"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 2005, Spanish television audiences saw the debut of the nation's first spinoff, the sitcom "Aída." The show featured the tribulations of its title character and her working-class family in their struggle to "llegar a fin de mes." It seemed to promise a sensibility enacted in the US series "Roseanne," where another…

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…

As the Council of Europe is shifting its traditional focus on learning European languages towards emphasizing the importance of speaking other languages of the wider world, an increasing number of schools are offering Mandarin as part of their official curriculum in the United Kingdom. This is being financially supported by…

This article explores the politically contentious issue of White working-class student under-achievement within one particular school--a large and culturally diverse comprehensive secondary school in the greater London area. The article examines the equity philosophies and identity politics articulated by staff in their understanding of and…

Popular rhetoric suggests that the future of post-industrialized regions is dependant in part on young people's engagement. If so, school and community educators will do well to work with youth to better understand influences on how they envision engagement--both historical and present-day--and assumptions on which they are premised. They then may…

This article builds a case for nuanced conceptualizations of "urban" and "-suburban" educational contexts and issues. The author analyzes data across two studies--one of upper-middle-class White parents with children in Chicago public schools, and the other of Black low-income and working-class parents who moved from Chicago to…

The role of music in Grenada, West Indies has traditionally been to pass on knowledges, values, and ideals; and to provide a means of connecting to one another through expressing commonality of experience, ancestry, and nationhood. This paper explores how Eric Matthew Gairy, during his era of political leadership in Grenada (1951-1979), exploited…

The effects of neoliberal ideologies infiltrate all aspects of the teaching-learning environment, including academic practices of reading and writing. Writing, more than simply a demonstration of academic proficiency, represents a means of thinking--an opportunity to develop critical thought, build resistance to neoliberal individualism through…

Adult Learners' Week has whirled round again, but the author has been looking backwards. An invitation to speak at an event to mark the retirement of Richard Bolsin as General Secretary of the Workers' Educational Association prompted him at last to get hold of Jonathan Rose's "Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes." Rose's concern is…

Working-class students enter college lacking necessary capital to predict their academic and personal success making college success less likely than for middle class students (Bufton, 2003; Mack, 2006; Paulsen & St. John, 2002; Rose, 1997; Wegner, 1973). This same social class origin helps to define experiences, provides context for…

This article explores how achievement motivation is framed by the larger context of the devaluation of educational capital that is currently underway in urban centers in Europe. The article elucidates the shared cultural meaning working-class German Turkish youths living in urban marginalized zones in Berlin, Germany create about the decreasing…

This paper addresses the question of dissemination of nutritional knowledge in textbooks of household schools between 1890 and 1940. It starts by considering the nature of food recommendations in manuals that are used in Belgian household schools, and then deals with the sources that are referred to by those who give food advice, comparing the…

This paper reiterates the centrality of economics (relations of production) in Marxist models of class, while avoiding the crude determinism which results from a neglect of cultural aspects of class formation. It explores the confusion in education and educational sociology arising from non-Marxist conceptions of class which place an exaggerated…

Parents play a key role in children's academic success. In this article, the author describes a sample of India's middle- and working-class parents' involvement in children's academic activities and the nature of support they provide for their children. In each case, everyday activities at home, often replicating school-based activities, indicated…