Models of curricula development in higher education pay scant attention to the role of self-interested actors in the construction of knowledge. Rather, it is assumed that curricula develop on the basis of fission within disciplines, fusion between fields, the exertion of pressure by the state or other stakeholders, or the development of knowledge…

More working-class students are entering universities--mainly because the restructuring of the American economy has made a college degree an entry-level requirement for mid- and low-level jobs, the kind that call for manipulating information rather than steel or concrete. Despite these changing job demands, however, the class structure of the…

This project stands at the juncture of modern Chinese literature, post-socialist studies, cultural history of divorce, and critical studies about global middle-class cultures. Employing analytical tools mainly from literary studies, cultural studies and feminist theories, I examine stories, novels, films and TV dramas about divorce produced…

In Central America the Cold War support of the elites by the United States was designed to ward off the communist threat. At the same time social and economic demands by the working and middle classes created revolutionary movements in the face of rigid and violent responses by Central American governments. Issues of social justice pervaded the…

This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high-stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working-class school and a…

The present study explores the environmental attitudes (EA) of senior high school students in Turkey, explains which determinant factors affect these EAs, and concludes with some suggestions for curricular reform. This study includes over nine hundred students from different school types, neighbourhoods, geographical regions, and socioeconomic…

The basic skills movement is viewed as a reaction, by sections of the middle class, to educational changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Curriculum changes during those years threatened the ability of the educated, white-collar worker to pass cultural advantages on to his or her offspring. (PP)

This article uses data from the Australian Censuses of 1976 and 2001 to measure the extent to which the children of school teachers participated in the middle class shift from public to non-government secondary schooling of the closing decades of the last century. It builds on recent work by Craig Campbell and Geoffrey Sherington on the history of…

This article investigates how 15-year-old white and Turkish students in two Inner London comprehensive schools, one in a predominantly working-class area (Millroad School) and the other in a more middle-class environment (Darwin School), construct their identities. Drawing on mainly qualitative data from documentary sources, focus groups and…

We examined reciprocal associations between parent-adolescent conflict and academic achievement over a 2-year period. Participants were mothers, fathers, and adolescents from predominantly White, working and middle class families (N = 168). After accounting for previous academic achievement, parent-adolescent conflict predicted relative declines…

Looking at holiday observances and patterns of contact and interaction among kinsmen, this paper examines the values middle class people hold about both close and distant kinsmen and investigates how consistent their actual behavioral patterns are to these expressed values. A questionaire was constructed and administered to a class of…

The links between changes in sibling conflict and intimacy and changes in perceived peer social competence and depression symptoms were examined from middle childhood through adolescence. Participants were mothers, fathers and first- and second-born siblings from 197 White, working/middle class, two-parent families. Peer competence peaked in …

A college degree has become the ticket to the middle class. Yet, at the same time, the cost of achieving this milestone has increased considerably. For many students and families, the only way to meet the substantial cost of higher education is to take out loans. While some amount of debt may be acceptable--after all, it is important for students…

This paper explores the hypothesis that parents consider preschool education to be more important for boys than for girls. To test this hypothesis, the following questions were examined: (1) Are boys disproportionately enrolled in nursery school? and (2) Do parents emphasize different reasons for enrolling boys and girls? The effect of social…

Examines ways in which current United Kingdom school-choice policies interact with parental pressures on their children to achieve excellence and how these pressures affect the emotional health of their middle- and working-class children as they make the transition from primary to secondary school. Finds serious emotional consequences (exam…