The American dream promised that if you worked hard, you could move up, with well-paying working-class jobs providing a gateway to an ever-growing middle class. Today, however, we have increasing inequality, not economic convergence. Technological advances are putting quality jobs out of reach for workers who lack the proper skills and training.…

This book examines the structural and cultural factors that explain the persistence of an attainment gap between white and Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students in UK universities. So-called 'deficit' approaches have long represented the orthodoxy in higher education strategy-making, yet they overlook the structural and institutional…

This case explores the use of feminist memory work with working-class women social science students, who narrated and interpreted what helped and hindered them to study at university. Gender and class sensitive, this method involves participants writing stories and then narrating them to other group members who collectively analyze the body of…

Every day brings news about so-called Islamic State and its seduction of young people in the West. The radicalization of young Muslims causes alarm; even the desirability of multiculturalism is questioned in troubled cities where racism and Islamophobia are on the rise. This book is a case study of one distressed post-industrial city struggling…

In this case study, I critically evaluate a research project that aimed to understand and disrupt processes of pathologization and exclusion experienced by young Black women within an inner-London 16-19 college. I detail the emergence of this project, its format, and its methods with reference to two epistemological traditions: Black feminist…

This case study is based on my PhD research, completed in 2010, in which I explored how families from broadly working class backgrounds constructed and understood the fact that a child of theirs had been labelled 'gifted and talented' at school. I wanted to understand this in relation to their views on giftedness and alongside their own…

In 2006, this dissertation research project explored the experiences of working-class students in elite higher education at Radcliffe College during the years 1940-1970. By conducting a secondary statistical analysis of the "1977 Radcliffe Centennial Survey" (a comprehensive questionnaire of the life experiences of alumnae) and a…

"Welcoming Blue-Collar Scholars Into the Ivory Tower" is the first volume in a new book series designed to explore how institutional policies, practices, and cultures shape learning, development, and success for students who have been historically underserved or given limited consideration in the design of higher education contexts.…

While stories of working-class and minority students overcoming obstacles to attend and graduate from college tend to emphasize the individualistic and meritocratic aspect, this book--based in extensive empiral study of American high school classrooms, and in theories of social and cultural capital--examines the social relations that often…

Academic mobility promotes the development of joint research activities, broadens the horizons of researchers, lecturers and professors, and promotes knowledge flows between institutions. This book offers a contemporary perspective on the mobility of academics across the globe with contributions by authors based in Australia, Germany, Ireland,…

The marketised and securitised shaping of formal education sites in terms of risk prevention strategies have transformed what it means to be a learner and a citizen. In this book, Karl Kitching explores racialised dimensions to suggest how individuals and collectives are increasingly made responsible for their own welfare as "good" or…

"The United States today is a suburban nation that thinks of race as an urban issue, and often assumes that it has been largely solved," write the editors of this groundbreaking and passionately argued book. They show that the locus of racial and ethnic transformation is now clearly suburban and illustrate patterns of demographic change…

Education is a controversial subject in which difficult and contested discourses are the norm. Individuals in education experience multiple inequalities and have diverse identifications that cannot necessarily be captured by one theoretical perspective alone. This edited collection draws on empirical and theoretical research to examine the…

For many students, making their way to higher education requires more than hard work and determination. Low-income minority students who overcome obstacles to achieve academic success have usually encountered at least one college-educated adult in their schooling who took the initiative to reach out to them and provide concrete academic guidance.…

This book presents the evidence gathered from original interviews to show how the aspirations of young people develop in light of their social circumstances. Those who attend independent schools will find that the relationship between what goes on at home and at school makes it socially almost impossible not to have achievable aspirations for a…