‘Why are you applying there?’: ‘race’, class and the construction of higher education ‘choice’ in the United Kingdom

Despite entering higher education in good numbers, candidates from some black and minority ethnic groups are concentrated in less prestigious institutions. A similar pattern is evident in candidates’ applications, raising important questions about the role of ‘self-exclusion’. Statistical analysis confirms that candidates from some minority ethnic groups tend to target lower-ranking institutions, but these differences are almost entirely explained by other variables, particularly academic attainment, type of school attended, number of A-levels taken and subject mix. It follows that some minority ethnic groups appear to be indirectly disadvantaged by patterns of schooling that do not prepare candidates for elite higher education. Similar processes are evident in relation to social class, although candidates from less privileged family backgrounds remain less likely to target high-status institutions even when other variables are taken into account.     

Time to confront Willis’s lads with a ballet class? A case study of educational orthodoxy and white working‐class boys

This is a retrospective study tracing the longer term effects on identity and aspiration of white working‐class boys from an area of high social deprivation. The boys were members of an acclaimed boys’ dance company and have been retrospectively interviewed as young men in their twenties. Documentary and film material dating from the time they were 14 year olds and the film Billy Elliot were used in the interviews. A media discourse driven by a view of boys ‘in crisis’ that is blind to social class and the difficulties faced by some girls was uncovered. This is found to pervade the entire Billy Elliot discourse, which focused on the sensation of a boy performing ballet rather than on the class background and historical context of the miners’ dispute. The paper questions the discourse of laddishness and the social identity that is attached to the term ‘lad’.     

Class,Race, and Power: Interest Group Politics and Education

Literature review focuses on what theory and research primarily from political science and sociology of education have to say about families and communities working for change in education. Questions: (1) Do low-income minority families have the power to create positive and lasting change in school and/or district organization and policy? (2) Is such change possible and can it serve as a foundation for state and national education policy change? The families and communities in question are ‘the truly disadvantaged’ or ‘underclass’ in America’s urban centers. Largely black and Latino, the communities share the characteristics of developing nations: low economic development, high infant mortality rates, short life spans, and low levels of educational attainment. Social capital, collective action/social movement, and democracy theory are used. A typology of the policymaking process as described in the research is described. Local successes are treated laying the groundwork for answering the question about whether local successes can lead to state and federal reforms. Theories, typology, and stories of success are put into the context of school organization because the way that schools are organized may dictate what kinds of collective action are likely to succeed. Adriane Williams (M.Ed., The George Washington University) is affiliated with Department of Educational Policy Studies, University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI. Adriane Williams is a Ph.D. candidate studying how school organization facilitates or impedes the involvement of non-college graduate parents in educational decision making for their children.     

Masculinity and social class,tradition and change: the production of ‘young Christian gentlemen’ at an elite Australian boys’ school

High fee-charging non-government schools for boys comprise a small but significant sector of the Australian schooling market. In different ways in different historical periods these schools have represented themselves as being concerned with more than just an instrumental or utilitarian education, making both explicit and implicit claims about the kinds of values they work to instil in their students and the kinds of men they aim to produce. This article looks closely at one such school in order to gain an understanding of how it sought to shape a particularly classed, leadership-oriented masculinity, during a period of institutional change. The historical context for the study is the final decade of the twentieth century, a period that saw the approximate beginning of a ‘boys’ crisis’ in Australian education, which for schools like the one in this study meant a degree of reconceptualisation of practices and ideologies of masculinity. The article draws on a set of oral history interviews with former students and executive staff of the school.     

Troubling notions of risk: dissensus,dissonance, and making sense of students and learning

This article troubles constructions of ‘at-risk students.’ Utilizing Rancière's discussion of dissensus, the author first argues that what is at risk are not students but contemporary common sense notions of schooling. From this perspective, students' labeled as ‘at risk’ ways of knowing and being that interrupt ideas and ideals about the purpose and function of schooling. In order to make this argument, the author links Rancière and others' discussions of the importance of dissensus to questions of sense-making, the dangers of resonance in consensus, and the possibilities in the dissonance of dissensus. These assertions are then further complicated by the assertion that education is a necessarily risky endeavor and that all students should be placed at risk of learning. Understanding all students as at risk is significant as it simultaneously provides a space for students' complex constellations of identity to be treated with dignity in learning experiences and creates a less punitive context in which differences are less likely to be conceptualized as deficits.     

Breaking containment – the power of narrative knowing: countering silences within traditional special education research

Special education has been critiqued for not adequately acknowledging and therefore addressing the overrepresentation of students of colour assigned disability labels. To counter the paucity of information about the largest group of disabled students in urban settings, eight young adults labelled learning disabled (LD) co‐created ‘portraits in progress’. These social, cultural, and historical based narratives act as counter stories to traditional special education research located within a medical‐model paradigm that casts students as deficit‐based. Excerpts from these highly personal narratives reveal nuanced understandings of power dynamics pertaining to disability, race, and social class as each one shapes the experience of the others. Participants perceive their lives as a series of interlocking containments; for some, special education is one example.     

‘Dicks are for chicks’: Latino boys,masculinity, and the abjection of homosexuality

Employing social constructivist theories and the concept of abjection from gender studies, this article examines how and why a group of low-income, USA-born Dominican and Puerto Rican middle-school boys constructed masculine identities by invoking and repudiating homosexuality. Ethnographic data from a 2.5-year study indicate that the abjection of homosexuality was a place of performativity wherein the boys utilised their bodies, cultural referents, and bilingualism to delineate masculinity, reiterate heteronormativity, and distance themselves from homosexuals, who they perceived as a threat to their sexuality, personal safety, and physical dominance. At school, the boys enacted a hypermasculine, heteronormative variant of their ethno-racial identities. As a result, their gender construction was heavily influenced by dominant gender practices present in their neighbourhoods and in segments of the broader US, Dominican, and Puerto Rican cultures. Together, these cultural influences shaped the gender regime within the boys' school peer group. This article concludes with a call for additional research examining the intersection of ethno-racial identity, sexuality, gender, and class.     

Challenges in theorising ‘Black middle‐class’ women: education,experience and authenticity

This viewpoint draws on discussions at two seminars to consider ambivalent attitudes amongst a group of Black women towards considering themselves and/or other Black people as ‘middle class’. The first seminar highlighted the experiences of a group of Black ‘middle‐class’ parents and the second, which was organised as a result of the reaction the first seminar received, sought to explore attendees views as to whether they thought Black people could be Black and ‘middle class’. The viewpoint contends that the concept ‘Black middle class’ is incompatible with some Black women’s notions of self, and that their ambivalence about the ‘Black middle classes’ is partly rooted in an emotional need to remain connected to the wider Black community. Whilst these women’s understandings of the ‘Black middle classes’ are informed by their gendered and racialised experiences, there is also evidence of a denial of (class) privilege.