This paper examines the class distribution of young people, aged 16-17 years, in colleges of further education (FE) using data from the Youth Cohort Study. It finds that, contrary to popular perceptions of FE colleges as being for "other people's children", middle-class students as well as working-class students are well represented.…

This viewpoint explores and shares our experience of "doing" feminism in the context of its apparent "demise". We were recently invited to attend an event at the Cabinet Office, to "discuss the impact aspirations and expectations within the community have on the educational achievement of young people in deprived…

Despite an increase in higher education uptake in the UK, participation rates for working class students remain low. When working-class students attend university, they are often attracted to lower status universities to enrol in new subject areas, such as media studies. This study uses Bourdieu's theory of stratification, and its reproduction via…

This study aims to examine the key barriers to learning to raise achievement of White British pupils with low-income backgrounds. The main findings suggest that the worryingly low-achievement levels of many White working class pupils have been masked by the middle class success in the English school system and government statistics that fail to…

This paper explores the social class-differentiated behaviours of access and traditional-entry students, based on a three-year constructivist grounded theory study with 45 undergraduates at an Irish university. The participant groups behaved significantly differently within the socio-relational realm, engaging in various forms of distancing…

In the course of educational expansion, student populations have become more diverse. This paper represents an international literature review on the topic of first-generation students (FGS), i.e. students whose parents have not obtained a higher education qualification. On the basis of more than 70 research articles and reports on FGS from…

This paper is based on the findings of a 3-year, qualitative study funded by the Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes for Poverty. It uses Sen's [1985. "Well-being agency and freedom." "Journal of Philosophy" 82, no. 4: 169-221] capability approach and Bourdieu's [1991. "Language and symbolic power." Cambridge,…

This national case study examines the educational experiences of twenty-one women that self-identified as low-income or working-class Chicanas or Native American women pursuing professoriate degrees in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Forestry, and Education. The case study includes forty-two qualitative "testimonio" interviews that…

Positioning theory provides a lens through which to view the narrative accounts of working-class parents as dynamic, intentional acts of positioning intended to gain the recognition of school personnel as full partners in the education of their children. Knowing that school personnel will not treat them with the kind of respect given middle-class…

Using data collected by the Birth-to-Twenty child cohort study in urban South Africa, this paper describes the patterns of schooling of a population of children born in the Greater Johannesburg area in April to June 1990. This paper examines the patterns of initial enrolment in Grade 1, transitions through grades, and trends in primary school…

The article examines the genesis of school inspection in South East Wales during the period 1839-1843 through the writing of Hugh Seymour Tremenheere, one of the first school inspectors. It discusses the formation of the new inspectorate and provides a narrative analysis of educational provision and social, cultural and economic conditions…

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the primary federal legislation establishing national wage and hour standards. The purpose of the Act is to protect the working class from overwork and underpay by providing non-waivable rights to a minimum wage and a premium pay rate at time and one-half the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40…

A study conducted from 1996-2000 focused on the academic development of children within a statewide educational reform effort, including changing the organizational structure of the early years of schooling into nongraded primary programs (formerly age-based classrooms for kindergarteners through third grade). The multisite study involved children…

Most secondary school students in Egypt enrol in private tutoring in almost all subjects throughout the school year. A large proportion of students have stopped attending school altogether due to their reliance on tutoring. This study of how educational markets are perpetuated at school level finds that in the technical track catering to the…

In 2002, approximately two thirds of school teachers in the Canadian province of Alberta went on strike. Drawing on media, government and union documents, this case study reveals some contours of the political economy of labor relations in education that are normally hidden from view. Among these features are that the state can react to worker…