Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain

by Evans, Gillian

• ISBN13: 9781403992161
• ISBN10: 1403992169
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-05
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

If education seems to be the rational means for self-improvement and a better livelihood in the future, why are the children most likely to be in need of it so often the least likely to do well in their schooling? Perhaps schools are failing working class children or perhaps working class life presents alternative means for gaining school status that conflict with what it means to 'do well' at school. Or perhaps both factors are relevant. This book examines educational failure in white working class neighbourhoods, like Bermondsey, South East London, in terms of discrepancies between what is expected of children at school and what is required of them at home and on the street. Ethnographic investigation of the 'common' manners that differentiate Bermondsey people and their children makes possible comparison with what is required for educational success. Equal emphasis is given to explaining how 'sink schools' fail working class kids. Book jacket.

Author Biography

GILLIAN EVANS is a British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow in the Centre for Child-Focused Anthropological Research, Department Human Sciences at Brunel University.

Table of Contents

List of figures * Acknowledgements * Introduction: Social Class and Education * PART 1: COMMON KNOWLEDGE * Sharon: Common-as-Shit * Common Women: Working Class Values * Trouble on the Estates * PART 2: CLASSROOM VERSUS STREET CULTURE * Tom at Tenter Ground * The Classroom and School * Who Rules the School? * PART 3: CREATING AND TRANSFORMING VALUE * Pokemon and Peers * Place and Prestige * Notes from an Armed Robber - Gone Straight * Notes * References * Index

List of figures * Acknowledgements * Introduction: Social Class and Education * PART 1: COMMON KNOWLEDGE * Sharon: Common-as-Shit * Common Women: Working Class Values * Trouble on the Estates * PART 2: CLASSROOM VERSUS STREET CULTURE * Tom at Tenter Ground * The Classroom and School * Who Rules the School? * PART 3: CREATING AND TRANSFORMING VALUE * Pokemon and Peers * Place and Prestige * Notes from an Armed Robber - Gone Straight * Notes * References * Index