In terms of education attainment in the United Kingdom, the white working class remains the lowest performing ethnic group, and their academic underperformance has ominous implications for their long-term life chances. This chapter investigates how white working-class boys experience pathologization and deficit discourses in their schooling as…

This article discusses the extent to which middle-class Christians, many of whom were progressive liberals, involved themselves in the Moral Instruction League (MIL) to intervene in 'improving' the moral character of the English working class. It considers how they reconciled their motivations and underlying theology with secular goals that sought…

As the economy became the driving force behind education policy in recent decades, postsecondary education planners and policymakers turned their attention to older adults. In Tennessee, the state launched its "Drive to 55" campaign to increase the number of residents earning postsecondary degrees. Along with these changes came the call…

Educational transitions are crucial sites of social selection. Whereas social bias in teacher recommendations is well-established, less is known about teacher guidance in the process preceding the actual choice. Bridging the literature on social class and educational choice and home-school relations this study explores classed patterns in the…

Sense of belonging has been used to gauge students' adjustment to and persistence within higher education. Social class is associated with sense of belonging and working-class students report lower levels than their middle- and upper-class peers. In this study, I examined how working-class students described their sense of belonging through a…

Despite suspicions concerning the global expansion of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) education, the teaching of Chinese is often a mainstay within global citizenship and elite education. With this paradox in mind, the paper draws on theories of classed selfhood and learner identities to explore the possibilities of CFL to influence the…

The focus in this chapter is on the scholarship students' entry into the elite school field. Described by the participants as a "culture shock," this chapter details the scholarship recipients' initial response to the elite school field and their discovery that, despite them feeling that they had earned their place at the elite school by…

One of the characteristics of a 21st-century learner is being technologically adept. Technology has a significant contribution to modern-day education in the heyday of learning management systems (LMS) and massive open online courses (MOOCs). The integration of technology in education aims to help learners adapt to the fast-changing world that…

This paper traces the beginnings of multicultural policies and programs in New York City and London during the 1980s. Using Caraballo's analysis of intercultural and intergroup programs as a model, we apply Bell's (1980) principle of interest convergence to examine the antecedents in both cities and detail how multicultural policies and programs…

This paper addresses the challenge of developing a conceptual framing for the meaning of value with respect to higher education. The author argues that criteria derived from analyses of the life histories of longstanding graduates, which often take the form of counternarratives and proceed from that which matters to them, can inform an evaluative…

Existing studies have found that the starting point for class divisions is the family: while schools play a interrupting role, it is passive compared to the roles of the family and children themselves. It is therefore taken for granted when rural students are screened out by school education or fail to test into good universities. If the…

Many of the research skills needed to succeed in higher education are never explicitly taught. Most students learn through experience and exposure. However, working-class students don't always grow up in academic environments that provide the same exposure to these skills. This paper will explore ways to help working-class and non-traditional…

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…

Some authors argue that access to elite universities can bring about a 'habitus transformation' for working-class students, however in this paper, based on a three-year life history study, it is suggested that the transformative effects of the elite university experience come about in relation to and constrained by the working-class habitus.…

This paper considers whether societal changes are making space for some working-class boys to go against the grain and foster positive reader identities. Drawing on interviews with 30 Australian boys about their experiences at school, Nancy Fraser's social justice framework is used to explore their parity of participation as readers. Responses…