Drawing on interviews with 15 boys attending schools in low socioeconomic communities in Australia, this paper examines the multiplicity of contextual influences on boys' everyday reading experiences. Implementing an ecological metaphor, boys' narratives about (i) their attitudes towards reading at school (microsystem); (ii) parental beliefs about…

Meritocracy is used by governments in many societies as an 'effective' way to represent social justice and legitimise -- explain away -- class inequality. By focusing on a small number of working-class students who achieve academic 'success' and have reached elite universities in an ideal meritocratic environment -- Chinese schooling -- this paper…

Despite successive policy interventions, students' socio-economic status continues to strongly predict educational outcomes. Many schools aspire to 'close' this 'gap'. This paper presents an ethnographic study of a group of Primary schools in predominantly white working-class areas in the Midlands of England. Generating ethnographic data through…

This article approaches the question of how far critical pedagogy can be institutionalised through a series of historical and contemporary examples. Current debates concerned with the co-operative university are examined, as well as histories of independent working-class education and the free university movement. Throughout this history, critical…

Many blue-collar jobs, most of which are performed by men, are likely to be displaced by automation. These workers will, therefore, need to be retrained and reskilled, many of them choosing for engineering education as mature students. This paper uses Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to draw a complex portrait of the experience of…

Schools in poor working class communities in South Africa face a myriad of equity challenges that impact negatively on their ability to achieve basic school functionality. Yet, within such communities, there exists a wealth of valuable local knowledge and support that can be mobilised to assist school leaders, not only to bring about school…

Although the concept of allyship has been used in relation to multiple marginalized groups within higher education, it is rarely applied to social class. In this study, I used narrative inquiry to understand how working-class students define and perceive social class allyship. Findings revealed that working-class students identified social class…

This paper is a response to an earlier article in the "Journal of Education Policy," which calls for 'new ideas and constructive principles and practices for the provision of socially-just education'. We first discuss how an economistic approach to education entrenches socioeconomic disadvantage and argue that, in the light of evidence…

This article analyses the association between social class and parent-­initiated contact with teachers. Hypotheses are derived from Lareau's theory on 'concerted cultivation' and status maintenance theory on rational educational decision-making. Data from a national survey on French students traversing secondary school are used to study social…

This study is a qualitative analysis of guided reflections on the educational experiences of five former students who attended schools in the poorest congressional district in the United States. While the students did not all know each other or attend the same secondary schools, they all had the same high school social studies teacher, the…

Nondegree credentialing and training has existed for many years. Reasons for pursuing nondegree education vary, from wanting to pick up in-demand skills, meet a job requirement, or get a pay raise to exploring a new occupational area or engaging in lifelong learning. Having a nondegree credential is not unusual, either; one 2014 analysis by the US…

Since the 1980s, capital mobility and state restructuring have increased precarity in older industrial regions, such as eastern Connecticut (CT). These changes reconfigured labor markets, changing the work available, including the types, conditions, and skills required. Greater responsibility devolved onto poor and working-class people to navigate…

Objective: This article identifies how social class differences in undergraduates' relationships with their parents shaped their responses to educational disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Background: The mechanisms through which parents transmit class advantages to children are often hidden from view and therefore remain imperfectly…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there are disparities in undergraduate students' access to academic advising during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were drawn from a multi-institutional survey of 31,575 college students attending 69 U.S. colleges and universities in spring 2021. Approximately one-third (29%) of students did not…

This article explores whether pedagogies of dialogue and care are evidenced in how lecturers engage online with their students in teaching and learning on Learning Management Systems (LMSes). Many lecturers in the online higher education landscape predominantly come from affluent educational habitus, whereas many students come from working-class…