This paper examines the relationship of working-class feminist academics to the Academy. Our paper interrogates tensions between resistance and submission from the perspective of four educationally successful working-class women who have become academics. The paper starts with an overview of the state of the Academy at the beginning of the…

Educational transitions experienced within a context of wide and growing inequalities such as England result in very different transition experiences to those experienced by young people growing up in relatively equitable societies with strong communal links. Transitions of working class young people in England are beset with competition,…

This paper problematizes dominant discourses of social mobility. It begins by discussing social mobility from a philosophical perspective before examining current policies on social mobility in the United Kingdom, drawing on data from both recent mobility studies and the contemporary labour market. I then broaden out the discussion by exploring…

At a time when the public sector and state education (in the United Kingdom) is under threat from the encroaching marketisation policy and private finance initiatives, our research reveals white middle-class parents who in spite of having the financial opportunity to turn their backs on the state system are choosing to assert their commitment to…

Explores children's experiences as they are going through the secondary school choice process in two inner London primary schools. Reveals that there remains a strong pattern of class-related orientation to choice despite individual and family differences. Finds that the children's accounts demonstrate a distinction between making and getting a…

Examines ways in which current United Kingdom school-choice policies interact with parental pressures on their children to achieve excellence and how these pressures affect the emotional health of their middle- and working-class children as they make the transition from primary to secondary school. Finds serious emotional consequences (exam…