Internationally, boys from working-class backgrounds are often the most likely to disengage from their formal education. Research on the educational experience of working-class boys has focused heavily on their identity barriers, often positioning these young men as either vulnerable or volatile in their formal education. Social theorists have…

This paper is about social class and initial teacher education, specifically the perspectives and experiences of those from lower socio-economic groups in an initial teacher education programme in Ireland. It draws on a qualitative study employing in-depth semi-structured interviews with 21 'working class' student teachers, exploring their…

Diversity in terms of class, sexual identity and migration background among medical students in high income countries has increased greatly in recent decades. Some research into the experiences of these new groups of doctors has been performed. However, no previous research into the experiences of psychiatry residents specifically, is known. This…

Attending college can create dissonance for working-class students as they experience tension between their home communities and the norms and values of higher education. In this study, I explored how working-class students make meaning of their social class identity at public research institutions. Through a critical constructivist narrative…

For Latinx and other college students from minoritized communities, racial and ethnic group membership, socioeconomic status (SES), and multiple other social identities play important roles in their college experiences and well-being. How students perceive the intersection of their multiple identities is shaped by their own subjective…

Despite the wide-ranging scholarship on the educational attitudes held by native-born members of the middle and working class, few researchers have examined the impact of class on the attitudes of new arrivals. This article addresses this gap using data gathered through an ethnographic study conducted among 30 newly arrived refugee and immigrant…

Establishing a sense of belonging on campus is needed for the success of all students, but research indicates that belonging can serve as a key protective factor for students with working-class social identities (Ardoin, 2018a; Espinoza, 2011; Ostrove & Long, 2007; Strayhorn, 2019). Through a mixed-methods approach, this study looked at…

An intersectional approach to human development emphasizes the multiple social categories individuals occupy, some of which confer privilege (e.g., being White) and some of which confer marginalization (e.g., being poor). This approach is needed especially in critical consciousness scholarship, and particularly in regard to understanding whether…

This study extends Boudon's positional theory to understand how students from different social origins make choices about university and how they interpret risks during the choice-making process in contemporary China. I draw upon empirical evidence from 71 in-depth semi-structured interviews with undergraduates from different social backgrounds…

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…

Trangression is an act of challenging boundaries that separate apparently distinct oppositional categories objects. Examples are categories such as such as civilised/primitive, male/female, master/servant, Lordship/bondage. The article deals with such transgressions related to the evolution of class consciousness transgressive critical thinking.…

This paper draws on Judith Butler's concepts of "intelligibility" and "identity as performance" to make sense of enactments of 'subaltern' (that is, subordinated) urban students within secondary school science. Understanding classrooms as constituted by complex power struggles for voice, authenticity and recognition, the paper…

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…

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…