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This paper argues that processes of marginalisation experienced by white working-class students provide insight into systemic problems with the English education system. White British students eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) are a low attaining group. This research investigates factors affecting their engagement and achievement. Fieldwork in three comprehensive secondary schools in a London borough used qualitative methods to gather data on the perspectives of staff, students and parents. Using Bourdieu's conceptual tools to guide the analysis, the study found that performance pressure and funding cuts can result in an institutional habitus which privileges academic attainment, side-lines the social and emotional aspects of learning and misrecognises working-class capitals. Such habitus fosters pedagogic practices which reduce levels of felt safety and limit opportunities to actively engage and exercise agency in the classroom. These conditions often make fragile the learner identity of white working-class students (and others) and prompt disengagement from school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the Fascist Colonial Institute (ICF) of Bologna as a local space in which fascist ideals of empire, gender and class collided and were reproduced. Founded shortly before Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, the ICF served to transmit colonial consciousness to the Italian people, and, most especially, to young middle-class women. Analysis of the local Bolognese ICF, however, reveals a more complex reality. Courses designed to create fascist imperialists out of middle-class women and forge a ruling settler class for the colonies evidence that the institute used the empire as a tool to shore up gender norms in fascist Italy. The author argues that an unintended outcome of these courses was that the ICF became a space of limited freedom and of social and professional mobility for its young women participants. In addition to learning transgressive skills, these women took advantage of their affiliation with the institute, using it as a springboard for further employment opportunities. The paper is based on a rich collection of sources from the Bolognese branch of the ICF, held in the Museo Civico del Risorgimento di Bologna in the Archivio dell'Istituto Fascista dell'Africa Italiana – Sezione di Bologna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though extensive literature exists on Moroccan women in the public sphere, simultaneously less research explores the ways in which men ‘do domesticity’. This paper will examine the ways urban Moroccan middle-class men interact within the private spheres of life, why they do so and what this means for gendered subjectivities in Morocco. For some urban middle-class Moroccan men, being a good father means taking an active role in his children’s lives and taking care of them with the help of his wife. This is not true for all urban middle-class men, but most said that they were more willing to help with cooking, cleaning and childcare than their father had been: showing a generational shift. Additionally, most participants said that doing housework does not lower the level of a man’s masculinity. Despite this, every Moroccan woman that I talked to does most reproductive labour around the house. This paper explores the dynamic nature of Moroccan masculinity across the life cycle: from early marriage, to being a father and being retired. This generational shift is happening due to the confluence of structural changes in education, socioeconomic class and occupation in addition to individuals’ desire to be active fathers and husbands. I place urban Moroccan middle-class masculinities in context with Moroccan femininities and highlight both male and female voices. These findings are based on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Rabat, Morocco including 53 semi-structured interviews and extensive participant observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship between middle-class German Jewish women and food in the context of prewar emigration. Often these women were leaving culturally, economically, and materially rich lives, yet arrived in Britain, America, and other shorelines with very little. Rationing and cultural differences added complex layers to their experience of hosts’ foodscapes. The paper argues that food and its material culture were key parts of German Jewish women’s toolkits for negotiating emigration. Additionally, the article argues that the loss of middle-classness was a defining and enduring feature of their emigratory experience, which is revealed in their relationship to food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the stories of women migrants from Latin America who found themselves living precarious lives and struggling to sustain former idealised notions of their racial and class identities in London. Dispossessed of previous class membership due to an onward feminised precarity, a diminished social capital, undocumented legal statuses, and menial stigmatised jobs, women clung to an idealised perception of social status (shaped by white Eurocentric aspirations) to negotiate and reconfigure class and racial anxieties in London. They engage in various strategies that include processes of whitening through marriage and children, performances of taste and beauty, and negotiating their racialisation at work. These cases reflect the relevance of the coloniality of power, its influence in the subsistence of racial and class ideologies in Latin America, and in a global economy of care that produces and reproduces postcolonial forms of intersectional racialised and gendered exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates attitudes towards death and the social factors that influence them among a sample of residents in Tehran, Iran. Using grounded theory and anchoring our analysis in the meaning of death (what people think happens after death), we were able to conceptualise three broad worldviews on death, which were then further refined into nine attitudes. Our research highlights socio-economic status as a factor potentially shaping people's attitudes towards death. A large group of our respondents, mainly among less affluent groups, think about death daily, while many among the more affluent and the educated middle class prefer to avoid thoughts of death. Our study in a Muslim majority setting in the Middle East contributes to the existing literature on attitudes towards death by going beyond simple typologies, such