Search

Contemporary educational reforms emphasise school autonomy, performance-based management, and accountability as necessary policies for attaining improvement goals. Despite their widespread adoption, the configuration and enactment of these policies are discretionary and contingent, deeply influenced by the interaction of local contexts, organisational features, and teachers' beliefs about policy and pedagogy. Apart from these challenges, schools serving disadvantaged students, often targeted for educational improvement, also struggle with significant organisational constraints and policy overload. This study explores how disadvantaged urban schools make sense of their policy environment and engage with the school improvement mandate through different logics and practices. The analytical framework stresses the policy filtering and adaptation processes that school actors undergo when tasked with multiple implementation demands, and how these interact with school contexts to produce diverse responses. This research is conducted in Catalonia, Spain, and adopts a sequential mixed-methods strategy, relying on interviews with principals and teachers, as well as survey and administrative data. The findings are organised in four ideal types of school responses to the improvement mandate, showing the diverging ways schools engage with policy. Disadvantaged schools exhibit diverse improvement approaches despite sharing structural characteristics, explained by the interaction of contextual factors and organisational characteristics. Each ideal type prioritises different aspects, such as performance, innovation, or inclusive practices. The heterogeneity of school responses highlights the necessity for targeted, context-sensitive support to ensure equitable educational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the level of LGBT+ representation among staff and students in higher education in England and Wales. We compare data from the 2021 England and Wales Census to Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data. We find that LGBT+ people are more highly represented in higher education among all staff groups and students than in relevant comparator groups according to age and educational level in the general population. LGBT+ representation among students and STEM academics is modestly higher than the general population comparator group, while representation among non-STEM academics is substantially higher than one would expect from the general population comparator group. We found no statistically significant under-representation in any particular higher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shadow education is used not only to improve students' educational achievements but also to maintain social reproduction by advantaged families. However, little is known about the socially stratified shadow education participation during COVID-19 when the educational environment was uncertain. Using data collected before and after the COVID-19 outbreak in China, this study finds that parental education was a strong predictor of children's shadow education participation before COVID-19, but this relationship was disrupted during COVID-19. Students of parents of all educational levels equally participated in shadow education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This class-based equity in shadow education was largely explained by the substantive increase in shadow education participation among students of less-educated parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rhetoric of 'we are all in this together' during the COVID-19 pandemic, not all families experienced schooling disruption in 2020–2022 equally. middle-class parents typically enjoy significant advantage over parents in working-class occupations. To illuminate class-based differences in parental engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, here we present data from interviews with 15 middle-class Canadian parents. We found that middle-class parents successfully mobilized their economic, social, and cultural capital to manage challenges they faced: lack of structure and routine, lack of communication with the school, perceived low quality of instruction and resources, student isolation during online learning, and parental stress about children's schooling during the pandemic. The main implication of the study is that although middle-class parents in the study acknowledged their privilege more compared to prior research on middle-class parental engagement, ultimately, their individual solutions to pandemic challenges merely exacerbated existing social inequalities in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Going to university is a key route to enhancing life opportunities for young people and for promoting social mobility. Despite the action of widening participation programs, substantial sociodemographic inequalities in participation persist. Few studies have focused on the role that school attended may play in exacerbating or mitigating these inequalities. We explore these issues for England via analysing student-level linked DfE-Ofqual-UCAS administrative data. We find substantial variation in application rates across schools, particularly regarding applications to Russell Group institutions. Crucially, meaningful school differences persist even after adjustment for school differences in student prior achievement and sociodemographics. These findings suggest that unmodelled school-level policies, practices, and context may be influencing students’ decision-making. We conclude that policymakers and university admissions teams would benefit from closer monitoring of differences in application rates across schools and potentially using this information when devising interventions to widen participation and act on higher education inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of different forms of tracking on learning inequalities in compulsory education. We use longitudinal monitoring of four cohorts of students over a four-year period, from their entry into secondary 1 education until they enter secondary 2 education. Our data include 18,706 students. We use multilevel regression analyses to test the effects of different forms of tracking after controlling for students' sociodemographic and academic