Resource Centre -
Working Class
A collection of emergent literature, critical methods, websites and foundational texts on working-class experiences and expertise. Please contact us with suggestions of other works (including your own!).
Books and articles related to the Working Class
Abrahams, J., Ingram, N., Thatcher, J., Burke, C. (2016) 'The development of Bordieu's intellectual heritage in UK sociology' in Thatcher et al (2016) Bourdieu: the next generation. Routledge. Sociology
Allen, C. (2017) 'On being a working-class academic: a personal reflection. Huffington Post. Available online at: huffingtonpost.co.uk. Accessed on 28 January 2018. Media
Anzaldua, G (2012) Borderlands / La Frontera: the New Mestiza (4th edition), San Francisco: Spinsters/ Aunt Lute Books first published in 1987).
Attfield, S (2012) ‘Rejecting respectability: on being unapologetically working class’, The Journal of Working Class Studies, vol.1, issue 1, pp.45-57, in Penney, E., and Lovejoy, L (2017) Navigating Academia in the ‘Welfare Class’. Journal of Working Class Studies, vol.2, issue 2, pp.54-65. Higher Education
Archer V (2018) ‘In the same way that whiteness allows someone to rarely think of race, economic privilege gives a person the freedom to erase class’. Times Higher Education, 25 October 2018. Available online at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/being-working-class-academy. Accessed on 26 June 2021. Media
Ball, S. (2005) Education Policy and Social Class: The Selected Works of Stephen J. Ball (World Library of Educationalists) Education
Ball, S. (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market: The middle classes and social advantage, Routledge Falmer Education
BBC Lab UK (date unknown) The Great British Class Survey. Available online at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/the-great-british-class-survey. Accessed on 28 June 2021. Media
Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, in Ingram, N., Abrahams, J. (2016) ‘Stepping outside of oneself – How a cleft-habitus can lead to greater reflexivity through occupying ‘the third space’, in Bourdieu: the Next Generation, Routledge. Sociology
Binns, C. (2019) Experiences of Academics from a Working-Class Heritage: Ghosts of Childhood Habitus, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Media
Blandford, S. 2017 ‘Social mobility isn’t about behaving like the middle class’ in Schools Week, October 2 2017. Available online at https://schoolsweek.co.uk/social-mobility-isnt-about-behaving-like-the-middle-class/amp/ . Accessed on 28 June 2021. Education
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Sociology
—. (1986) ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Richardson, J (ed.) (1986) Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education, Westport CT: Greenwood. Sociology
Bowers-Brown, T. (2016) 'Girls' educational choices and capital' in Thatcher, J., Ingram, N., Burke, C., Abrahams, J. (eds) (2016) Bourdieu: The next generation. Routledge. Sociology
Charlesworth, S. J. (1999) Phenomenology of Working-Class Expereince, Cambridge Cultural Studies Culture
Craddock et al (2018) ‘As I approach the end of my PhD, it has never been more clear that academia is not built with me in mind’. Times Higher Education, 25 October 2018. Available online at:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/being-working-class-academy. Accessed on 26 October 2018. Media
Crew, T. (2020) Higher Education and Working-Class Academics: Precarity and Diversity in Academia Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. 147 p. (Palgrave Pivot Series) Higher Education
Currie -Patterson, N., Watson, K. (2017) Conceptualizing Critical Friendship as a Protective Measure in Academia. Journal of Working-Class Studies, 2(2) pp.47-61.
Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. (2016) Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice. Available at: www.gov.uk (accessed 3 August 2016) Education
Dews, C.L., Law, C.L. (1995) 'This Fine Place So Far From Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class'. Temple University Press. Culture
Edwards, K. (2014) 'Shut yer face! I'm fed up with being ridiculed for my regional accent in academia'. The Telegraph, 9 December. Available online at: http//www.telegraph.co.uk/womens-life/11270980/British-universities-Im-fed-up-with-being-ridiculed-for-my-regional-accent-in-academia. Accessed on 19 October 2017. Media
Elliot Major, L. (2018) Social mobility and its enemies. Pelican.
Espinoza (2015) Ethnic minorities ‘more likely to go to university’ than white working-class British children’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11987142/Ethnic-minorities-more-likely-to-go-to-university-than-white-working-class-British-children.html. Accessed on 27 November 2018. Class and Race
Foiles Sifuentes, A.M. (2017) ‘Blockades, Barricades, and Barriers: Accessing and Navigating Academia from a Multi-Marginalised Positionality, Journal of Working class Studies, 2(2), pp.101-112.
Forstenzer, J. (2016) The teaching Excellence Framework: what's the Purpose? Available at: www.crickcentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/ 01/TEF (Accessed on 28 November 2016). Education
Friedman, S., Laurison, D., Miles, A. (2015) Breaking the ‘class’ Ceiling? Social mobility into Britain’s Elite Occupations. The Sociological Review, 63 (2): pp.259-89. Employment
Friedman, S (2016a) ‘Habitus clive and the emotional imprint of social mobility’. The Sociological Review 64(1) 129-147. Employment
—. (2016b) ‘The limits of capital gains – using Bourdieu to understand social mobility into elite occupations’, in Thatcher J, Ingram N, Burke C, Abrahams J (eds.) (2016) Bourdieu: the Next Generation. London and New York: Routledge. Employment
Garner R. (2016) ‘Number of poor students attending UK’s leading universities falls despite millions being spent encouraging them to apply’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/number-of-poor-students-attending-uks-leading-universities-falls-despite-millions-spent-to-encourage-a6879771.html . Accessed on 27 November 2018. Higher Education
Gevertz, J. (2014) Working-class students: there’s a constant feeling you don’t belong’. The Guardian.
