ABSTRACT
This is the second of three discussion chapters giving a voice to the participants. This chapter builds on the discussions from the previous chapter (Chapter 4) and relates to the participants’ class background and how their schooling and education played a role in (re)producing their lived experiences of social inequalities. The aim of this chapter is to engage the reader more deeply around the structure and agency debate by telling the stories of the participants and linking them to Bourdieu’s concept of capitals. Upon and throughout adulthood, the participants struggled with the ‘self’ whilst simultaneously becoming disengaged with the wider social, economic and political spheres. Although they had the potential to use their agency to overcome their class inequalities, they had merely acted in the world rather than upon the world as Freire had noted (1974). Agency, however, is neither fixed nor permanent and this chapter concludes with developing critical thinking skills relating to Freirean thought.
