Class Strategies and the Education Market : The Middle Classes and Social Advantage

Class Strategies and the Education Market examines the ways in which the middle classes maintain and improve their social advantages in and through education. Drawing on an extensive series of interviews with parents and children, this book identifies key moments of decision making in the construction of the educational trajectories of middle class children. Stephen J. Ball organises his analysis around the key concepts of social closure, social capital, values and principles and risk, while bringing a broad range of up-to-date sociological theory to bear upon his subject. From this thorough analysis, valuable and thought-provoking insights emerge into the assiduous care and considerable effort and expenditure which goes into ensuring the educational success of the middle class child The middle classes are a sociological enigma, presenting the social researcher with considerable analytic and theoretical difficulties. Class Strategies and the Education Market provides a set of working tools for class analysis and the examination of class practices. Above all, it offers new ways of thinking about class theory and the relationships between classes in late modern society. Modern state education was essentially formed around the needs and interests of the middle class. The middle classes are currently very much at the centre of all politicians' electoral concerns. Nevertheless sociological and educational research has tended to neglect the middle class. Class Strategies and the Education Market examines the ways in which the middle classes maintain and improve their social advantages in and through education. Drawing on an extensive series of interviews with parents and children, this book identifies key moments of decision making in the construction of the educational trajectories of middle class children. Stephen J. Ball organises his analysis around the key concepts of social closure, social capital, values and principles and risk, while bringing a broad range of up-to date sociological theory to bear upon his subject. From this thorough analysis, valuable and thought-provoking insights into the assiduous care and considerable effort and expenditure which goes into ensuring the educational success of the middle class child, emerge Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 List of illustrations......Page 9 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Introduction: between structure and hermeneutics......Page 12 Class and strategy......Page 25 Class and policy......Page 36 Social class as social closure: a strategic approach......Page 64 Social capital, social class and choice......Page 90 Values and principles: social justice in the head......Page 122 Risk, uncertainty and fear......Page 159 Class practices and inequality......Page 178 Notes......Page 200 Bibliography......Page 205 Index......Page 222 Social Sciences Book Cover 1 Title 4 Contents 5 List of illustrations 9 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction: between structure and hermeneutics 12 Class and strategy 25 Class and policy 36 Social class as social closure: a strategic approach 64 Social capital, social class and choice 90 Values and principles: social justice in the head 122 Risk, uncertainty and fear 159 Class practices and inequality 178 Notes 200 Bibliography 205 Index 222 This introduction is an exercise of meta-writing, an attempt to draw some lines and limits around a piece of work that constantly goes beyond itself and at every turn 'stumbles against what it does not mean' (Foucault 1974: 17). Stephen J. Ball. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.