Greene, D. (2002) Reflections on the Production of a Working Class Academic. Public Voices Vol.5, no.3. , pp.91-96.
https://www.publicvoices.us/archives. Accessed on 26 February 2019. Media
Haney, T. (2016) 'Privilege and the Denial of Class Inequality' in Hurst, A. And Nenga, S. Working in Class: Recognizing How Social Class Shapes our Academic Work, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Culture
Hanley, L. (2012) Estates: An intimate History Housing
Hurst, A. and Nenga, S. (2016) Working in Class: Recognizing How Social Class Shapes our Academic Work, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Higher Education
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) www.hesa.ac.uk Higher Education
Jackson, A.A. (1991) The Middle Classes 1900-1950. David St John Thoms; 1st Edition. Class
Jackson, B., Marsden, D. (1983) The Education of the Working Class. Pelican. Education
Jobs.ac.uk. How to Develop Successful Networking Skills in Academia. Available online at: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/careers-advice/working-in-higher-education/573/how-to-develop-successful-networking-skills-in-academia. Accessed on 18 Septembe r 2018. Employment
Johnston C. (2018) ‘A working-class persona can actually be a considerable asset when it comes to teaching and learning’. Times Higher Education, 25 October 2018. Available online at:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/being-working-class-academy. Accessed on 26 October 2018. Media
Johnston, C and Bradford, S. (2019): Alternative spaces of failure. Disabled ‘bad boys’ in alternative further education provision, Disability & Society Disability and Class
Johnston, C. Bradford, S. & Hills, L. (2016) Unintended volunteers: the volunteering pathways of working class young people in community sport: International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 8, (2) Sport
Intergenerational Foundation (2015) Intergenerational foundation – Fairness for Future Generations. Available at: http://www.if.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Mortar-Boards.jpg. Accessed on 9 July 2016. Employment
Jones, G. (2013) 'Supporting staff to be supporters' in Morgan, M. (2013) Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education: A Practical Guide, Routledge: London and New York. Higher Education
Jones, O, (2010) CHAVS: The demonization of the working Class, Verso Culture
Kastberg, S.M. (2014), “Sensitive Fences”: The im/mobility of working-class academics, in Nina Maadad , Malcolm Tight (ed.) Academic Mobility (International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Volume 11) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.219 – 242 Higher Education
Keogh, P. Dodds, C. and H., Laurie (2004)Working class gay men: Redefining community, restoring identity. Sigma Research, London ( LGBTQ+ and Class
Larcombe, P (2016) I'm a professor with a working-class accent – get over it. Available at: www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/im-professor-working-class-accent-get-over-it. Accessed on 19 October 2017. Higher Education
Laurison, D, MacMillan, L. Available at:
https;//www.gov.uk/government/organisations/social-mobility-commission. Accessed on 28 November 2017.
Lee, E,. Maynard, T. (2017) In Class, Sharing Class: Faculty Members from Low-Socio-economic Status Backgrounds and Status Visibility. Journal of Working-Class Studies, 2(2) pp.16-32. Higher Education
Linkon, S. (2016) ‘Working-Class Academics and Working-Class Studies: Still Far From Home? June 3 2016, Available on-line at
https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/working-class-academics-and-working-class-studies-still-far-from-home/ . Accessed on 27 November 2018. Higher Education
Lovatt, T., Lovatt, N., 2016, Academic Alien: Portrait of a Working-Class Man’s Higher Education Experience. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp.145-148. Higher Education
McDonald, M., Dunbar, I. (2004) Socio-economic Classification (United Kingdom). Available online at
http://www.marketsegmentation.co.uk/downloads/Socio-economic%20Classification%20-%20United%20Kingdom.pdf. Accessed on 1 June 2018. Employment
MacMillan J., Shephard, A., Tate, G., (eds) (1998) Coming to class: Pedagogy and the Social Class of Teachers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. Crosscurrents Series Education
MacMillan, L., Tyler, C., Vignoles, A. (2015) Who Gets the Top Jobs? The role of family background and networks in recent graduates’ access to high status professions’. Journal of Social Policy, 44 (3): pp.487-515. Employment
Mazurek R.A. (2009) Work and Class in the Box Store University: Autobiographies of Working Class Academics. College Literature, vol.36, no.4 (pp.147-178). Higher Education
McKenzie, L. (2005) Who would be a working-class woman in academia? Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/lisa-mckenzie-who-would-be-working-class-woman-academia. Accessed on 22 September 2018.
