This paper seeks to take advantage of the concept of emotional capital to analyse how class is lived out through a critical educational failure by referring to the experiences of 64 community-college students in Hong Kong from a longitudinal qualitative study. Arguably an analysis of the emotions of middle-class and working-class respondents and…

This paper reports on the patterns of participation in organised sports of youngsters coming towards the end of primary school, with a view to identifying emergent sporting habits in relation to social class gradients. The data for the study were generated via 90 semi-structured interviews with parents and children from 62 families. The data…

The article draws upon Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and cultural capital to provide an in-depth analysis of the gender differences in students' motivation for undertaking postgraduate (PG) education in Mainland China. It reports an in-depth case study comprising 381 questionnaires and 30 semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data show…

To follow up on research conducted in several countries, in this paper, we look at the dilemmas middle-class parents face of being "good parents" by choosing the "best" school with a milieu-related environment for their child versus being "good citizens" by choosing a "local" public school with a large…

Social class differences in educational decision-making form an important explanation for persisting educational inequalities, particularly in choice-driven systems with early tracking. Nevertheless, little is known about the process preceding these choices, especially when school and track choice are interrelated. Building on school choice…

In addition to fostering bilingualism and biliteracy for all students, one of the main goals of Two-Way Immersion (TWI) programs is building positive cross-cultural relationships (). This can lead to TWI programs having ambitious goals for the kinds of bridges it can build between students, families, and communities, which is a challenge when the…

Much of the literature on social class and language study in schools argues that for middle-class parents and their children, languages are chosen for their capacity to offer forms of distinction that provide an edge in the global labour market. In this paper, we draw on data collected from interviews with parents and children in middle-class…

This paper draws on a three-year critical ethnography which interrogated intersections of social class, school and identity in an urban Irish community. The focus here is on the psycho-spatial disidentifications, inscriptions and class fractioning enacted throughout the school and community of Portown by a cohort of succeeding students from this…

Jessica Calarco explains in this article that students from different backgrounds tend to manage problems in contrasting ways that can have real consequences in the classroom. More specifically, Calarco observed children from middle-class families tended to actively seek help from their teachers, while children from working-class families…

This article employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools to unpack family influences on students' subject and university choices in China. This empirical study employed mixed research approaches, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, to examine students' choices of subjects and universities in a sample of secondary school students from the age…

While a class gap remains in obtaining a degree despite an expansion of higher education, a variety of second chances have become available. How class matters in receiving parental assistance for seeking a second chance is of increasing importance to understanding educational inequality in an altered context of higher education, but it is…

This study focused on household funds of knowledge or "historically accumulated bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household functioning and well-being" (Gonzalez, Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001). A Funds of Knowledge approach provides both a methodological and theoretical lens for educators to understand both themselves and…

I set out to explore the question: How do middle-class, working-class and low-income mothers experience their children's out of school summer time? Using qualitative basic interpretive approach, study findings draw from interview data, journal entries and participant observations from a study completed with 22 mothers of varying socioeconomic…

The impact of social class backgrounds on young children's educational experiences has attracted increasing attention in early childhood research. However, few longitudinal studies related to social class and parental involvement in young children's education are available, especially in East Asian contexts. In this longitudinal qualitative study,…

This paper addresses some particular aspects of the complex intersections between race and social class. It is based upon data collected as part of a two-year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project exploring the "Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes" (BMC). ("The Educational Strategies of the Black…