Childcare is a condensate of disparate social forces and social processes. It is gendered and classed. It is subject to an excess of policy and political discourse. It is increasingly a focus for commercial exploitation. This is a paper reporting on work in progress in an ESRC funded research project (R000239232) on the choice and provision of…

The transition to secondary school is rarely conceptualised as an important influence in maintaining and contributing to wider processes of social exclusion in the inner city. This article argues that the seeds of social exclusion are sown in under-resourced, struggling inner-city schooling, and their germination is found in class practices,…

"Your Average Nigga" contends that just as exaggerating the differences between black and white language leaves some black speakers, especially those from the ghetto, at an impasse, so exaggerating and reifying the differences between the races leaves blacks in the impossible position of either having to try to be white or forever struggling to…

At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, representatives of the politically oppressed middle class in a politically fragmented Germany began to look to education in search for a means of emancipation, with the pedagogical concept of "Bildung" as their central focus. The attractiveness of the concept was also a…

In this paper, the author describes his own understanding of the process on how he moved from being a working-class boy who experienced school as a digression from his real interest--sports--to someone who had made education his life work. In particular, he describes his own changing gender, race, and class identity within the context of an…

This purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of parents with children with disabilities towards their children and how Mexican society treats their children. Using a focus group with a translator four middle class parents were interviewed about their children with disabilities in Guadalajara, Mexico. At a later date two other parents…

This paper considers how urban, ethnically diverse working class girls' constructions of femininities mediate and shape their dis/engagement with education and schooling. We discuss how girls generated a sense of identity value/worth through practices such as "speaking my mind"--which prioritized notions of agency and visibility and…

In this article, the author suggests that a Foucaultian analytics of power may be used to explain not only how white, middle-class parents make school choices, but also the effects such choices have on these parents. This essay looks at an empirical moment in which a group of white, middle-class parents responded to a change that occurred in their…

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the associations between a variety of measures of extracurricular participation and indicators of youth development. We use data from the Childhood and Beyond Study, a larger longitudinal study of adolescent development. The sample is primarily White middle-class adolescents in Grades 7…

A discussion of speech behavior and social distance outlines the major ways in which the study of rules of speaking can provide insights into the norms and values of a speech community. It shows ways in which the same material can provide information about the interaction process and the situations in which interlocutors negotiate their…

This paper proposes a comprehensive model in which the emergence and growth of various professions in Sweden can be localized and better understood. An opening section offers some remarks about the problem of definition and delineation of the concept of "profession." This section defines professionals as carriers of abstract expert…

Although a great deal of attention since the late 1970s has been given to the masculine construction and practice of science, this critique has not completely entered the realm of school science. To the extent that it has, it has largely been deployed to depict the disadvantage that female students find themselves at as they negotiate within this…

In studying sociolinguistic rules, researchers must be aware of some guiding principles: that (1) these rules are below the conscious level of awareness, and (2) rules of speaking differ across cultural groups, with none being more correct than another. Even when members of different cultural groups interact in the same language they may find it…

The present study (1) explores the extent to which the standard format of the conservation assessment task may mask conserving abilities of preschoolers and (2) investigates how the wording of a typical conservation task may affect the type of justifications offered by children of two different socioeconomic backgrounds. Subjects included 48 4- to…

Discusses the need to include areas in graduate social work curriculum not only to combat racism but also to direct attention to the lower-class white ethnic population. The profession must renew its commitment to cultural pluralism, with a goal of identifying bridge issues among varied groups and developing coalitions. (Editor/PG)