ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Geoffrey Evans and James Tilley's discussion of the status of the working-class provides a useful starting point. It also argues that the 1944 Education Act was part of the 'redistribution of esteem' from the middle-classes to the working classes. The chapter focuses on the question of what the cultural analyses of working-class education might mean for teachers. The egalitarian ethic of the War and the post-war government's policy of 'fair shares' produced a remarkable redistribution of income and self-esteem to the working-class. Grasping the changing relations between the middle and working class helps to understand the emergence of the post-war consensus about education. The relationship between class and culture came to the fore with the publication in English, in 1984, of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction. It had a significant impact on the study of education since it introduced to educational debate concepts such as cultural capital, habitus, and symbolic violence.