characteristics, and for contextual factors. Our results suggest not only that the effect of tracking is a composition effect or a peer effect, but that tracking per se explains a significant part of the variance in learning in the two educational contexts in our study. Our results confirm that educational policies and institutions play a pivotal role in the construction of learning inequalities and social reproduction through school in contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the impact of a two-year long project-based learning program conducted by the National Opera of Paris in a large number of middle schools located in underprivileged areas, aiming at preventing school dropout and tackling educational inequalities by providing disadvantaged students with the opportunity to discover the world of opera. Taking a counterfactual approach (propensity score matching), we measure the impact of participation in the program on final exam and continuous assessment grades. The analysis displays mixed results: a significant and positive impact for the students who participate in the program for its whole duration (two years), at least for continuous assessment scores, but a negative impact for those who leave the program after only one year. The contrast between the effects of full and partial participation in the program suggests that these may be primarily due to a selection effect in favor of the most culturally and socially compliant students, in line with Bourdieu's and Passeron's reproduction theory (1997 [1970]) rather than a mobility effect (DiMaggio, 1982) resulting from the transfer of cultural capital to disadvantaged students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental involvement in education has taken on a new importance in contemporary society as a result of the rise of ideas associated with 'parental determinism', the desire of neoliberal states to shift responsibility for educational outcomes onto families, and the increasing salience of educational qualifications in processes of social -reproduction. Nevertheless, extant research has indicated that such responsibilities typically fall on mothers rather than fathers. Drawing on a two-wave study, this article explores the experiences of UK families in which fathers had taken on at least equal responsibility for the care of their young children, focussing specifically on whether the 'labour' associated with education was also distributed more equally. It shows that education was a notable area in which inequalities continued to be played out – because of assumptions about maternal responsibility, but also the active role performed by schools and parent groups in reinforcing traditional gender roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from insights into the inequalities that stem from the effect students' cultural capital has on their academic achievement, and relatively scarce evidence on whether classroom-level pedagogical interventions could help reduce those inequalities, in this study we aim to explore whether teacher support moderates the relationship between cultural capital and students' reading performance. In addition, we analysed whether the moderation effect is the same across different education systems, or depends on equity between systems. We used data from PISA 2018 to test a simple moderation model with cultural capital as the independent variable, teacher support – the moderator, and reading performance as the dependent variable. The findings suggest that the correlation between cultural capital and students' reading performance is moderated by teacher support. However, the nature of the moderation effect differs in education systems with the lowest and education systems with the highest correlation between cultural capital and reading performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood educators with higher qualifications are more likely to demonstrate quality in their practice; but few studies have explored the underlying factors that contribute to this relationship. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory, this article proposes that the relationship arises from social, as well as educational, inequality. Educators with higher qualifications are more likely to have the cultural, social, and economic capital necessary to develop a habitus (unthinking disposition to act in certain ways) consistent with the dominant understanding of quality practice. The doxa (shared understanding) of quality in the early childhood sector is itself shaped by two institutions through which these forms of capital are transmitted: schools, and middle-class families. Policy efforts to raise educators' qualifications are insufficient to address these deeper inequalities. All educators require opportunities to critically reflect on how their habitus shapes their practice, and to shape the doxa of the early childhood field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses gender inequalities in educational attainment in the Czech Republic from the novel perspective of multiple educational pathways, which are primary channels of study involving at least two educational transitions (secondary and tertiary) with qualitatively different tracks. We estimate gender gaps in the attainment of six major educational pathways in the Czech Republic across 9 five-year birth cohorts covering the full span of the communist period and the educational expansion of the post-communist period. Our results confirm that gender gaps have increased in recent cohorts, but that these gaps have remained relatively modest in size. The greatest gaps occur in educational pathways involving secondary grammar schools, while gaps involving other tracks of secondary education remain very small. These results suggest that gender gaps in educational attainment in the Czech Republic expose strong gender differences in attendance at secondary grammar schools, in the direction of girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a broader study that focused on understanding rural college students for equity and personal growth in higher education, this paper presents Ying's story of learning and living as a female college student from rural China. Adopting the thinking tools of habitus and reflexivity, the paper aims to understand the constraints Ying