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Could the standardisation of language narrow disparities in achievement in education amongst people of different social class, and within and across ethnicities and genders, and could this have implications for injustices and inequities in wider society? In analysing socio-economic diversity through the lens of its correlation with language, this paper examines how the standardisation of language could be used as a means to reduce such diversity. It examines links between the standardisation of language, and the reduction of inequalities between socio-economic groups, in regard to achievement in education. It also examines the correlation between language and social class, and propensity towards being a perpetrator and/or victim of hostility and violence, as well as their relationship with health and life expectancy etc. The paper further examines the effect of the use of technology and teaching methods on the acquisition of knowledge, and how this impacts upon children of different social class within the learning environment. In order to help address some of these questions, an auto-ethnographic methodology is adopted with the aim of being able to explore, and reflect upon, personal experience, and to be able to weave greater understanding and connections between apparently disparate factors related to diversity, all through the lens of language and its relationship to aspects of culture relating to social class. Amongst its conclusions, the paper argues that the standardisation and enhancement of spoken language would narrow the disparities in academic achievement between socio-economic groups. The paper also argues that in order to challenge inequitable power structures which have arisen from historical injustices, then rather than concentrating on underrepresentation of groups of people within high status positions in society, the focus of diversity should be directed towards challenging the over representation, in a range of settings, of groups of people within low status positions in society.

Since the public intellectuals of the 1960s, there has been a shift towards the celebrity academic, as subjects such as history and science have transferred into popular television entertainment, often with female academics as the presenters. Using a case study of the British media, a post-feminist lens has been applied to examine how 17 celebrity academics have been represented. The use of gendered academic stereotypes such as the blue stocking, the school ma'am, the eccentric academic and the thinking man's crumpet were in evidence, alongside the male academic stereotypes of the hegemonic academic male, the nerd and the complicit male. With increasing numbers of women participating in the education workforce, one might expect gendered stereotypes to have become more positive. This research indicates that academic stereotypes should be added to the list of gendered stereotypes that need to be addressed as part of the work towards gender equality.

The many permutations of spoken English have called for an interrogation into the notions of 'standard English' and 'native accents'. Despite their problematic nature, these terms remain commonly used, and familiarity with 'standard', inner-circle varieties of English is typical among L2 English speakers, differences in education and language policy notwithstanding. This paper inquires into student language attitudes in Alsace, a region with a long and complex language tradition. A mixed-methods model was used to gather seven students' reactions towards four inner-circle Englishes (Received Pronunciation, Standard American English, Glaswegian English, African American English). Findings revealed student preference for the two American speakers as well as preferential ratings linked to comprehensibility of speakers and a range of past experiences. Other findings favour those of previous language attitude studies in which RP and SAE outperform other samples in areas of education and prestige. GE and AAE samples were associated with both positive human characteristics and a lack of education. Overall, results indicate the need for future empirical research of this population as well as the necessity for linguists, researchers and teachers to make room for the spectrum of speakers and Englishes that lie outside of traditional reference accents.

Given that a large proportion of Master's students in UK universities are from mainland China, we sought to quantify the extent to which their approaches to learning (AtL) and epistemological beliefs (EBs) differ from those of non-Chinese students, and how these differences affected first-semester grades. To this end, we surveyed a large cohort of Master's students (n = 564, 65.3% Chinese) at a UK Business School at the beginning of an academic year to minimise influences that might change attitudes towards AtL and EBs. Primary data on AtL and EBs were collected using two standard survey instruments, along with data on social class, prior attainment, and nationality. This unique combination of measures, controls and large sample size allowed for an analysis that was more comprehensive than previous studies. Our findings showed that achievement among Chinese students was unrelated to AtL but was associated with EBs and social background. For example, when controlling for other factors, Chinese students who had confidence in their learning ability achieved higher grades, while non-Chinese students who perceived knowledge as certain underperformed. Moreover, Chinese students whose fathers held lower status jobs achieved significantly higher grades when controlling for other characteristics.