as western versus eastern, traditional versus modern, religious versus secular, denial versus acceptance, to show that the diversity of attitudes towards death can both incorporate and transcend all of these dichotomies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of migrant minorities in Europe has long been characterized by a turn to identity politics. This turn has had two shortcomings: First, it often conflates religion, ethnicity, and nationality, resulting in what I call "categorical astigmatism". Consequently, migrants find themselves lumped into categories they would not primarily identify with. Second, despite its importance in the lived experiences of migrants, class is treated as a "non-identity" and intra-migrant class differences do not get the attention they deserve. Building on these two criticisms, in this article, I first employ Bourdieu's theory of "classification struggles" to conceptualize "categorical astigmatism" and make a plea for categorical clarification. I then suggest the theory of intersectionality as a way out, highlighting the importance of class and its intersection with other markers of difference. Empirically, the paper builds on interviews with migrants from Turkey and Syria in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that elected officials are more responsive to the opinions of high-income citizens than to those of middle and working-class citizens in the United States. This is often explained by the fact that economic elites make campaign contributions to political elites, leading to decision-making that aligns with the preferences of the affluent. This paper examines the opinion-policy link in Swedish politics, where campaign contributions are relatively low. Despite this, the study finds that high-income citizens still receive the most policy responsiveness. Three alternative possible explanations are discussed. Do high-income citizens receive more responsiveness because (a) they are better able to put issues on the political agenda, (b) because they are easier to satisfy and prefer 'cheaper' symbolic policy reforms, while low-income citizens prefer more costly policies or (c) because the status quo bias works to the advantage of high-income citizens? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are histories describing in detail the development of early childhood education (ECE) around the world, yet not enough is known about this in the Middle East and the information on the origins of ECE in Iran is scarce and fragmentary. This article is the first of its kind to present an overview of the main developments rendering possible the establishment of the first kindergartens in Iran. In our account, we connect this genealogy of early childhood education in Iran to various trajectories: 1) the work of intellectual reformers; 2) the Iranian feminist movement; 3) the Constitutional Revolution in Iran (1906–1911); 4) religious reformist beliefs in Shia; 5) the missionaries' schools; 6) the Armenians' schools and 7) the age of girls' marriage. As we demonstrate, early childhood education in Iran emerged before the industrial revolution. It was mainly provided for intellectual and influential families, focused on physical education accompanied by music, while religious education was marginal. Our genealogical explorations indicate that compared to kindergartens in Britain and Europe, Iranian early childhood education has been an instrument for intellectual societal reform. It was the fruits of a transplanted tree nourished by various local cultural-socio-political trends and religious beliefs. The paper concludes with an assessment of the importance of local and international influences on the emergence of early childhood education and the need to explore this history with an intersectional approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractPrevious research on alcohol consumption and leisure illuminates the ways in which drinking practices—including a preference for “craft” products—are entangled with notions of taste and distinction and linked to classed drinking identities and modes of “serious leisure”. However, little is known about how this plays out for light drinkers or short or long-term abstainers from alcohol. These supposed non-consumers have traditionally been located on the periphery of dominant drinking cultures. However, an expanding market of craft and speciality No and Low alcohol (NoLo) drinks in Western contexts presents new opportunities for light/nondrinkers to “do” leisure, (re)engage with the market and construct discerning (non)drinking identities. Drawing on findings from in-depth interviews with UK-based NoLo drinkers, this paper highlights how craft NoLo consumers draw on themes of skill, taste and expertise to align themselves with the discerning (middle-class) drinker and perform or embody modes of serious leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through her films, the Galician filmmaker Margarita Ledo Andión builds a singular benchmark on the margins of a peripheral cinema per se: the Novo Cinema Galego. Her performative and experimental narratives, in line with avant-garde films of other small European cinemas, her nationalist and feminist (political) discourse, and her condition as a woman filmmaker situate her filmography on the intersection of multiple peripheries. This paper analyzes her most recent film, Nación (2020), from the perspective of cinema made by women as minor cinema and an example of "fourth cinema" as an instrument to make visible the role of women in the class struggle and the construction of Galician national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Baccalaureate (IB) is a market leader in international education however, research suggests that it predominantly serves elite populations (Bunnell, T., M. Donnelly, H. Lauder, and S. Whewall. 2020. "International Mindedness as a Platform for Class Solidarity." Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Published online: 24 August 2020. doi:). Drawing on data from the IB and the Australian government, we explore the growth of the IB in Australia for a period of 11 years (2008 to 2019). Data analysis highlights the narrow growth of the IB amongst relatively homogenous schools, suggesting a period of 'distinction and expansion' that represents a troubling contradiction of the IB's stated goal to increase diversity in IB schools and contributes to the reproduction of class disparity in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although graduates of elite Irish fee-paying schools are disproportionately represented in the Irish men's national rugby union team, Irish international games are among the most popular on Irish terrestrial television, signifying rugby's growth as a spectator sport in Ireland. This article examines the role of Irish print, broadcast media and related publications in popularising elite-level Irish rugby. Employing a principally Bourdieusian theoretical perspective it analyses how media representation obscures the significance of class background and elite schooling in facilitating players' individual and collective social advancement and material gain prior to, in and beyond rugby careers. One is by highlighting players' relatability and transcendence of class privilege as the antithesis of the popular Irish caricature of an arrogant, privately educated former schools rugby player, Ross O'Carroll Kelly. The second is the displacement of class, in media representations, onto narratives, and performances, of regional and stylistic variety that are contained within an all-encompassing, inclusive conceptualization of 'middle Ireland'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of the university in the demise of democracy. In a country which was once seen as the world's leading democracy, albeit one in which the democracy was harnessed to the requisite constraints of a republic, almost half of the population believe that the last two elections were stolen, and Presidents Trump and Biden were not legitimate. Democracies in Western Europe are equally factious. What prevails now in the West is a general inability for voters to be able to put aside personal differences and accept defeat at the ballot box. The willingness to accept defeat and be able to trust your political opponents not to destroy the institutions of the nation is the prerequisite for the preservation of a democratic system. The dominant factions which face each other with unmitigated suspicion can broadly be classified as the tertiary educated urban professional classes who are allied with globalist and corporate "leaders," and the more regionally based and non-professional classes. More specifically, I focus on the class interests of the pedagogical classes, particularly those employed in the tertiary sector and the media (loosely construed as the class which makes a living from crafting, monitoring and disseminating ideas); the technocratic character of that class; the metaphysical ideas that have propelled the empowerment of that class and its importance as educators; the ideological consensuses that have triumphed in the academy in the twentieth century; and how the ideology of emancipation that has been forged in universities, and the managerial revolution that has enabled the corporatization of the university, have contributed to the demise of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racist hate speech on UK university campuses remains an increasing concern. This article examines the widespread problem of racist hate speech through a multilayered theoretical approach; and suggests that a fuller appreciation of the problem can only be gained through a race-centred analysis. Drawing on Fraser's work on the problematics of misrecognition and identity-reification, the article extends Levine-Rasky's theoreticisation of power dynamics in the intersectionality between whiteness and middle-classness to intersections of whiteness with both middle-classness and working-classness as a contributing factor to mobilisation of lad cultures which is termed as white-laddism. The article advances the understanding of racist hate speech through a conjoined analysis of these concepts through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens. The conjoined analysis is informed by the Deleuzian 'rhizomatic' approach in order to examine the process by which multiple, diverse and non-hierarchical lines of connection between the concepts shape, dislocate, modify each other in variable ways. The detail behind the bigger picture helps further our understanding of the inadequate nature of equality policies and strategies that often look at issues in isolation, and thus fail to address the inequality and injustice being perpetuated on campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I consider the Apple+ tv series Bad Sisters (2022-) as a transnational production. I take into account the background of its showrunner, Sharon Horgan, and her positioning as a transnational programme maker and comedian. I discuss the series as a remake of the Belgian/Flemish TV series, Clan (English title, The Out-Laws), analysing significant departures, particularly in terms of use of location. I proceed to discuss the overlaps between Bad Sisters and Big Little Lies (HBO 2017–19), notably the strategy of slipping an analysis of coercive control into a drama that makes an overt play for the consumerist pleasures of high-end life-styling. In my analysis of Bad Sisters, I focus particularly on Horgan's reworking of the topography of suburban Dublin to create an image of a family clustered around a region of significant wealth on the coast, exemplified by their meetings at the Forty Foot swimming area. I discuss the differences between this production and other Irish TV drama, and the consequences for Horgan in making Bad Sisters for Apple TV+ rather than with the Irish national broadcaster, RTÉ. I conclude by asking to what extent Bad Sisters, given its glossy aesthetic, can explore social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Property talk has gained a new amplitude amid soaring land prices in India's agrarian-urban frontier. This article focuses on what is colloquially described as property ka kaam—property-work and ethnographically traces how property is continually made and remade on the ground. It heuristically identifies some of the key figures—the private developer, the religious leader, and the land broker—who, in their own specific ways, creatively improvise and draft the contours of an urbanizing frontier. It draws attention to everyday practices and discourses through which agropastoral land is turned into urban real estate and shows how the figures, working at different scales and capacities, navigate the complexly layered social-spatial dynamics of caste, class, community, and brotherhood to secure widespread consensus about urban transformation and coproduce an emergent agrarian-urban geography. This article opens a window into the opaque and dense world of property and highlights the contingent nature of property and place- and caste-based connections that undergird property-work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]