This article explores perceptions of the role of education as a potential medium of transformation and a vehicle to challenge and renegotiate symbolic and cultural notions of gender identity. Drawing on data collected at two time points over 10 years, it considers four young women from working-class backgrounds in England who aspired to and then…

This article explores the contrasting predispositions of a group of working-class and middle-class undergraduates to using nepotism to gain advantage in the labour market. Drawing upon a Bourdieusian framework, it is argued that the middle-class students, whose habitus was aligned to the field, were more likely to express a willingness to utilise…

Women from working class and some ethnic minority backgrounds continue to be underrepresented in science, particularly in areas such as physical sciences and engineering. Many find it difficult to see science as something that is "for them", which then has implications for their learning and participation in science. In this paper, I…

Bourdieu's theories enable us to conceptualise and understand why some people participate in higher education and some do not. Focussing on the working class as the marginalised social group in HE, Bourdieu demonstrated how education perpetuates inequality and lack of opportunity. The theories, or "thinking tools" as he called them,…

"Setting" is a widespread practice in the UK, despite little evidence of its efficacy and substantial evidence of its detrimental impact on those allocated to the lowest sets. Taking a Bourdieusian approach, we propose that setting can be understood as a practice through which the social and cultural reproduction of dominant power…

Habitus dislocation is a much debatable term. By presenting life-histories of working-class adolescents, this article argues (i) that not all upwardly mobile working-class adolescents experience habitus dislocation and, (ii) that habitus dislocation has its roots in the self-initiated ruptures that face some of those who want to be upwardly mobile…

This article engages with the notion that schools embody social class in their structures and practices. We draw on Bourdieu's critical concept of "field" to describe the larger landscape of Croatian secondary schooling: a stratified system whose routes serve, and have served, to reinforce the maintenance of class (under)privilege. We…

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 paper explores young people's perceptions of vocational education and training (VET) in England. It draws on interview and focus-group data from a funded project. Parallel studies were carried out in The Netherlands, South Africa and England. This study reports on the English project. It found that serendipity, contingent events and influence…

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…

Existing international research suggests that widespread performative pedagogy has contributed to producing educational inequalities for "disadvantaged" learners. There have also been calls for alternative pedagogies, which can be characterised as child-centred. This paper analyses pupils' hierarchical positioning in a contemporary,…

Most new students experience school to university transition as challenging. Students from backgrounds with little or no experience of higher education are most vulnerable in this transition, and most at risk of academic failure. Emotion appears implicated in the differential way in which first-generation students and students with family…

Resistance is typically framed around the experiences of youth with oppression within institutions and through "intersecting" systems of domination. Resistance among those who benefit the most from current institutional arrangements, like students attending elite schools, has rarely been considered in how resistance is theorized. This postcard is…

Empowering settings are important places for people to develop leadership skills in order to enact social change. Yet, due to socio-cultural constructions of childhood in the US, especially constructions around working class and working poor children of Color, they are often not seen as capable or competent change agents, or in need of being in…

Background: Education researchers are paying increasing attention to student activism and to the social production of school spaces. Few studies, however, have brought these two concerns together to examine how student activists work to rebuild school spaces in line with their political commitments. In the present study, I address this gap at the…