University students in paid employment have less time for studying, report more stress, and participate in fewer extracurricular activities than non-employed students. These negative outcomes that result from combining work and study can cause employed students to experience the domains of work, study, and social life as practically incompatible, but also to experience a sense of identity incompatibility. Therefore, we used insights from previous quantitative and qualitative data on employed students and previous work on identity incompatibility to generate two research questions (RQs): RQ1. What type(s) of incompatibility (practical, identity or other) do employed students experience? and RQ2. What strategies have they adopted to reduce the experienced incompatibility? In order to answer these questions, we performed a thematic analysis with a deductive approach on transcripts from 21 UK university students who we interviewed. The students reported two types of incompatibilities: practical incompatibility, which stems from the lack of time, lack of energy, and lack of social contact associated with combining work and study; and identity incompatibility, which emanates from status differences and differences between one's own and others' perception of oneself. In order to reduce or resolve these incompatibilities, the students also developed practical (e.g. taking paid leave) and cognitive (e.g. compartmentalising contexts) strategies. Finally, the students also noted how the experience of practical incompatibility can reaffirm their values of hard work and productivity and make them resilient learners.

Indian students in Britain before the Second World War were a sizeable social group who exerted noticeable influence on Indian nationalism and on British institutions and society. The politics of race and empire were mediated through British schools and universities in this period with consequences for Indian students, and their peers. This article discusses the ways in which Indian students were socially segregated in Britain, including facing a colour ban in some parts of the country, and the consequences of this racial prejudice. It argues that the mobility of colonial students during the time of empire not only had a personal effect on their lives, but encouraged them to become politically engaged in the politics of metropole and empire, engaging in nationalism, socialism and the female suffrage movement in both Britain and India.

This article explores the experiences of academics of colour in elite universities in the UK and the USA. Drawing on interviews with 34 respondents and using a critical race theory perspective, the findings indicate that academics of colour experience racism in the White space of an elite university. To counter the racism they experience, they develop 'safe spaces' in which they find empathy and support from other academics of colour. A key finding from the study suggests that despite having negative experiences in elite universities, academics of colour have contradictory feelings about their positions. They disassociate themselves from the racism by recognising the status and prestige associated with working at an elite university. This article suggests that in order for academics of colour to be fully included in elite universities, institutions must acknowledge racism and their own Whiteness to work towards cultural change.

In "Mansfield Park," Jane Austen has exhibited the English identity lies on property earned by the slave trade in Caribbean Islands. If we go deep inside of the history of Britain we could able to see their awareness and concern over a national identity, and consider American colonies a poor reflection on Britain. The traits of British colonization always stretched their dominating wings soar above in the sky of ruling. The tyrannical rule on the Caribbean Islands and other places, where they have set the subjugation upon the destitute subjects. Such as West Indies, Jamaica, Haiti, Indian subcontinent and many more countries which they consider inferior in front of them. This was the ideology of English people and their smug of English identity. In the first part of my research paper, I am suppose to depict that, how the English superiority discern its voice through the narrative of the 19th century English novels. The great example of English superiority proved by the reading of "Mansfield Park," and this novel will also explore the deepest meaning of coveted Englishness. Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park," which has written based on English identity earned by slave trade and also the English people who are very much obsessed with property, money, status, elite class attitudes and heedless towards their subordinate people. On the other hands, Kazi Nazrul Islam upholds the position of anti colonial writer. He was very much against the British rule and their despotic rulers. Therefore, Kazi Nazrul Islam has established the notion of anti British ideology and activities through his writings and showed the world about his rebellious nature.

This paper presents findings from a recent study on choice-making among teachers, school leaders and parents in a for-profit British international school in Kuwait. Using a Bourdieusian field analysis, the choice-making of the various stakeholders is investigated to reveal their positionality within the school's social space, to examine the resources they hold and the capitals in which they are willing to invest. We find that choices made by, and within, an international school reveal symbolic violence, and a 'taken-for-granted understanding' that this form of schooling (British- rather than American-style international schooling) is superior. Participants in the study included teachers, parents, graduating class students and school leaders. Teachers and parents were a representative mix of local (both Arab and non-Arab) and expatriate. The study makes an important contribution to the body of knowledge relating to international schools, in its theoretical framework and its inclusion of the wider stakeholder population, which together generate a deeper understanding of professional practice in the international school context.

After 2005, approximately two million Poles emigrated, choosing mostly Britain as their destination. Quantitative reports paint a picture of the typical Polish immigrant as a person between the ages of 31-39, who, with a vocational (or equivalent) education, is active on the labor market. This paper reports on a qualitative study of six typical Polish families in Nottingham and of the staff from two Catholic schools that the Polish children attend. The study aimed to reconstruct the typical, long-term adaption and integration strategies as seen from the perspective of the children's participation in education. The data comprise 12 overt interviews with Polish mothers/fathers/workers (six interviews) in Nottingham and with school staff (head teacher, special needs coordinator, teacher assistants) in two Catholic primary and secondary schools in Nottingham in the period of 2009-2013. Our results reveal the unusual "luck" experienced by the Polish children. This "luck" refers to the Catholic educational trajectories that are accidentally accessed thanks to the children having Catholic baptismal certificates in a non-Catholic country. These educational trajectories, in consideration of the parents' social status, would never have been experienced by these children in Poland. We call it luck, because, again, in consideration of the parents' cultural capital, it was not part of the wider immigration plan.

