This article is based on a comparative study of working-class students' experiences in English and Irish higher education. It highlights the lack of comparative studies on this topic based on qualitative research and why filling this gap is important in understanding access and widening participation. Drawing on biographical interviews with 139…

This paper is a qualitative consideration of how working-class mothers manage money, daily life, their children's education and, in the process, internalise a particularistic economic position. It is uncommon that educational sociology incorporates a critical engagement of the daily drudge of extending money, and the implications of managing the…

This article explores how a small sample of working-class mothers encounters the field of education. In the management of family and their children's schooling, mothers bring to bear and replicate ways of knowing that are embodied, are historical and that offer many-sided insights into profoundly stratified societies. Here I draw on Bourdieu's…

Research finds that participation in higher education is generally empowering for mature students but that it can also create tensions in their off-campus relationships. This article reports on findings from an ongoing study of the experiences of mature students at university in Ireland and draws from interviews with 15 such students in the final…