has gone through in China's higher education and her various response amidst them. The findings illustrate how the intersectionality of rural dispositions and gender has put her at a disadvantage and how she constantly mediates her surroundings through internal conversations. The paper discusses the intricate interplay between habitus and reflexivity during the mediation. The conclusion affirms the relevance of both habitus and reflexivity in our understanding of the rural student's educational experiences and argues for the role of education and society in challenging the social structure and promoting social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars generally agree that financial deprivation negatively affects students' educational outcomes. However, while absolute levels of resources are important, individuals' perceived relative economic wellbeing also shape their educational outcomes. This article asks whether attending school with peers from comparably richer families is related to adolescents' educational expectations, aspirations, university plans, and university attainment. We test the relative deprivation theory by comparing three different forms of the Yitzhaki Index. Data for this study comes from the Taiwan Youth Project, which consists of two cohorts of adolescents (N = 5098) from 162 middle school classrooms. The results show that relative deprivation in the classroom is negatively related to students' educational expectations, aspirations, and plans to attend university. Yet, relatively deprivation is not associated with higher educational attainment when controlling for absolute measures of family background. These results highlight the need for a more nuanced understanding of perceived relative economic disadvantages in shaping student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the influence of a new national assignment system (NSAS) on Chilean middle-class advantage. This system was designed to increase educational equity by changing the previous school admission "rules" that were prejudicial against low-income students. We use Bourdieu's conceptual tools, drawing on concepts of capitals and field, to analyse the influence of the new rules of the game on the value of middle-class capitals. To understand how the new rules shape middle-class families' advantages, we link qualitative and quantitative analyses that empirically explore how families subjectively interpret the policy change and how objectively it shapes their access to desired schools. The qualitative phase shows that middle-class parents experience the NSAS as a risky new scenario. However, quantitative analysis shows the NSAS is associated with only a modest decrease in middle class-advantages. We illustrate the difficulty of transforming marketized educational systems, where previously privileged families react against equity-driven changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concerns over school segregation have gained salience in Finland in the last two decades, paralleling the discussions elsewhere in Europe. This article examines from the pupil perspective, how school segregation and school selection are 'lived' in a lower secondary school in the metropolitan area of Helsinki. Using the concept of borderwork, I examine the hierarchies produced by the divide between selective, mixed and non-selective school class groups in pupils' social relationships, and how these hierarchies intersect with social class and racialization. The article is based on interviews of altogether 46 pupils in the 7th and 8th grades (aged 13–15). I argue that school class groupings are a strong organizing principle in pupils' social relationships, and that pupils' borderwork narratives on selective and non-selective school class groups build on and help consolidate the social class-based and racialized differences between the groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates patterns of social reproduction of science education outcomes for high school students in Israel, specifically by examining the relationship between one aspect of science capital – as measured by having a scientist in the family – and SES with three measures of science education success: interest in science; science self-efficacy; and aspirations to pursue science at university. Regression analyses of questionnaire data (N = 380) from 14- to 18-year-old high school students yield differences between Jewish (majority) and Arab-Palestinian (minority) students. Specifically, regarding aspirations for university science, having a scientist in the family and higher SES are positively associated with better outcomes for Jewish students only. The analyses highlight the potential advantages of employing theories of social reproduction and science capital to explore inequalities in science education, which in this case is used to identify additional challenges in increasing minority student uptake in postsecondary science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how White privilege and a hierarchy of oppression have resulted in competing identities in which gender has been given greater importance compared to race. I argue that the sociology of education needs to adopt an intersectional approach that travels in different directions if it is to remain valid. The article examines how gender, perpetuated by White privilege, continues to play a key role in the positioning of Black and minority ethnic staff, students and pupils within a range of stereotypes that operate to marginalise their life trajectories. The article argues that if sociologists of education are unwilling to challenge White privileged populist discourses and their own positions of White privilege, then they will become complicit in maintaining a socially unjust status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of massive open online courses and online degrees offered via digital platforms has occurred in a climate of austerity. Public universities worldwide face challenges to expand their educational reach, while competing in international rankings, raising fees and generating third-stream income. Online forms of unbundled provision offering smaller flexible low-cost curricular units have promised to disrupt this system. Yet do these forms challenge existing hierarchies in higher