The aim of this paper is to find out the attitudes towards Geordie regional variety of English compared to Received Pronunciation (RP) among Turkish speakers of English. There is a recent trend in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) studies which argue that there are different 'Englishes' and these Englishes have different attitude and prestige levels. However, there are not many studies on the attitude of second language (L2) speakers regarding the accents of British English in the UK. Therefore, this area needs more research. This a descriptive quantitative survey study and the participants are 34 Turkish L2 speakers of English. As for the data collection tool, this study utilizes an attitude test preceded by two audio recordings prepared by matched-guise technique. Having listened to the audio recordings, participants fill in attitude rating scales consisting of 3 dimensions: social status, social attractiveness and linguistic features. The analysis compares and contrasts how a non-standard dialect, Geordie, and RP are perceived. The analysis indicates that the participants have a significantly positive attitude towards RP and RP speakers are considered to have higher social status and linguistic competence while no significant difference is found for social attractiveness. The results of this study have implications for ELF studies, the status of native speakers and L2 teaching and learning.

Power and status are captivating, especially the desire for social status and its commensurate authority and security. Cliques, smaller clusters within larger peer groups sharing similar views, behaviors, and attitudes, are a means of attaining societal power. Because cliques are typically composed of the disenfranchised holding views different from official ones, asserting powerful, contentious statements while escaping retribution and retaining anonymity is difficult. Hidden literacies, i.e., words or phrases with double meanings, are cliques' simple yet subversive communicative format. Such literacies refute and/or contest official social expectations and afford opportunities to join the current social power structure, as contributions generally disseminate views to larger populations and cause unease among those in power, a central goal. Written by adults and chanted by and to children, British nursery rhymes of old were hidden literacies. Their verses were powerful, subversive opinions of political, social, or religious commentary regarding then-contemporary events. Likewise, contemporary hidden literacies are technological communications used by youth for clandestine conversing. Although nursery rhymes and contemporary technology are parallel forms of hidden literacies, their authors, contents, audiences, and impacts are diametrically opposed with this paper exploring and discussing these comparisons, contrasts, and implications. The desire for social status, and its commensurate authority and security, is indeed powerful. Although extant social groupings are situational with desirability and importance dependent upon individuals and circumstances, people have belonged to, rebelled against, and attempted status advancements respective to the groups with which they retained membership throughout history. (Contains 14 footnotes.)

This article assesses the chances of entering the top 5% of earners for a British cohort currently in their 40s. We assess the difference made by a university degree from an elite (Russell Group) or non-elite university, and from different undergraduate fields of study. Our study uses rich longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). This allows us to control for an unusually large range of potential confounding factors, including childhood socio-economic circumstances, cognitive scores, secondary schooling and prior qualifications. We find that large raw differences in the chances of achieving a top salary are strongly attenuated by our controls, but substantial differences between degree subject areas remain. The large gap between men and women in the chance of gaining a top salary is not explained by the type of degree achieved, and we found no evidence of gender differences in the gains from institutional prestige or particular fields of study.

Cosmopolitanism has been cast by some in recent years as a form of cultural capital, disproportionately available to students on elite educational pathways. This article tests this supposition, by comparing the enactment of global citizenship education reforms at two high-status and two low-status universities in the United Kingdom. These enactments have indeed differed, as some students are being encouraged to cultivate a sophisticated cosmopolitan disposition for positions of leadership, while other students are not--even if they are being encouraged to learn more about the world, or to develop social tolerance. Comparing the practices and meanings attributed to the global citizenship agenda among universities in different positions in the higher education field, this article illuminates dynamics related to the creation, legitimation, and differentiation of cosmopolitan capital among different groups of students. The article also extends understanding of how the institutional hierarchy of higher education provision positions students for the global economy unequally.

This article argues that strong interrelations between methodological and theoretical advances exist. Progress in, especially comparative, methods may have important impacts on theory evaluation. By using the example of the "Varieties of Capitalism" approach and an international comparison of higher education systems, it can be shown that the use of improved data and of advanced analysis techniques changes the acceptance or rejection of the theoretical approach. As a conclusion, the article advocates data improvements, the use of advanced methods, more generally a methodologically reflexive interpretation of comparative research results as well as a closer cooperation between theory and method development.

