Who Gets to Be Smart
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Who Gets to Be Smart
Buy Now for $25.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Bri Lee
-
By:
-
Bri Lee
About this listen
In 2018, Bri Lee's brilliant young friend Damian was named a Rhodes Scholar, an apex of academic achievement. When she goes to visit him and takes a tour of Oxford and Rhodes House, she begins questioning her belief in a system she has previously revered, as she learns the truth behind what Virginia Woolf described almost a century earlier as the 'stream of gold and silver' that flows through elite institutions and dictates decisions about who deserves to be educated there. The question that forms in her mind drives the following two years of conversations and investigations: who gets to be smart?
Interrogating the adage, 'knowledge is power', and calling institutional prejudice to account, Bri once again dives into her own privilege and presumptions to bring us the stark and confronting results. Far from offering any 'equality of opportunity', Australia's education system exacerbates social stratification. The questions Bri asks of politics and society have their answers laid bare in the response to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
©2021 Bri Lee (P)2021 W F HowesCritic Reviews
"Left me full of hope." (Malcolm Knox)
"A searing expose." (Alice Pung)
"Thoughtful, surprising and exquisitely written. Bri Lee once again challenges us to confront the structures that shape, and restrict, our understanding of the world." (Maddison Connaughton, editor of The Saturday Paper)
.
What listeners say about Who Gets to Be Smart
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 16-10-2021
a personal reflection
Lee is well-intentioned in her goal of uncovering inequities in access to education but the book lacks an organising argument/theory about 'who gets be smart'.
This book is more a series of reflections on Lee's personal journey towards realising there are inequities in Australia's education system. Unfortunately no solutions to addressing these inequities are suggested.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 17-05-2023
Just give it a go
Unlike other listeners the tittle of the book didn’t suggest to me she would give a solution to every problematic discussed here. I’d be confident the low ratings are made by people who fit the non empathetic model described in the Language chapter. In Australian politics, left or right, have show to be two sides of the same bird and both wings exercise their turn in power aiming to retain the current structure. She’s not claiming to have the answers but rather sharing her journey to come to see her own nation from a less righteous point of view and that in it self deserves recognition.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jessica Lane
- 25-08-2021
Very important, though not surprising
This is an important book. Whilst a lot of the information will not be surprising to anyone familiar with the political climate/class divides in Australia, it's still well worth a read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-06-2021
GOOD BLOODY WORK BRI
Loved it very much. Have enjoyed seeing the authors knowledge of feminism and BIPOC grow over the years. Just wish there was a mention of discrimination against queer especially transgender people in the education system. Regardless listening today for a second time!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Katherine Rosonakis
- 20-02-2022
Great Research and Ideas, but Didn't Hold Together
I loved Eggshell Skull. I thought it was a brilliant first book- the personal story added mountains to the ideas and arguments.
For this book... the personal stories often felt, a little indulgent. As a self named white- middle class- private school educated- lawyer from the city, with 2 - going on 3 degrees, the self richeous rants about class and inteligence feel like they a lacked a little humility.
Bri largely achieves her goal of making the ideas accessible to a wide audience. (Although another reviewer made the fair point that anone right of center would struggle to get through much of this book-given the 'basket of deplorables' attitude to conservatives).
She is an excellent resercher and wrtier and she has fascinating points to make about education, class, inteligence, race and how they apply to an Australian context. Do her personal stories add to this topic? I didnt think so in this book.
Many Indigenous Australian writers have already written on this topic and haven't had such a large profile, or a pop social issues book deal.
I hope that Bri's next focus might be some more listening (as she hints at) and amplifying of personal stories of the refuggees, international students and Indigenous people she speaks so much about.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 30-09-2022
Excellent read!
Such a wonderful book. Beautifully written and exceptionally narrated. Lee expertly details how our educational institutions, both historically and currently, are designed to entrench privilege.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 23-09-2022
Fantastic.
I absolutely adore this book as it is a searing exploration of a system that I have never been favoured by which makes much more sense now. Incredible. 👍🏼👍🏼 #fivestars
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- E Tucker
- 15-08-2021
Brilliant and insightful
Beautifully written and read. A very engaging book, Bri has a wonderful mind and articulates her thinking and research in a very accessible way. Was wonderful company while going about my day.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- El
- 22-11-2021
Flawless
So glad Bri read her own book - perfect delivery, good to hear an Aussie accent, honest and thoughtful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- gina
- 06-04-2024
Brilliant!
Such an informative, insightful and thought provoking listen. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be recommending!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!