education and the market logic that puts pressure on universities and public institutions at large in the neoliberal era? Based on fieldwork in South Africa, this article explores the perceptions of senior managers of public universities and of online programme management companies. Analysing their considerations around unbundled provision, we discuss two conflicting logics of higher education that actors in structurally different positions and in historically divergent institutions use to justify their involvement in public–private partnerships: the logic of capital and the logic of social relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core theme of this article is the emerging tension between the egalitarian discourse that increases the general aspiration of people to become more educated and actual admission constraints. A desire to attend a university and not being allowed to (i.e. non-admittance) is a loss that can potentially result in an anomic condition. Anomie theory gives a sociological explanation for a painful situation in which there is a cultural overemphasis on success combined with structurally limited opportunities. In this study, the focus is on the experiences of prospective students who have been applying to a selective university in Finland without gaining admission. The data consists of 50 personal online narratives. The analysis is presented in accordance with a conceptual typology of individual responses to the conditions of non-admittance. The findings yield important insights regarding university choice, meritocratic selection and formulation of equitable admission policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses an analytical framework informed by social geographies to explore the complex relationships between Higher Education Institution, undergraduate student and place. Drawing on findings from a qualitative study exploring the experiences of college-based Higher Education students studying degree courses in Further Education Colleges in England, the article sees student subjectivities as structured through inequalities of institutional positioning in a stratified system as well as through layered local histories of industrial loss. Taken as an instance of undergraduate education in a massified and geographically unequal national context, the findings in this article offer an insight into the contradictory role played by Higher Education in its local area, particularly where a local area is defined by both a lack of and a need for increased educational opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prominent explanation of intergenerational educational inequality is Bourdieu's cultural reproduction theory. Indeed, previous studies have frequently shown that children's cultural capital relates to academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear how children convert their cultural capital into achievement. While Bourdieu argued that cultural capital influences academic outcomes primarily by biasing teachers' grades, other researchers have proposed the alternative explanation that children's cultural capital absorption directly translates into academic skills. Using survey data on 2975 fifth graders from the German National Educational Panel Study, we disentangle these two mechanisms of children's cultural capital conversion; and argue that the main conversion mechanism depends on the cultural capital dimension examined. The results of our structural equation model suggest that both mechanisms are at work and that the main conversion mechanism depends on the dimension of cultural capital examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how one cohort of first-in-family students narrated their movement into and through university, proposed as a form of boundary crossing. These metaphors emerged from the stories that students told about their persistence, with references ranging from institutional or organisational boundaries through to those imposed by self and others. Applying the sensitizing lens of boundary crossing, an analysis is provided of how learners navigated their transition into university and the types of persistence behaviours adopted. The focus is on those who traversed these boundaries, considering the nature of incursions and the ways these were negotiated within students' everyday lives. This cohort all self-identified as being the first in their family to attend university but also acknowledged a variety of additional social, cultural and economic factors that impacted upon their educational journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education research demonstrates that positive and trusting family/school relationships support academic achievement but for many Indigenous parents in Canada legacies of residential schooling have made it difficult to develop strong bonds with schools and teachers. Drawing on interviews with 69 Indigenous parents and eight non-Indigenous parents of children who identify as Indigenous from two Canadian provinces, this study explores the intersection between family/school relationships and social class, and highlights distinct ways that middle-class Indigenous parents are involved in schooling. Shifting from a "deficit" approach to a "strength based" approach highlights existing resources and capacities among those who are comfortable and familiar with navigating the education system while also creating prospects to build on that capacity to empower others who are less familiar/comfortable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a multi-site study of teachers in elite private schools in Australia. Teachers' accounts from this study bring nuance to the reasons one might short-handedly expect they have in working for these exclusive institutions. It is not that everyday motivations don't matter, for example, the financial compensations, the beautiful grounds and the status payoffs, but that teachers bring their own discourses, histories and intentions to bear on the contradictions of their work-lives. This is crucial evidence for understanding how privilege functions, how teachers are not simply co-opted or constrained. Instead, this article brings into view the agency of teachers who embrace privilege in spite of thorny questions around educational inequality that elite private schools