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White middle-class parents, identities, educational choice and the urban comprehensive school: dilemmas, ambivalence and moral ambiguity

Crozier, Gill, Reay, Diane, James, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7921-6485, Jamieson, Fiona, Beedell, Phoebe, Hollingworth, Sumi and Williams, Katya 2008. White middle-class parents, identities, educational choice and the urban comprehensive school: dilemmas, ambivalence and moral ambiguity. British Journal of Sociology of Education 29 (3) , pp. 261-272. 10.1080/01425690801966295

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Abstract

At a time when the public sector and state education (in the United Kingdom) is under threat from the encroaching marketisation policy and private finance initiatives, our research reveals white middle‐class parents who in spite of having the financial opportunity to turn their backs on the state system are choosing to assert their commitment to the urban state‐run comprehensive school. Our analysis examines the processes of ‘thinking and acting otherwise’, and demonstrates the nature of the commitment the parents make to the local comprehensive school. However, it also shows the parents’ perceptions of the risk involved and their anxieties that these give rise to. The middle‐class parents are thus caught in a web of moral ambiguity, dilemmas and ambivalence, trying to perform ‘the good/ethical self’ while ensuring the ‘best’ for their children.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1603 Secondary Education. High schools
Uncontrolled Keywords: whiteness, middle‐class, identity, school choice, class‐fractions
Publisher: Routledge
ISSN: 0142-5692
Last Modified: 21 Oct 2022 10:36
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/40739

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