ABSTRACT

This chapter considers three main issues. Firstly I am intrigued by the manner in which class operates as an unstable category in relation to the lives of women of a working-class background who work in the academy. Secondly I want to account for the relative invisibility of women of Irish descent. In particular I want to argue that class, culture and faith (frequently a silenced aspect of culture), operate in various complex ways and at different moments in time to shape the social world of working-class women of Irish descent in higher education. Finally I want to problematize ‘the academy’, its unevenness and internal contradictions. In order to address these issues I will draw on some aspects of my biography.