cannot avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, important education policy changes, such as the growth of Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools and the reform of the medium of instruction (MOI) policy, have been made in Hong Kong. Little is known about their impact on school segregation and educational inequality. We address this issue using six successive cycles of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study data. We found evidence for rising levels of secondary school segregation in terms of family socio-economic status and mathematics achievement from 1995 to 2011, whereas segregation declined from 2011 to 2015. We speculate that the salience of the MOI policy in expediting the segregating tendencies of the DSS sector might explain a growing magnitude of the effect of family socio-economic status on academic achievement between 1995 and 2011, and the reversed direction of such trends between 2011 and 2015. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many approaches to explaining educational inequalities relate explicitly and implicitly to benefits of education, and rational choice theories in particular consider monetary benefits. We specify a concept of the value of education that allows for an empirical analysis of educational benefits, considering both monetary and non-monetary dimensions (instrumental goals) outlined in social production function theory. Our objectives include introducing a sound theoretical framework, the validation of an empirical measurement instrument and an analysis of the differences between certain dimensions of educational values structured by social origin, gender and immigrant background. Analyses are based on a two-wave panel study (SASAL-School Alienation in Switzerland and Luxembourg) carried out in secondary schools in Luxembourg and Switzerland. We distinguish four dimensions within the concept of values of education: stimulation, comfort/status, behavioural confirmation and affection. The different dimensions of the value of education are influenced by gender and immigrant backgrounds in both national settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advances current conceptions of teacher activism through an exploration of the social justice dispositions of teachers in advantaged and disadvantaged contexts of schooling. We interrogate the practices of teachers in a government school, with a high proportion of refugee students and students from low socio-economic backgrounds, in a high-fees, multi-campus independent school, and in a disadvantaged Systemic Catholic school to illustrate how Bourdieu's notion of dispositions (which are constitutive of the habitus) and Fraser's distinction between affirmative and transformative justice are together productive of four types of teacher activism. Specifically, we show that activist dispositions can be characterised as either affirmative or transformative in stance and as either internally or externally focused in relation to the education field. We argue that the social, cultural and material conditions of schools are linked to teachers' activist dispositions and conclude with the challenge for redressing educational inequalities by fostering a transformative activism in teachers' practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study draws on the concept of cultural capital to determine whether the cultural capital of students is related to their perceptions of classroom interactions, specifically teacher–student feedback practices. The analysis of new data in 'Feedback and Cultural Capital,' a Danish survey of feedback practices among 14-year-old and 15-year-old students (N = 1101), showed a positive and practically linear relationship between the cultural capital of the students and the amount of feedback they perceived in lower secondary mathematics classrooms. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in education, I argue that this inequality stems from either or both of two mechanisms: differences in treatment by teachers and/or differences in the perceptions of students. I link both mechanisms to the cultural capital of the students. Furthermore, the results indicate that the relationship was stronger for boys than for girls. The implications of the findings for practice and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class differences in educational decision-making form an important explanation for persisting educational inequalities, particularly in choice-driven systems with early tracking. Nevertheless, little is known about the process preceding these choices, especially when school and track choice are interrelated. Building on school choice literature, this study aims to explore how parents from different social backgrounds shape their decision-making process at the transition from primary to secondary education in Flanders (Belgium). To this end, we adopt an explanatory mixed-methods design. Quantitative findings from a parent survey conducted in 36 primary schools were complemented with 32 in-depth interviews with parents. Our findings show two parental profiles regarding educational decision-making, which can be traced back to differences in social and cultural capital. Although effective navigation of the complex field of educational decision-making proved to be strongly class related, parents' educational and immigrant biographies led to specific approaches, transcending the middle class versus working class binary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether concerns about social problems decline with age. Unconditional growth models (without covariates) revealed a decline over 25 years (age 18 to 43) in concerns about racial discrimination, treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, female job discrimination, unemployment and environmental pollution. Educational attainment was not associated with these change trajectories in conditional control models, providing no support for enlightenment or social reproduction hypotheses. Higher household income (age 43) was associated with faster declines in concerns about racial discrimination, treatment of Aboriginal Peoples and unemployment. With household income as a predictor, downward trajectories in treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, female job