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 childThe 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.
Author(s): Stephen J. Ball
Edition: 1st
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 224
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
