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This article focuses upon the classed and early professional experiences of middle-class novice teachers in England experiencing and contemplating working in schools serving socio-economically disadvantaged communities. Through an examination of the visibility and invisibility of social class in education set within an increasingly unequal and changed social landscape, the article reports upon research which seeks to better understand the class identities of these teachers. Evidence is presented of the key, yet complex, role that social class occupies within the working lives of new teachers and reveals the different ways in which teachers respond to the classed dimensions of their early professional experiences. It is concluded that the fundamentally important role that social class plays in terms of shaping early professional experiences in teaching suggests the need not only for a commensurately enhanced focus as part of early professional development, but also for attention that is sensitively attuned to the class identities of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political thought of trade unionists has been largely neglected in labour history. This study addresses that deficiency by analysing the values and philosophy of the Birmingham brassworker, W. J. Davis, between the general elections of 1892 and 1906. Although Lib-Lab trade unionism has been frequently dismissed as reactionary and hostile to independent labour representation, Davis was a far more radical and flexible politician than has been characterized. His beliefs were underpinned by a strong conviction that the working-class community was the ideal model for British politics and society at large. Traditional trade unionist principles of cooperation, solidarity, and interdependence were the inspiration for Davis' desire for independent labour representation, and not the obstacle. Davis would not sacrifice workers' interests for the sake of ideological purity and was therefore prepared to collaborate with both middle-class Liberals and socialists to achieve his aims, whilst never losing sight of his distinctive working-class identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon the St Anns neighbourhood in Nottingham, a community first studied by Ken Coates and Bill Silburn in the 1960s which noted the great upheavals of the physical and social changes generated by the slum clearance programme of 10,000 back-to-back terraced houses, and the consequent building of the concrete council estate that is now St Anns. This paper draws upon both the physical and the social changes within the neighbourhood, and highlights what has remained constant despite the massive upheavals to working-class life over the last 40 years. This paper looks at the concept of belonging to a neighbourhood which has been stigmatized, finding value and an identity within the estate, and residents describing themselves as simultaneously and interchangeably as being from and simply being St Anns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the variety of foods sought by the well-to-do increasing significantly in early modern England, there was a reappraisal of the status of animal by-products. This paper investigates the development of offal from a food that was traditionally associated with the poor loan esteemed fashion-food that adorned the dining tables of the English gentry during the early modern period. It does this by analyzing changes in purchasing patterns at the homes of the social elite, and comparing the foods that they bought with the ingredients specified in fashionable cookbooks. With reference to these and other historical sources it will be seen that offal, after it had been suitably prepared, enabled the well-to-do to broaden the range of culinary tastes available to them, and add this food to their expanding range of cultural identity markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses popular culture in late eighteenth-century rural southern England, using the works of dialect poet Robert Anderson, also known as the "Cumberland Bard." Particular focus is given to the regional differences in regard to social customs, sports, class and cultural identity in Cumberland County, England. The development of regionalism in England and its relationship to regional poetry is discussed. An overview of English sporting identity, including gender, age, community and neighborhood, is also presented.

This article draws on recent theoretical developments within sociology which have proposed new ways of looking at and understanding class. Drawing on two contemporary examples, namely the Gambling Bill and the recent 'riots' at Ikea in Edmonton in north London, the article demonstrates some of the ways in which class operates subjectively within the practice of everyday life. Using these examples, I show how class continuously informs identity and how, by looking at a range of contemporary cultural consumption practices, it is possible to gain a sense of how boundaries surrounding rights to middle-class identity are constantly tightened and refined. By presenting a range of responses to these consumer practices, I show how representations of the working class are often problematic and leave important questions about the everyday performance of class unanswered. The article thus offers an alternative understanding of class to those that have often positioned the working class as a dangerous deviant mob, as romantic rebels or simply as victims of an oppressive capitalist state. It concludes by arguing in favour of a renewed sociology of class and for ensuring that class features more prominently on the sociology of consumption agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the history of servants, childcare and class consciousness in late eighteenth-century England. The author used the term class consciousness to depict articulated thoughts and feelings on social differences and distinction. She claims that class difference consciousness is a learned thing. She noted that many historians attempted to understand and work on new techniques for uncovering this consciousness.