ABSTRACT
Social class has long been a central theme within educational and sociological theorizing, research and analysis. Within sociology, Edgell (1993) has suggested that social class is ‘the most widely used concept’ although it has undergone fluctuating periods of being in turn either prioritized or dismissed as irrelevant. While the salience of social class may rise and fall within policy and academic discourses, surveys (for example Hudson and Williams 1989) have suggested that recent years have witnessed increases in the gap between broad sections of the population, who have differential access to money, resources, qualifications, life chances and health. As will be outlined later in this chapter, education has always been centrally positioned within sociological theories of class re/production, playing an important role in ensuring either the reproduction of (middleclass) privileges or (working-class) disadvantages.
