ABSTRACT

Stephen Ball is now Director of Research in the Education Area of the University of Sussex, several years into an academic career. He previously began and rejected careers in Trust administration, librarianship and social work. His own educational experiences at school provided the major impetus for later research and study. He found his own school and home life as a pupil reflected in Jackson and Marsden’s Education and the Working Class and Lacey’s Hightown Grammar, and these studies provided a model for research and engagement in educational issues which he has attempted to pursue in his own work.