Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Social Class and Education

   1. Introduction: Social Class and Education

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 1-14

3. Common Knowledge

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-16

      PDF

   2. Sharon: Common-as-Shit

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 17-32

   3. Common Women: Working Class Values

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 33-51

   4. Trouble on the Estates

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 52-64

4. Classroom Versus Street Culture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

      PDF

   2. Tom at Tenter Ground

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 67-80

   3. The Classroom and School

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 81-98

   4. Who Rules the School?

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 99-116

5. Creating and Transforming Value

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 117-118

      PDF

   2. Pokemon and Peers

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 119-138

   3. Place and Prestige

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 139-159

   4. Notes from an Armed Robber — Gone Straight

      • Gillian Evans

      Pages 160-175

6. Back Matter

   Pages 176-205

   PDF

Are schools failing working class children or does working class life present alternative means for gaining social status that conflict with what it means to do well at school? Focusing on Southeast London, this book provides insight into class values and reveals the complex cultural politics of white working class pride.

• children
• conflict
• education
• politics
• Prestige
• school
• development policy

'I was educated by this' - Dame Marilyn Strathern, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

'A wonderfully enlightening and entertaining book. An anthropologist delivers an insider's account of life in inner London, and makes sense of the educational failure of working class white boys' - Adam Kuper, Professor of Social Anthropology, Brunel University

'A brilliant and highly entertaining study of a neglected subject' - Andrew Gimson, Daily Telegraph

'A compelling, often uncomfortable journey of self-discovery, as well as a fascinating insight into class and education in Britain. Educational Failure stands out for its honesty, its bravery and its originality' - Patrick Butler, Editor, Society Guardian

'This book should be read by teachers, parents, academics and policy makers, and by Bermondsey people. If they do, this book can be a catalyst for change' - Michael Holland, ex-Bermondsey playwright and film maker

'Gillian Evans provides some new, useful and challenging insights in her book.' - Bill Greenshields, The Teacher

'Overall, the manner in which Evans illuminates the inextricable relationship between social class and educational failure, but above all the way that she strengthens our understanding of what is meaningful to a working-class white person, cannot be underestimated.' - Peggy Froerer, Brunel University, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

GILLIAN EVANS is an associate of the Centre for Child Focused Anthropological Research at Brunel University, London, UK. She is currently a temporary lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester and has recently been awarded a five-year RCUK fellowship to be held in the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester.

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