Psychosocial Aspects of White Middle-Class Identities

Desiring and Defending against the Class and Ethnic `Other' in Urban Multi-Ethnic Schooling

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2321855
AutoresDiane Reay (0000-0003-0259-1935, University of Cambridge, autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume42
Fascículo6
Páginas1072-1088
Data de publicação2008-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-0385 • E-ISSN: 1469-8684
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038038508096934
OpenAlexW2078071480
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas46
Referências citadas35

This article draws on qualitative in-depth interviews with 63 white middle-class families whose children attend inner London comprehensives.The white middle classes, as they are inscribed in policy discourses, best fit the ideal of the democratic citizen - individualistic, rational, responsible, participatory, the active chooser. Yet, narratives of white middle-class choice reveal both powerful defences and the power of the affective. Sublimated in the psyche of the majority white middle classes who avoid inner-city comprehensives and the more inclusive parents in this ESRC-funded research project are multifaceted and differing responses to the classed and ethnic 'other'. This article examines frequently overlooked anxieties, conflicts, desires and tensions within middle-class identities generated by education choice policies. However, the main focus is white middle-class relationships to their classed and ethnic 'other', and the part played by the psychosocial in white middle-class identities and identifications within predominantly working-class, multi-ethnic schooling

Ethnic group · Individualism · Middle class · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · White (mutation) · Anthropology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Gender Studies · Parental Involvement in Education · School Choice and Performance