young is considered to be the inventor of the word meritocracy (with satirical intent). He campaigned for consumer rights and was a co-founder ofOpen University . He was married three times. In 1978 he was named a Life Peer and Member of the House of Lords in Great Britain . His son Toby Young is a well-known British journalist.

Early life

Young was born in Manchester to an Australian violinist and music critic and an Irish painter and actress. He lived in Melbourne until he was eight and returned to England shortly after his parents divorced. He attended several schools including Dartington Hall, a newly established progressive school in Devon. Young supported the school as a trustee, vice chairman, and historian. He studied economics at the London School of Economics and was admitted to the bar in 1939.

Political career and sociological activity

Young worked for the Labor Party from 1945, and in 1952 began a doctorate at the London School of Economics. His investigations into housing and local government in East London led him to criticize the activities of local Labor politicians. In response, Young founded the Institute of Community Studies .

With Peter Willmot he wrote the study Family and Kinship in East London . In 1958, Young published the satire The Rise of Meritocracy , which was originally to be published by the Fabian Society, but this declined to publish. The text was widely received in the internal Labor discourse on equal opportunities and coined the term meritocracy . Young attributed negative connotations to the term and distanced himself from the later positive use by New Labor. In 1957, Young helped found the Consumers Association and was involved with the National Consumer Council, the Open University, and the Open College of the Arts. He founded Language Line, a telephone translation service designed to make public services easier for non-English speakers. He sponsored various research projects and was involved in founding the School for Social Entrepreneurs in 1997. Its activities were bundled and continued in the Young Foundation.

In 1978 Young was appointed Baron Young of Dartington , to Dartington in Devon, England . In 1980 Young joined the Social Democratic Party (United Kingdom) , but returned to the Labor Party in 1989.

From 1961 to 1966 he was a fellow at Churchill College , from 1989 to 1992 he held the position of President of Birkbeck College at the University of London . In 1995 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy .

Private

Young was married three times. In 1945 he married Joan Lawton, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. After the divorce, he married Sasha Moorsom in 1960 , with whom he had a son and a daughter. Moorsom and Young worked together on several projects, including in South African townships. After Moorsom's death in 1993, he married Dorit Uhlemann in 1995, with whom he had a daughter. Toby Young , his son with Moorsom, is a journalist and writer. Toby Young was best known as the author of the book How to lose Friends and Alienate People .

Works (selection)

• The Rise Of The Meritocracy 1870-2033. An essay on education and equality. Thames and Hudson, London 1958 (German: Long live inequality. On the way to meritocracy . Econ, Düsseldorf 1961; and more often)
• Family and Kinship in East London. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1957.

Web links

• Obituary, The Independent , Jan. 16, 2002
• Michael Young literature in the Library of Congress online catalog
• Obituary, The Telegraph , Jan. 16, 2002

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dr. Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington, on thepeerage.com , accessed August 18, 2015.
2. ↑ Down with meritocracy: The man who coined the word four decades ago wishes Tony Blair would stop using it , The Guardian, June 29, 2001
3. ↑ School for Social Entrepreneurs ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ PROFILE: Lord Young of Dartington; Father of the Third Age , The Independent, January 20, 1996
5. ↑ Blair leads tributes to OU founder , BBC News, January 16, 2002
6. ^ Fellows: Lord Michael Young. British Academy, accessed August 25, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Toby Young: 'My father would be pleased about the launch of a British space agency' . In: The Spectator , March 24, 2010. Archived from the original on April 14, 2010. Retrieved on February 8, 2013.