Pervasive socio-economic differences in relation to participation in higher education in the United Kingdom are particularly prominent in the most prestigious institutions. This study provides insight into why some individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are successful in being admitted into one of these institutions. Underpinned by phenomenology, semi-structured interviews were carried out to examine the lived experiences of high-achieving students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds throughout their educational trajectories from primary school to a Russell Group university. Two main themes emerged from the data: identity and educational engagement. Various sources of disadvantage associated with material hardship, socio-cultural and interpersonal factors were strongly linked to identity and students' perceptions of their own social status. In turn, these factors and identity-related constructs associated with peer-group memberships, low expectations and negative group stereotypes affected how individuals engaged with education, contributing, for instance, to their lack of active involvement at school/college and poor attendance. However, identity-related factors were also found to influence individuals' educational engagement positively, including their motivations for overcoming obstacles, achieving high grades and pursuing HE. The barriers and facilitators discussed by these individuals have important implications for widening access to HE and thus require further consideration.

This paper explores how practitioners in a hostile context make sense of continuing professional development (CPD). Critics worldwide question the professional status of human resources seeing the function as an underdog to well-established professions. The study uses an interpretivist approach to examine the conceptual interweaving of learning and identity development. Findings reveal that continuing development expands knowledge capabilities which affirm professional identity coherence. Professionalisation of the human resources field matters for the effective staff management of diverse multicultural workforces. This suggests a need for CPD providers to support practitioners better articulate and critically demonstrate the significance of sourcing, coordinating and retaining global talent. To counter pejorative views, practitioners base a claim for renewed respect on cumulative improvements in people management skills. This robust approach provides a resilient pathway for other occupational groups who aspire to professional status.

Anxiety about "performing" in a foreign language in front of classmates may inhibit learners' contributions in the modern languages class through fear of embarrassment over possible error production. The issue of "face", perceived social standing in the eyes of others, presents a sensitive matter for young adolescents developing their identity. Adolescents' self-esteem may depend, in large part, on peers' positive opinions. This article describes three of the strategies employed by three modern languages teachers when correcting errors committed in spoken interaction which appeared to address potential face issues for adolescent learners. Their approach may be helpful to modern languages teachers wishing to develop and extend sensitive correction strategies.

This article asks why classical music in the UK, which is consumed and practiced by the middle and upper classes, is being used as a social action program for working-class children in British music education schemes inspired by El Sistema. Through exploring the discourse of the social benefits of classical music in the late nineteenth century, a particular classed and gendered morality in relation to music can be traced that has parallels today. This paper argues, first, that classical music education fits with a middle-class disposition by rewarding investment in a future self; second, that it cultivates an ideal of hard work as a moral project; and third, that classical music allows young women to perform a "respectable" female identity. UK Sistema-inspired programs, in drawing on Victorian ideas of the "civilising influence" of culture, symbolise hope for the continuation of the bourgeois social project into the future.

This paper examines the micro-political experiences of Adam (a pseudonym), a newly appointed fitness coach at a Football Association Premier League club, in his search for acceptance by senior colleagues. Data were collected through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, before being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Goffman's writings on impression management and stigma, Kelchtermans's micro-political perspective and Garfinkel's notion of status degradation are primarily utilised to make the sense of Adam's perceptions and actions. The findings point to the value of developing coaches' micro-political understandings, and of including their formal facilitation within given professional preparation programmes. Doing so, it is argued, would better equip coaches for the problematic realities of their practice.

In 1992 the binary divide between universities and polytechnics was dismantled to create a nominally unitary system of higher education for the UK. Just a year later, the first UK university league table was published, and the year after that saw the formation of the Russell Group of self-proclaimed "leading" universities. This paper asks whether there are distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK, and, in particular, whether the Russell Group institutions can be said to constitute a distinctive elite tier. Cluster analysis of publicly available data on the research activity, teaching quality, economic resources, academic selectivity, and socioeconomic student mix of UK universities demonstrates that the former binary divide persists with Old (pre-1992) universities characterised by higher levels of research activity, greater wealth, more academically successful and socioeconomically advantaged student intakes, but similar levels of teaching quality, compared to New (post-1992) institutions. Among the Old universities, Oxford and Cambridge emerge as an elite tier, whereas the remaining 22 Russell Group universities appear to be undifferentiated from the majority of other Old universities. A division among the New universities is also evident, with around a quarter of New universities forming a distinctive lower tier.

