With the goal of improving efforts and initiatives to promote college completion, this book offers an engaging, in-depth analysis of the cultural journeys of rural, poor and working-class college students. By examining select student stories through the lens of cultural flexibility, cultural integration, and cultural capital and wealth, the author…

Placing a spotlight on the classism inherent in higher education, this book highlights the realities that working-class students face when navigating elite higher education spaces and the rewards and challenges of supporting these students in such spaces. Drawing on the life experiences of academics of working-class heritage and a Student Advisory…

The American dream promised that if you worked hard, you could move up, with well-paying working-class jobs providing a gateway to an ever-growing middle class. Today, however, we have increasing inequality, not economic convergence. Technological advances are putting quality jobs out of reach for workers who lack the proper skills and training.…

This book examines the structural and cultural factors that explain the persistence of an attainment gap between white and Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students in UK universities. So-called 'deficit' approaches have long represented the orthodoxy in higher education strategy-making, yet they overlook the structural and institutional…

This case explores the use of feminist memory work with working-class women social science students, who narrated and interpreted what helped and hindered them to study at university. Gender and class sensitive, this method involves participants writing stories and then narrating them to other group members who collectively analyze the body of…

Every day brings news about so-called Islamic State and its seduction of young people in the West. The radicalization of young Muslims causes alarm; even the desirability of multiculturalism is questioned in troubled cities where racism and Islamophobia are on the rise. This book is a case study of one distressed post-industrial city struggling…

In an interconnected world, developing culturally responsive curriculum in higher education fosters inclusive learning environments and prepares students to thrive in global contexts. Culturally responsive curriculum actively incorporates diverse perspectives, histories, and context into content, pedagogy, and assessments. By acknowledging and…

In this case study, I critically evaluate a research project that aimed to understand and disrupt processes of pathologization and exclusion experienced by young Black women within an inner-London 16-19 college. I detail the emergence of this project, its format, and its methods with reference to two epistemological traditions: Black feminist…

This case study is based on my PhD research, completed in 2010, in which I explored how families from broadly working class backgrounds constructed and understood the fact that a child of theirs had been labelled 'gifted and talented' at school. I wanted to understand this in relation to their views on giftedness and alongside their own…

"Welcoming Blue-Collar Scholars Into the Ivory Tower" is the first volume in a new book series designed to explore how institutional policies, practices, and cultures shape learning, development, and success for students who have been historically underserved or given limited consideration in the design of higher education contexts.…

In 2006, this dissertation research project explored the experiences of working-class students in elite higher education at Radcliffe College during the years 1940-1970. By conducting a secondary statistical analysis of the "1977 Radcliffe Centennial Survey" (a comprehensive questionnaire of the life experiences of alumnae) and a…

Academic mobility promotes the development of joint research activities, broadens the horizons of researchers, lecturers and professors, and promotes knowledge flows between institutions. This book offers a contemporary perspective on the mobility of academics across the globe with contributions by authors based in Australia, Germany, Ireland,…

While stories of working-class and minority students overcoming obstacles to attend and graduate from college tend to emphasize the individualistic and meritocratic aspect, this book--based in extensive empiral study of American high school classrooms, and in theories of social and cultural capital--examines the social relations that often…

The marketised and securitised shaping of formal education sites in terms of risk prevention strategies have transformed what it means to be a learner and a citizen. In this book, Karl Kitching explores racialised dimensions to suggest how individuals and collectives are increasingly made responsible for their own welfare as "good" or…

"The United States today is a suburban nation that thinks of race as an urban issue, and often assumes that it has been largely solved," write the editors of this groundbreaking and passionately argued book. They show that the locus of racial and ethnic transformation is now clearly suburban and illustrate patterns of demographic change…