discrimination and environmental pollution were no longer significant, and the racial discrimination trajectory was reversed direction. These results provide compelling evidence for status defence theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on research into the destinations and aspirations of school leavers in Australia. It investigates the relationship between the transition to university for different groups of students and their own and their parents’ and teachers’ expectations. It draws on Bourdieu, Boudon, Nussbaum and others to investigate the way young people construct their aspirations. It examines the limits of young people’s agency, which is bound by their understanding of the hidden and informal rules that govern access to different spaces within the curriculum as well as access to post-school destinations. Navigating these transitions is becoming more important and more complex with the increasing emphasis on higher level qualifications in an education market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discrimination of Roma groups across Europe has been highlighted by several international organisations. For many, poverty, racism and their children’s systematic exclusion from education are ‘push’ factors when deciding to migrate. This study explores Roma mothers’ views of their children’s education post migration and their attitudes to education more broadly, by adopting an intersectional framework and examining issues of difference and belonging as experienced by Roma mothers and their children. While Roma mothers recognised the value of education for social mobility, they remained aware of the limited resources they could draw upon, in the absence of desirable economic and cultural capitals, and as a result of their ethnicity, social class, gender and ‘undesirable migrant’ status. There was a perceived hopelessness in relation to the chances that Roma children have to overcome their marginalisation through schooling, pointing to the need for dedicated policy interventions when working with Roma families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a long-standing concern within the sociology of education for ameliorating educational inequality, the challenge of improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged students remains deeply entrenched. While ‘macro’ issues such as segregation and systemic inequalities in school funding and access to qualified teachers must be addressed as matters of social and educational justice, Basil Bernstein's novel focus on ‘relations within’ education as the site of pedagogic discourse offers teachers and those working inside school systems a particularly powerful vision for promoting more equitable outcomes for students. This paper examines this assertion through a case study of the ‘mixed’ pedagogical practice of a successful teacher in a fifth-grade urban classroom in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues for the importance of studying the moral meanings that young people attach to their aspirations and plans for the future. Drawing on semi-structured interview data with 29 young people from a sixth-form college in a disadvantaged area of East London, I show that aspirations are closely connected to the formation of individual and group identities, and the making of inter-group boundaries. I argue that young people develop aspirations as part of a normatively evaluative narrative about who they are and the kind of person they hope to become. Focusing on moral meanings helps us to better understand young peoples’ range of motivations for pursuing particular goals, and may help to explain why aspirations can remain high even in the absence of capitals, resources, or opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While an extensive body of research has examined the role of cultural capital in reproducing social class inequality in educational outcomes, the role of habitus and school context has received less attention in quantitative studies. We attend to this gap in the literature by considering the relationship between cultural capital, habitus, and the transition into higher education across high schools with low and high college-going cultures in the United States. Findings indicate that the relationship between cultural capital and transition into higher education is context specific and manifested only in schools with a high college-going culture. In addition, students from less advantaged family backgrounds benefit more from cultural capital than their more advantaged counterparts, but this is the case primarily in schools with a high college-going culture. Habitus, however, is related to the transition into higher education regardless of the high school context and benefits all students equally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the different uses of equality in one elite international school in India. We focus on how conceptions of equality can be enrolled into particular scripts of benevolence and gifting through which elite distinctions are constituted and enacted. Our analysis of interviews with students, teachers and parents in the school highlights three dominant and interrelated uses of equality that are examined with respect to entrepreneurial social ideals in contemporary neoliberal India: equality for profit; equality as deferred; and equality as a differential inclusion of the poor. We call this concept ‘enterprise equality’ and consider its performative effects, namely in reconstituting and justifying normative inequality. Enterprise equality does two related things which have significant global consequences: it can function as a process of ‘decontestation’ – a way to ‘block hearing’ about alternative political/economic arrangements of equality; and it can reaffirm the cultural rhetoric of the elite as meritorious in their privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the social justice dispositions of teachers and principals in secondary schools as inferred from their metaphoric expressions. Drawing on a Bourdieuian account of disposition, our focus is the use of metaphor as a methodological tool to identify and reveal these otherwise latent forces within our data. Our analysis shows evidence of redistributive, recognitive and activist conceptions of social justice. We argue that