New Class Relations in Education: the Strategies of the ‘Fearful’ Middle Classes

Abstract

This chapter is part of a broader effort within the sociology of education to write social class back into the analytical problematic of the discipline. Social class has been the subject of considerable debate and development in mainstream sociology in recent years. However, to some extent research in the sociology of education has failed to keep abreast of or take into account empirical, methodological and theoretical developments in class analysis in mainstream sociology. We intend to demonstrate that pronouncements about the ‘end of class’ are premature. Marshall (1997) suggests that ‘we may have mistaken changes in the shape of the class structure for changes in social fluidity or the degree of openness’ (p.5 emphasis in the original).