This article explores and discusses some aspects of autoethnographies from a published collection written by working-class academics. The original objective was for each academic to write an account of their life and their experiences of becoming who they are in an industry steeped in elitism. I was interested in how they experienced becoming a…

Higher education should be a social good for everyone and, despite the intentions of university policy on inclusion and diversity with schemes on widening participation, the truth is that for working-class students, university is still a place where they encounter prejudices and feelings of exclusion. This article uses the method of…

In this study, we focus on the role of Dutch Level 2 senior vocational training in care work in relation to the prospects and options it provides for students who follow this programme. Similar to the 'care girls' from previous studies our participants are young women from lower-class backgrounds who aspire to various jobs in the care sector, but…

This paper draws from a critical ethnographic case study of the Roses in Concrete Community School (RiC) in East Oakland, California to explore their approach to repurposing a traditional school into a community responsive learning institution by operationalizing a critical humanist vision of education in a marginalized, urban community. The…

This empirical qualitative study investigates the ways in which working-class roots have shaped educator values and identity. Using collaborative autoethnography, we share an honest insight into the stories of seven female educators drawn together from a variety of health and social care disciplines. The five themes emerging from this research:…

This paper draws on both a theoretical understanding and a semi-autoethnographic approach of the lived experience of working class adult learners in higher education during the COVID-19 global pandemic. In particular, the paper warns of the doxic notion of current working class struggles being singularly attributed to COVID-19. Rather it is vital…

This paper examines the intergenerational effects of deindustrialisation on the processes and experiences of education at 'Lillydown Primary', a state primary school in a former mining community in the north of England. Complicating Avery Gordon's notion of 'haunting', and drawing on conceptualisations of affect and community 'being-ness', it…

The purpose of this article is to enhance understanding of how Black female working class adult scholars cultivated support and advancement in the academy with the goal of entering the professoriate. In this critical ethnography, the authors elaborate on the concept of empowerment agent to detail how professionals within the academy created…

The impact of State policy to combat educational disadvantage with two iterations of DEIS supports has had a positive influence the patterns of achievement among all social groups with some notable improvements across a range of indicators for students in DEIS schools. Notwithstanding these improvements, research and evaluations continue to…

Ethnography as a methodological approach presents the fieldworker with many ethical crossroads throughout the research process. This is because of the unique position that ethnographers find themselves in, the environments that they research and the relationships which are formed. This paper presents four confessional vignettes from a broader…

In this dissertation, I present findings from a two-year long ethnographic study of Mandarin world language in two public high schools: primarily, an urban, working-class, ethnically/racially diverse school, and secondarily, an affluent ethnoburban high school. I study how local discourses among school participants, at the primary field site,…

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…

This paper investigates the production of space and language policy in Ras Al Khaimah, a city in the United Arab Emirates. The paper builds on recent work in socio- and applied linguistics that has made use of sociospatial concepts from human geography. It argues that researchers should not only investigate space as a factor structuring language…

Since the 1970s, the process of deindustrialisation, accompanied by social, cultural and political changes, has altered youth transitions from school to work. This paper is drawn from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study that explored the diversity of white, working-class young men (aged between 16 and 18) in a post-industrial…

This article critically interrogates the model of language that underpins early years policy and pedagogy. Our arguments emerge from an ethnographic study involving 2-year-olds attending a day care centre that had begun to hold a substantial proportion of its sessions outdoors. The resultant shift in pedagogy coincided with changes in the…