these three social justice dispositions may be insufficient to meaningfully address persisting inequalities in the school system and that a capability-based social justice disposition – absent in our data – is needed. We conclude by highlighting that: social justice dispositions can change; a valid interpretation of metaphors requires ‘contextual stabilization’; and metaphors for social justice are differently constructed in different contexts, influenced by the different social, cultural and material conditions of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates to what extent scholarships are unequally distributed among students in Germany and how these inequalities can be explained. Following sociological theory, the article argues that elites seek qualitative ways of distinguishing themselves in a mass higher education system. Using student surveys, we demonstrate that class effects cannot merely be explained with reference to class differences in academic achievement but that higher classes have better access to scholarships independent of earlier school performance. Class differences were particularly persistent when the intermediate classes were compared with higher classes with more education. These findings illustrate that social classes have different strategies when it comes to participating in higher education and suggest that information about and access to scholarships is important in gaining a class advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite rates of participation in post-compulsory full-time education reaching approximately 84% in Wales, social class inequalities continue to shape young people’s transitions from compulsory to post-compulsory education. This article draws upon data from a project which explored how young people’s educational decisions and transitions in Wales, UK are influenced by national economic landscapes, the popular narratives framing them and the structure of local employment opportunities. The analyses revealed that young people from similar social class backgrounds, but living in different localities, make very different sorts of transition from compulsory to post-compulsory education; in essence, they are either ‘pushed’ or they ‘jump’ into post-16 education. The article aims overall to contribute both empirically and theoretically to understandings of the complexity of educational decision-making, revealing how class and location intersect to frame decision-making processes, in so doing producing and reproducing educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the contrasting predispositions of a group of working-class and middle-class undergraduates to using nepotism to gain advantage in the labour market. Drawing upon a Bourdieusian framework, it is argued that the middle-class students, whose habitus was aligned to the field, were more likely to express a willingness to utilise whatever networks they could to secure a ‘foot in the door’. Meanwhile, the working-class students, who were more insecure about the legitimacy of their participation within a middle-class field, expressed a commitment to a form of honour which ruled out using contacts on the grounds that it was morally unacceptable. They discussed a desire to ‘prove themselves’ which is arguably symptomatic of a deeply ingrained reliance on meritocracy. I explore how this may arise due to their habitus having developed within a dominated position in society where respectability is crucial to generating feelings of self-worth and value. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research in the sociology of education argues that the educational system provides different learning opportunities for students with different socioeconomic backgrounds and that this circumstance makes the educational process an important institutional context for the reproduction of educational inequality. Using combined survey and register data for more than 56,000 students in 825 schools, this article conducts the first empirical test of the argument that instructional strategies which emphasize student responsibility and activity, also referred to as student-centered instruction, increase educational inequality. We analyze whether the impact of student-centered instructional strategies on academic achievement differs for students with different socioeconomic backgrounds. Results suggest that a student-centered instructional strategy has a negative impact on academic achievement in general, and for students with low parental education in particular. Our findings support the argument that the instructional strategy of schools is an important mechanism in generating educational inequality through the stratification of learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the re-articulation of social justice as equity in schooling policy through national and global testing and data infrastructures. It focuses on the Australian National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse the discursive reconstitution of social justice as equity in Australian and OECD policy, and analyse NAPLAN and PISA as technologies of governance that re-articulate equity as a measure of performance. These re-articulations are set against the extension of neo-social economistic rationalities to all domains of life and the topological production of new spaces of policy and power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we examine the factors contributing to gender inequality in secondary schooling in India by critically reviewing the government’s secondary education policy. Drawing on the findings of a study in rural Gujarat, we couple this analysis with an examination of the gendered dynamics that restrict girls’ ability to fully benefit from the education infrastructure and initiatives that do exist, using Connell’s Gender and Power framework. We propose that an extension of the government's current approach to educational reform, focused primarily on expanding infrastructure may aggravate the gender, class and caste asymmetries at secondary level. Fostering an environment that enables vulnerable adolescent girls to benefit from enhanced educational provisions is essential to realizing their rights and the achievement of an equitable system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The difficulties Traveller