Existing studies on the role of schooling in the formation and (re)production of elite identity have focused almost entirely on the reproduction strategies of Western elites. Consequently, the distinction strategies employed by non-western elite parents to maintain and/or advance their class positioning--via their children--have remained largely unexamined. Using rare qualitative data from a broader study of the educational preferences of elite Nigerian families, this paper critically examines the key processes involved in Nigerian elites' attempts to protect and/or enhance their children's future elite status. Combining the theoretical frameworks of Bourdieu and Fanon, the paper argues that a significant proportion of elite Nigerian parents opt for UK-based private boarding schools because they believe that these schools will bestow their children with "attributes of excellence" through a highly selective exposure to elite White British lifestyles and practices. These parents believe that placing their children in White (elitist) spaces would allow them to acquire the right dispositions and deportment such as "respectability" and a "refined accent," essential for the (re)production and/or formation of "genuine" elite identity in modern-day Nigerian.

In this article the notion of "community" is examined through a lens which focuses on the way people interact and communicate in and around a Panjabi complementary school. Analysis of linguistic ethnographic data contributes to understandings of how identities are produced and reproduced, and how belonging becomes naturalised. The analysis offers a means to develop a nuanced understanding of the complexity, unpredictability and mobility of late modern, urban "communities". The article considers linguistic repertoires in play in two family settings, and views these repertoires through the lens of "heteroglossia" (Bakhtin 1981). The discussion focuses on audio recordings, observational fieldnotes and interviews collected as part of a wider linguistic ethnographic study in four European cities. In the interactions between parents and their teenage daughters, identities were produced and reproduced, and certain kinds of belonging, or "community", came to be naturalised. Analysis of such interactions developed an understanding of the complexity of "communities", evident in a number of identifiable signs which recurred in the speech of these and other families in the study.

Sociolinguists have recently employed the notion of spatiotemporal scales to explain the changing social status of linguistic codes across social and geopolitical domains. Scales enable us to address the portability of semiotic resources in migration with great insight. In addition, unlike romanticized orientations to globalization and transnational relations, this model enables us to address the role of power in shaping the uptake of resources in shifting social contexts. Sociolinguists in this tradition show how the resources that enjoy power and prestige in certain local contexts receive lower status as migrants move to other social contexts, especially in Western urban communities. Despite the usefulness of this orientation, the sociolinguistics of scale suffers from certain limitations. It presents a highly stratified vision of social spaces, ignoring the possibility for renegotiating status differences and hierarchies. It assumes a normative orientation to languages, unable to accommodate the possibility that new language norms and practices might emerge, leading to new orders of indexicality. For these reasons, it is also insensitive to agency in mobility, unable to theorize how migrants may renegotiate norms in elite and privileged contexts. I present interview data from African skilled migrants in the UK, USA, and Australia to demonstrate their attitudes toward renegotiating the valuation and status of their own varieties of English in transnational contexts. Their narratives suggest how migrants negotiate spatiotemporal scales to their advantage, redefine the translocal space, and reconstruct new orders of indexicality in intercultural communication. Though I lack interactional data to examine uptake, the interview data helps develop a more complex use of scalar metaphors to address the dynamics of agency and inequality in intercultural communication in translocal spaces. (Contains 3 notes.)

This article explores the perceived role of UK international education as foreign cultural capital, obtained outside the UK, in facilitating middle-class social mobility. Drawing on interviews with students in Malaysia, it extends Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital to explain understandings of the rewards and limitations of undertaking UK education externally. I argue that foreign cultural capital has positive exchange value and an under-researched negative value. I discuss how accumulating local cultural capital is a strategic response to the shortcomings of western knowledge, skills and dispositions. Age, ethnicity, gender and nationality add complexities to the conversion of cultural capital into economic and social advantages. I conclude by arguing for more visibility of external modes of UK international education and the positional possibilities they represent to foreign students seeking distinction within the rapidly expanding global academic marketplace.

