“So, where did you go to school?” On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like a loaded question(别有用心的问题). I was mostly bemused(困惑的) when I first started university 20 years ago and found myself being asked it repeatedly by other students. Why were they so interested? Surely no one would have heard of the north Wales comprehensive(综合学校) I had attended? When they countered my baffled reaction with “Charterhouse” or “Marlborough”, how was I supposed to respond? When one student said, of another, “He went to Winchester, you know”, I stared blankly at him, not understanding why he was telling me about someone else’s day trip to a city in Hampshire (“Oh, did he have a nice time?”).(当一个学生说起另一个学生“他上的是温彻斯特，你知道吧”，我茫然地盯着他，不明白他为什么要告诉我别人去汉普郡某城市的一日游（“哦，他玩得开心吗？”）。) It was strange, new territory.
“那么，你上的是哪所学校？”表面上看，这似乎不是一个别有用心的问题。20年前我刚上大学时，发现自己被其他学生反复问及这个问题，大多时候感到困惑不解。他们为什么这么感兴趣？肯定没人听说过我上的那所北威尔士公立综合学校吧？当他们用“查特豪斯”或“马尔伯勒”来回应我一脸茫然的表情时，我该怎么回答？当一个学生说起另一个学生时：“你知道吗，他上的是温彻斯特”，我茫然地盯着他，不明白他为什么要告诉我别人去汉普郡某城市的一日游（“哦，他玩得开心吗？”）。那是一种陌生的、全新的领域。
Asking someone where they went to school is often not an innocent question(单纯的问题). It is a way of “placing” you on a social scale(社会阶层). As thousands of freshers settle in to their first terms at university, a significant proportion will be battling with this dawning awareness that Britain runs on a network of private schools whose alumni often seem to know, or know of, one another.(当成千上万的新生开始大学第一学期时，相当一部分人会与一种逐渐觉醒的意识作斗争：英国运转在一个私立学校网络之上，其校友往往似乎彼此认识，或知道对方。) State-school students might have been dimly aware of it before, but nothing puts it into sharper focus than freshers(大学新生)’ week. It’s clear that little has changed since my own student days. I was saddened to read recent reports of classism(阶级歧视) at St Andrews(圣安德鲁斯大学), which led to a student’s announcement that she would not return this academic year: “Working-class students have been made to feel ashamed of their home life at university,” she said. The pervasiveness(普遍性) of private school culture, as I suppose you could call it, remains nationwide and deeply embedded(根深蒂固的).
问别人上的是哪所学校，往往不是一个单纯的问题。这是一种将你“定位”在社会阶层上的方式。当成千上万的新生开始大学第一学期时，相当一部分人会与一种逐渐觉醒的意识作斗争：英国运转在一个私立学校网络之上，其校友往往似乎彼此认识，或知道对方。公立学校的学生之前可能隐约意识到这一点，但没有什么比新生周更能让它清晰凸显。很明显，自从我自己的学生时代以来，几乎没有什么改变。读到最近关于圣安德鲁斯大学阶级歧视的报道，我感到难过，这导致一名学生宣布她本学年不会返校：“工薪阶层的学生在大学里被弄得对自己的家庭生活感到羞耻，”她说。私立学校文化的普遍性——我想你可以这么称呼它——仍然在全国范围内根深蒂固。
It’s a shock, as a young person, to go from being the majority – state-educated – to suddenly feeling like the minority, and in some stark cases being made to feel “less than(低人一等)” as a result. It’s why I admire Sophie Pender’s 93% Club so much. Pender set up the initiative while she was at Bristol University, where she was mocked for her working-class background, to bring renewed focus to the fact that the vast majority of people educated in the UK – 93% in fact – attended state school, and to offer them a professional career mentoring and networking alternative to the “old boys” that is a de facto benefit of private school attendance.(彭德在布里斯托大学时创立了这个倡议，当时她因工薪阶层背景而被嘲笑，目的是重新聚焦一个事实：在英国接受教育的人中，绝大多数——事实上93%——上的是公立学校，并为他们提供职业导师和社交网络，作为私立学校“老男孩”网络的替代——后者是上私立学校事实上的好处。)
作为一个年轻人，从占多数——接受公立教育——突然变成感觉像少数，这是一种冲击，在某些严酷的情况下，还会因此被弄得觉得自己“低人一等”。这就是为什么我如此钦佩索菲·彭德的“93%俱乐部”。彭德在布里斯托大学时创立了这个倡议，当时她因工薪阶层背景而被嘲笑，目的是重新聚焦一个事实：在英国接受教育的人中，绝大多数——事实上93%——上的是公立学校，并为他们提供职业导师和社交网络，作为私立学校“老男孩”网络的替代——后者是上私立学校事实上的好处。