In this paper, I argue a new politics of ordinal differentiation and its instruments for governing education aims to make invisible a 'low intensity civil war' against the labouring classes. It does this through the elevation and ubiquity of actuarial and quantitative measures aimed at producing a new form of differentiated belonging: that of…

Despite ongoing efforts to promote ethnic, racial and socio-economic integration, segregation continues to challenge education administrators and legal scholars. Privileged parents seeking to avoid integration employ various strategies such as attending private schools or buying houses in neighbourhoods with good school. This paper offers a…

The present study investigated developmental differences and stability in possible selves within the educational and occupational domain among a diverse sample of urban youth (N = 319). A secondary aim was to test the "aspiration-expectation gap" while exploring the role of subjective social class and gender differences. Results did not…

There are large social class inequalities in educational achievement in the UK. This paper quantifies the contribution of one mechanism to the production of these inequalities: social class differences in school "effectiveness," where "effectiveness" refers to a school's impact on pupils' educational achievement (relative to…

In this paper, we critically analyze institutional mission statements as discursive texts replete with symbolic meaning, as we believe these texts reveal a great deal about the ways in which higher education remains increasingly stratified. We argue that beneath the generalized rhetoric of institutional mission statements, lie powerful messages…

In this paper, we develop an information distortion model (IDM) of social class differences in self-beliefs and values. The IDM combines psychological biases on frame-of-reference effects with sociological foci on ability stratification. This combination is hypothesized to lead to working-class children having more positive math self-beliefs and…

Few policies have affected American society as deeply as those related to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision, "Brown v. Board of Education." Now, 60 years later, segregation persists along race and class divisions. This case study analysis of a merger that took place between 2010 and 2013 in Memphis and Shelby County,…

This paper presents an estimate of the prevalence of social inequality in accessing higher education among vulnerable groups in Mexico. Estimates were determined from statistical data provided by governmental agencies on the level of poverty among the Mexican population. In Mexico, the conditions of poverty and vulnerability while trying to access…

The aim of this study is to determine the primary school pre-service teachers' attitude toward cursive handwriting and to determine whether a significant difference exists among those pre-service teachers' attitude with respect to gender, class and their universities. In order to collect data "Scale for Attitude towards Cursive…

This article focuses on different ways in which socially disadvantaged parents engage with their children's educational experiences, and provides evidence of the role they play in opening or narrowing their children's access to education. Disadvantaged parents are usually associated with weak or difficult educational trajectories for their…

The "Anatomy of Economic Inequality in Wales" (2011) provides quantitative evidence for the pervasive nature of class-based inequalities in education, demonstrating that an individual in social housing is approximately 10 times less likely to be a graduate compared to those in other types of accommodation. This article moves beyond the…

This paper reports a follow-up study that explored the relationship between EFL learners' critical literacy practices and the English language proficiency. It investigated four focal EFL learners' critical literacy practices in their dialogic interaction and also analyzed 39 students' views on their critical literacy learning. The four focal…

Cultural capital is frequently referred to as a construct in the analysis of inequality in higher education. It has been suggested that variations in cultural capital contribute to social class differences in levels of participation, distribution of students between elite and other universities, and the likelihood of dropping out. However, recent…

The United States experienced a tremendous expansion of higher education after the Second World War. However, this expansion has not led to a substantial reduction to class inequalities at elite universities, where the admissions process is growing even more selective. In his classic studies of French education and society, Pierre Bourdieu…

In distinguishing the characteristics of message systems, it was found that middle-class messages were generally more difficult to predict while working-class systems were more predictable and stereotyped. (Author/MB)