The present study sought to examine the extent to which the cultural portrayal of online gamers, often in comical, caricatured, or sensational forms, has become transformed into sets of cognitive associations between the category and traits. A total of 342 participants completed an online survey in which they rated how applicable each of a list of traits was to the group of online gamers. Ratings were made for both personal beliefs (how participants themselves see gamers) and stereotypical beliefs (how most others see gamers). While these beliefs were highly consensual as stereotypes, personal beliefs varied, suggesting that the cultural portrayal of online gamers is beginning to shift into cognitive associations. The role of stereotypes in negotiating a group's social position are discussed arguing that these stereotypes currently position online gamers as low in social status and socially peripheral. The function of the media in generating stereotypical representations of social groups and convincing the public of their validity is also discussed. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

There is a lack of longitudinal research linking adolescent career aspirations to adult outcomes other than career and income attainment. Drawing on Nurmi's (2004) and Salmela-Aro, Aunola, and Nurmi's (2007) life-span model of motivation and using quantitative survey data at ages 16, 23, 33, 42, and 50 years, combined with retrospective interview data at age 50 (collected from 25 members of a British cohort study born in 1958), we aimed to gain a more rounded understanding of the role that adolescent career aspirations play in shaping not only adult career development but also adult identities and well-being. Twenty-two of the 25 participants fulfilled their adolescent career aspirations later in life through achieving (a) the exact career they aspired to or (b) the social status of the career they aspired to. In relation to adult personal identity and well-being, the findings suggest that what matters is not just whether a person aims high at age 16 (i.e., to be a professional or a manager) but also whether the person remembers having strong or meaningful career aspirations. Further themes, gender differences, and implications for policy and future research are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

This article is concerned with the experiences of transnational academics teaching and researching in British higher education institutions (HEI). Although there is a plethora of studies related to the issues of international students and Western academics teaching abroad, very little has been written about the recent global phenomenon in which academics from non-English-speaking backgrounds move to English universities. This underresearched area is explored drawing on an in-depth study considering the cases of seven international academics in five different universities. The study identifies a range of their distinctive experiences which constitutes an exigent "field" in their struggle to adapt to the new cultural setting. The "logistic challenges" may exist but are transitory. Although providing an opportunity for professional development is helpful, "the offer of support" is a sensitive notion and may be perceived as a threat to both their status and identity. (Contains 2 notes and 2 tables.)

The National Assessment of Educational Progress statistics show that boys are underachieving in literacy compared to girls. Attempts to redress the problem in various Global North countries and particularly Australia and the United Kingdom have failed to make any impact. However, there are boys who are doing well in literacy. The aim of this article is to explore how high-status constructions of masculinity are maintained alongside "successfully literate" identities. Using existing studies of successfully literate boys and data collected from an investigation into high achievers and popularity, the article will show how a "real boy" construction of masculinity is being reworked by some groups of academically successful boys to produce "Renaissance Masculinity." The argument here is that tackling the gender gap in literacy requires attention to social success and aesthetic factors as much as to the structural variables of gender, social class and "race."

Considerable resources and intellectual attention have focused on seeking to raise the status of teaching in higher education over the last two decades. Initiatives at an institutional level have included the funding of pedagogic research, teaching awards and the creation of teaching professorships. In a broader context, the scholarship of teaching and learning movement has campaigned for a reconfigured and more inclusive understanding of scholarship. However, despite the good intentions of these initiatives, the effect been to lower still further the status of teaching, bifurcating universities between "teaching" and "research". It is argued that efforts should instead be directed at integrating academic practice as a more effective way of raising the status of teaching.

This paper examines the ways in which credentials from a range of education providers are used to (re)produce transnational financial elites in London's international financial district. Extant research has examined the long-standing relationship between educational background and entry into these financial labour markets. Far less attention has been paid to how the relationship between education and financial elites has changed more recently as financial labour markets have become increasingly transnational in nature and education and learning increasingly extend beyond higher education into the workplace. In response, this paper combines work on transnational elite labour markets with work from the sociology of education on the intersection between work and workplace education in order to understand the different strategies used by individuals (from both the UK and overseas) to acquire a range of credentials following their first degree in an effort to advance their careers within contemporary financial services labour markets. We argue that this research reveals the comparatively neglected trans-local qualities of workplace learning and education as individuals acquire both international and local academic credentials in what are often assumed to be global elite labour markets. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this research for work on the role of education in the (re)production of transnational elites more generally. (Contains 1 note and 1 table.)

