There is a significant, longstanding tradition in British sociological research that renders cultural capital synonymous with whiteness. This article suggests that one substantive factor that contributes to the enduring relationship between whiteness and cultural capital is the paucity of research on the Black and ethnic minority middle classes.…

This article aims to compare and contrast the perceptions of parental influence of indigenous middle-class students and immigrant students in Cyprus, and to investigate how their family's capital mediates students' educational choices for studies in higher education. This study draws on interview data with two students and their parents and…

In this study, we collected and analyzed data to examine the extent to which the achievement gap between urban and suburban children extended to their knowledge of digital literacies. Findings indicated that the suburban children outperformed the urban students in each of the performance areas, and that suburban children reported greater…

Even though scholars have attempted to identify features determining high-quality preschools, little is known about parents' views about high-quality preschools. Particularly important is the understanding of immigrant parents' views about high-quality preschools in relation to their cultural and socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. The present study…

Social capital--the social relations between people--is an important component of the family environment and is crucial for the creation of human capital for the next generation. Drawing on James S. Coleman's theory of family capital, this study focuses on parents' utilization of social capital to support children's literacy acquisition in four…

Young people's perceptions may offer an insight into the complex associations between language, education and social class. However, little research has asked young people what they think of their own talking. Forty-two British adolescents aged between 14 and 15 years were interviewed: 21 attended a school in a working class area; 21 attended…

This qualitative study examined the issue of history education and its failure to understand and implement the most effective teaching and learning strategies for the discipline. It did this by conducting interviews, observations, and a focus group with a group of history teachers in a suburban high school in New England. While aiming to explain…

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between pedagogical continuity in literacy education and early literacy development by comparing Chinese children in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Stratified random sampling was used to select 24 preschool and Primary 1 classes in four communities catering to middle-class families in each city. The 24…

This paper explores the ways physical and health education is justified in two school settings: a private girls' school and a co-educational government school located in the same Australian city. Physical and health education policies and interview material with teachers are drawn on to explore the meanings taken up by the schools. Whilst similar…

Stratification is a central issue in family research, yet relatively few studies highlight its impact on family processes. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N = 137) and observational data (N = 12), we extend Melvin Kohn's research on childrearing values by examining how parental commitments to self-direction and conformity are enacted in daily…

Background: Researchers have largely attributed achievement gaps between different groups of students in the United States to differences in resources, parent education, socioeconomic status (SES), and school quality. They have also shown how, through their "cultural productions," certain students may disadvantage themselves. Focus: This article…

This paper analyses a specific kind of choice, choice of the local school, by a specific middle class group, characterized by its high cultural capital, its "caring" perspective and liberal political orientation, in two cosmopolitan, "mixed" settings, London and Paris, with a focus on values and how ethical dilemmas raised by…

This article explores a framework for an ethics of choice in urban education. It outlines the educational ambitions and ambivalences of a group of middle class families in one locality. The research on which we draw involved interviews with 28 middle class parents in the London Borough of Hackney and is part of a comparative study of urban middle…

This article reports on case study research of seven- and eight-year-old children's discourse about reading. The case studies were selected to provide classrooms in contrasting neighbourhoods within a white "working class" town in the North of England. Mixed methods were employed, but primarily the case studies were ethnographic in…

Compensatory education for disadvantaged preschool children includes, as one of its central components, a planned intervention program which is to provide the deprived child with linguistic skills comparable to those acquired naturally by children with a middle-class background. The hypothesis guiding the design and implementation of this study…