ABSTRACT
This chapter re-introduces the fact of social class as a major variable in the process of schooling. The study on which this chapter is based is of a mining village in the Yorkshire coalfield. The research was begun in January 1985 and coincided with the final three months of the NUM strike against pit closures. Coalton School is a moderately sized mixed comprehensive comprising of 690 pupils, age range 11–16, and 46 staff, set in the centre of the mining village of Coalton. The chapter focuses on two groups of 16 year old working class pupils, the 'lads' and 'lasses', all of whom were in bottom sets throughout the school. Different cultural perspectives regarding school are revealed in the whole orientation of working class pupils and of the working class community generally to education. The traditional Grammar school did provide working class people with token successes, albeit wholly disproportionate to the successes of those of middle class pupils.