Existing research rarely examines the social consequences of poor childhood health from a longitudinal perspective. Using data from the British National Child Development Study, I follow a cohort from before birth through middle age to examine whether children's health limitations before and during the educational process predict occupational skill in mid-adulthood, and whether negative consequences are strongest for children in persistently poor health. I also examine whether differences in achievement explain the observed associations, and at what point during the schooling process performance begins to play a large explanatory role. Poor health is strongly negatively related to qualifications in adulthood, particularly for children in persistently poor health. These associations are largely explained by differences in performance early in children's academic careers, before the first important transition point. The relationship between prenatal maternal smoking and mid-adulthood qualifications is more persistent. This article demonstrates that a static conceptualization of childhood health is inadequate to fully understand the dynamic process through which social status and health over the course of childhood have long-run consequences for the adult life course. (Contains 12 notes and 6 tables.)

This article draws on data from two recently completed Economic and Social Research Council funded projects in order to examine class differences and similarities in choice of school and choice of childcare. The authors argue that there is every reason to believe that in many circumstances, within its particular mechanisms and practices, choice produces specific and pervasive forms of inequity. The processes by which working-class parents in one study chose care settings and schools could be seen as less skilled, less informed, less careful than the decision making of many of the middle-class respondents. However, this is not an argument that the authors advance, noting instead that the practices and meanings of choice are subject to significant social, cultural and economic variations in terms of who gets to choose, who gets their choices, and what, how and why people choose when they are able to. The authors argue that there are alternative sets of priorities in play for the working-class respondents, involving attachments to the communal and the local. (Contains 1 table and 6 notes.)

We examined the prospective associations between family socio-economic background, childhood intelligence ("g") at age 11, educational and occupational attainment, and social attitudes at age 33 in a large (N = 8804), representative sample of the British population born in 1958. Structural equation Modeling identified a latent trait of "liberal social attitudes" underlying attitude factors that are antiracist, socially liberal, and in support of gender equality. Another attitude factor--"political trust"--was relatively independent from the latent attitude trait and has somewhat different pathways in relation to the other variables included in the analysis. There was a direct association between higher "g" at age 11 and more liberal social attitudes and political trust at age 33. For both men and women the association between "g" and liberal social attitudes was partly mediated via educational qualifications, and to a much lesser extent via adult occupational attainment. For women the association between "g" and political trust was partly mediated through both educational qualification and occupational attainment, and for men it was mediated mainly via occupational attainment. Men and women who had higher educational qualifications and higher occupational status tend to be more socially liberal and more trusting of the democratic political system. In terms of socio-economic background, people from less privileged families showed less political trust, but did not differ much in liberal social attitudes from those born into relatively more privileged circumstances. This study shows that social background, cognitive ability, education, and own social status influence perceptions of society. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

The author argues that the debate on declining social mobility has neglected the role of the examination and testing system. At all levels of education working class children are failing and middle class children achieving whatever ability levels are involved. The article focusses on the A-Level examination and the controversy over the way the expansion of higher education has benefited the middle classes. The author argues the expansion of higher education in the 1980s and changes to examinations benefited the middle class. Further, new Labour reforms of A-Level, and 16-plus examinations to include vocational subjects, paradoxically undermined their own desire for meritocracy. Coupled with wider changes, notably tuition fees and the power of elite universities to control their admissions policies to favour the privileged, A-Level reform threatens to turn higher education back to the "Brideshead Revisited" state of affairs of the 1930s. (Contains 2 tables and 29 notes.)

Determinants of intergenerational social mobility were examined in 8287 men from the British Cohort Study 1970. Confirming previous research, parental social class, childhood intelligence, and educational qualifications were the strongest predictors of occupational social class at the age of 30. Locus of control and childhood behaviour disturbance had independent significant effects and accounted for additional amounts of variance. Self-esteem had only a trivial influence on social mobility. Structural equation modelling using full information maximum likelihood estimation demonstrated that: educational qualifications mediated other predictors' effects, accounting for the greatest amount of variance in people's own social status attainment; there was a substantial overlap of childhood behavioural disturbance, intelligence, and locus of control; there were effects of parental social class on own occupational social class attainment. Intergenerational social mobility is determined by a nexus of inter-correlated variables whose independent effects remain difficult to disentangle. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

This paper draws on life history interviews with young adults in the UK to consider Manuela du Bois-Reymond's claims about the increasing prevalence of "trendsetter learners" across Europe. Du Bois-Reymond has argued that certain groups of young adults are at the forefront of developing new forms of learning in response to what they perceive to be the failings of formal education--namely the disjuncture between theory and practice within the education that they are offered and a lack of respect from many of the teachers with whom they come into contact. These young adults, she contends, are the "trendsetter learners", creating youth cultural capital that helps them to realise self-determined ways of living and learning. In considering some of these claims, this paper draws on data from the "Young Graduates and Lifelong Learning" project funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council. Between September 2005 and January 2006, 90 in-depth life history interviews were conducted with graduates from six higher education institutions. Our findings suggest that the degree of autonomy, freedom and creativity in young people's patterns of learning that underpin du Bois-Reymond's analysis is over-stated. We argue that, while du Bois-Reymond's work makes an important contribution to conceptualising the ways in which young Europeans engage with learning, her dichotomy between "trendsetter" learners and their "disengaged" counterparts overlooks: complexities inherent in this relationship, the social status attached to particular forms of more traditional education and training, and the structuring nature of much workplace learning. (Contains 4 notes.)