pupils experience in school are well documented. Yet those in home educating go unreported. Monk suggests this is because some groups are overlooked; that gypsies and Travellers are often not perceived as home educators. This article highlights how the move to home education is seldom a free choice for Traveller families. Although existing literature suggests this is a consequence of Traveller culture and mobility patterns, this article argues that problems in school drive uptake. Issues of race and ethnicity continue to drive educational inequality and there is an urgent need to redress this is in educational policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper evaluates the contribution of ‘social realism’ in resolving questions of knowledge and curriculum in the sociology of education. Social realists argue that, in the interests of educational equality, all pupils should have access to ‘powerful’ knowledge produced by specialist intellectual communities. Social realism relies upon a critique of standpoint theory, taking it to be irrealist, relativist and ignorant of the post-empiricist revolution in the philosophy of science. This paper argues however, that social realists fail to appreciate the critical realist response to the post-empiricist revolution and thereby end up critiquing a caricatured version of standpoint theory. The paper concludes that if we are concerned with restoring objectivity, in a manner that avoids both relativism and cultural elitism in school curricula, a turn away from standpoint theory in the sociology of education is not warranted and may be obstructive. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we study to what extent parental field of study affects a person’s educational level and field of study. We employ information on 8800 respondents from the Family Survey Dutch Population (1992–2009). Our results first of all show that, over the last five decades, economic fields of study have become more fashionable among men. In sharp contrast, mainly tracks in agriculture have lost most of their appeal. Among women, medical, economic and socio-cultural fields have gained attractiveness. Second, we established that parental field of study is of significant importance for reaching a high level of education for children, and that the relevance of parental field of study is increasing over the years. Moreover, symmetry in fields could be established when it comes to the intergenerational transmission of field of study. Our results support the idea that educational expansion does not necessarily lead to increasing meritocracy in western societies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the social class-differentiated behaviours of access and traditional-entry students, based on a three-year constructivist grounded theory study with 45 undergraduates at an Irish university. The participant groups behaved significantly differently within the socio-relational realm, engaging in various forms of distancing behaviours motivated by a desire to self-protect and based on perceived relative social positioning. The paper illustrates some ways in which both disadvantage and privilege are performed at the post-entry stage in a widening participation context. It is argued that the 'closure' behaviours of class-based groups constrain the building of social capital by working-class students, thus potentially limiting the ability of widening participation policies in achieving equality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expresses serious reservations regarding the increasingly popular Bourdieu-inspired notions of 'institutional habitus' and 'family habitus' in education research. Although sympathetic to the overall theoretical approach and persuaded of the veracity and importance of the empirical findings they are used to illuminate, it argues that, from a Bourdieusian point of view, they actually present several difficulties that threaten not only to overstretch and reduce the explanatory power of the French thinker's concepts but to stifle analysis of the kinds of struggles and complexities that both he and, somewhat contradictorily, the researchers in question spotlight. Bourdieu had his own ways of making sense of the themes raised, and although there is indeed a need to push him further than he went, to say what he did not and to emphasise what he would not, this has to be guided by consistent logic and not simply pragmatic empiricism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Netherlands, educational attainment is the result of a sequence of separate educational transitions. Because of the tracked nature of the Dutch educational system, students do not make binary stay-or-leave-decisions at each transition. After having entered one track of secondary education, students can change tracks during the entire secondary course. The initial track and the secondary school outcome therefore are incongruent for a significant proportion of the Dutch students. As social background partly predicts initial track placement, track changes and successful termination of the course, we suggest distinguishing conditional and unconditional effects of family background in the transition to secondary school outcome. This paper complements findings of previous research by taking into account the tracked structure of the Dutch educational system and the entire sequence of transitions in secondary education. For the empirical analysis, repeated cross-sections from the Family Survey Dutch Population (1992, 1998, 2000 and 2003) are used. Multinomial logistic regressions reveal that inequality in the outcome of secondary education is partly explained by the fact that initial track placement is socially selective and because this initial inequality is even enhanced by track changes during secondary education. The remaining 'conditional' effect of parental education, however, indicates that parental education works on top of this selection to prevent drop out. Inequality in secondary school outcome thus is a cumulative result of social background effects in a sequence of educational transitions throughout secondary education. Decreasing inequality over time is entirely explained by decreasing inequality in the transition from primary to secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]