We investigated the effects of gender and group size on perceptions of group variability, using groups of students taking different majors that varied in the proportion of men and women (female-majority, parity, and male-majority). We found that both group size and gender had consistent effects on perceived out-group variability, even when potentially confounded alternative explanations were assessed. Men showed a stronger out-group homogeneity effect than women, except when women were in the majority (Studies One and Two), and women showed no in-group homogeneity effect. There was an association between out-group homogeneity and the tendency to generate more subgroups for the in-group than out-group (Study Two), but perceived variability was not associated with familiarity, distinctiveness, perceived group size, or perceived group status. These consistent effects qualify the conclusions of prior research in important ways, and cannot be explained in terms of differences in stereotype accuracy (Study Three), or a confound between the gender majority of a major and its perceived status (Study Four). We discuss our findings in terms of theoretical explanations for gender and size effects on out-group homogeneity, and methodological considerations. (Contains 3 tables and 10 footnotes.)

The influence of social status on child development has been the subject of research for several decades, with children who are not accepted by their peers being shown to be at risk of a range of difficulties both at the time and in later life. Strong links have also been established between behaviour and social status. A small-scale action research project considered the social structure of a Year 2 class and used data gathered through sociometric interviews and observations to identify some factors which may have influenced the social status of individuals within that group. From this data, three children considered at risk of peer rejection or isolation were identified and an intervention programme was implemented. At the end of the year sociometric interviews and observations were repeated and it was found that one child's social behaviours and status among his peers had increased significantly over the course of the project.

New evidence is provided about the degree of social segregation in England's secondary schools, employing a cross-national perspective. Analysis is based on data for 27 industrialised countries from the 2000 and 2003 rounds of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). We allow for sampling variation in the estimates. England is shown to be a middle-ranking country, as is the USA. High segregation countries include Austria, Belgium, Germany and Hungary. Low segregation countries include the four Nordic countries and Scotland. In explaining England's position, we argue that its segregation is mostly accounted for by unevenness in social background in the state school sector. Cross-country differences in segregation are associated with the prevalence of selective choice of pupils by schools. (Contains 13 notes, 4 figures, and 2 tables.)

Background: This paper develops an analysis of how "educability" and "physical ability" are socially configured through the practices of physical education (PE) in schools. We pursue this interest as part of a broader project, shared by many in the wider community of social science researchers in PE, to better understand how "knowledge of the body" is produced, transmitted and "received" in and through the educational practices of schools, and how these processes relate to social justice, inequality, cultural reproduction and change. Purpose: Our specific interest here is in how the physical education curriculum is "encoded" with particular conceptions of education, childhood, development and "educability" and how these, when expressed through various pedagogical modes, may impact a child's opportunity to display or perform "ability" in PE classrooms and, ultimately, their "desire" to learn. Research design: Drawing on sociological concepts from Bernstein, the paper undertakes a comparative, narrative analysis of two curriculum texts, "Movement and Growing" (HMSO) and the "National Curriculum PE" (DFEE), both of which have sought to define thinking and practice in PE in the UK over the last 50 years. The former, influential in the 1950s and 1960s, is now a "redundant pedagogy"; the latter has defined PE in England and Wales since the 1990s. Findings: The analysis suggests that in the contrast between these texts we can identify two forms of pedagogy, each representing and reflecting distinctive political ideologies, versions of education and social control. The former ("Movement and Growing") predicates "horizontal relationships", the recognition and acceptance of diverse "abilities", shared needs and interests, and the achievement of personal value and status. The latter ("National Curriculum PE"), "vertical relationships", differentiation and the creation of "ability" hierarchies, and the ascription of positional status and value. Conclusion: The analysis invites teachers to consider whether modern variants of PE have liberalised or limited teachers' understandings of "ability", "educability" and how children learn to succeed and fail in PE. (Contains 4 notes.)