- (2015) Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain Culture
—. (2017) The middle-class academic elite is totally out of touch. Available at:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/middle-class-academic-elite-totally-out-touch. Accessed on 22 September 2018. Higher Education
- (2015) Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain
Michell, D., Wilson, J.Z., Archer, V. (eds) Bread and Roses: Voices of Australian Academics from the Working Class. Sense Publishers. Higher Education
Muzatti, S. (ed). (2005) Reflections From the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Class, Identity, and the Working Class Experience in Academe. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Higher Education
Penney, E., Lovejoy, L. (2017) Navigating Academia in the 'Welfare Class', Journal of Working Class Studies, 2(2) pp.34-45 Higher Education
Why coming out as working class was harder than coming out as gay Quarry. J. (2018) https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/nov/13/coming-out-as-working-class-difficulties-gay LGBTQ+ Class, Media
Reay, D. (1997) 'The Double-Bind of the Working Class Female Academic' in 'Class Matters: working class women's perspectives on social class', edited by Mahoney, P, and Zmroczek, C. Taylor and Francis. Culture
—. (2004) 'It's all Becoming a Habitus': Beyond the Habitual Use of Habitus in Educational Research. British Journal of Sociology of Education 25(4) 431-444. Education
—. (2015) Habitus and the psychosocial: Bourdieu with feelings. Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(1) 9-23. Education
—. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, education and the working classes. Policy Press. Education
Reynolds, M. 2018. Working-class lecturers should come out of the closet. The Guardian Opinion. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/10/university-working-class-divide-academics. Accessed on 10 September 2018 Media
Roberts, S. (2018) Young Working-Class Men In Transition. Routledge Class and Gender
Ryan, J, and Sackrey, C. (1984) 'Strangers in Paradise': Academics From The Working Class', South End Press. Higher Education
Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M.; Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., Le Roux, B., Friedman, S., Miles, A. (2013). A New Model of Social Class: Findings from the BBC's Great British Class Survey Experiment. Sociology. 47 (2) pp. 219-250 Culture
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. A Pelican Introduction. Pelican Books. Culture and Employment
Savage, M. (2021) The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past Harvard University Press Culture
Thatcher, J., Ingram, N,., Burke, C., Abrahams, J. (2015) Bourdieu: the next generation: The Development of Bourdieu's Intellectual Heritage in Contemporary UK Sociology. Routledge. Sociology
Shelley. M., Vinck, M. (eds) (1995) Aspects of European Cultural Diversity. Open University Press and Routledge: London and New York. Class and Race
Simpson, K. (2021) Social Haunting. Education, and Working-Class: A critical Marxist Ethnography in a Former Mining Community Culture
Social Mobility Commission (2017) Social mobility, the Class Pay Gap and Intergenerational Worklessness: New Insights from The Labour Force Survey. Report prepared by Friedman, S., Laurison, D, MacMillan, L. Available at:
https;//www.gov.uk/government/organisations/social-mobility-commission. Accessed on 28 November 2017. Employment
Soria, K.M. (2016) 'Working-Class, Teaching Class, and Working Class in the Academy' in Hurst, A. and Nenga, S. (2016) Working in Class: Recognizing How Social Class Shapes our Academic Work, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Higher Education
Spokes, M. (2017) Class and Narrative Accrual: Personal Troubles and Public Issues in Five Vignettes, Journal of Working Class Studies, vo. 2, issue 2, pp.83-94. Culture
Stiles, S. (2017) 'Blue collar advantage: how working-class academics can bring us together', Times Higher Education Opinion, available online at: https://www.timeshighereducation.co./blog. Accessed on 25 April 2017. Media
The Muse. ‘4 Reasons You Don't Like Networking (and 4 Better Options You Will Like!)’. Available online at
https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-reasons-you-dont-like-networking-and-4-better-options-you-will-like’. Accessed on 18 September 2018.
The Design Trust. The Design Trust’s top 5 creative networking tips & 10 actions if you don’t like or can’t network the usual way. Available online at: http://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk/networking-if-you-dont-like-or-cant-network-the-usual-way/ . Accessed on 18 September 2018. Employment
Tingle, N. (2005) 'Working Class Academics', delivered at 'Conference on Working Class Studies', Youngstown, Ohio (May 2005). Higher Education
Understanding ModernGov (2018) ‘Why Widening participation in Education is Vital’. Available online at
https://www.moderngov.com/2017/05/widening-participation-in-higher_education/. Accessed on 7 December 2018) Education
Universities UK (2018a) Higher Education in Numbers. Available online at https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/facts-and-stats/Pages/higher-education-data.aspx Accessed on 27 November 2018
—. (2018b) 'Opportunity for everyone'. Available online at
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/opportunity-for-everyone. Accessed on 27 November 2018
—. (2018c) ‘Higher education: a diverse range of opportunities for everyone’. Available online at:
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/blog/Pages/higher-education-diverse-range-opportunities-everyone.aspx. Accessed on 27 November 2017. Media
Van Beuren 2005, unpaged: Why we need more working-class professors. The Independent Online. Available at:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/geraldine-van-bueren-why-we-need-more-working-class-professors-509693.html. Accessed on 27 November 2018 Media
Wakeling, P. (2010) 'Is there such thing as a working class-academic?' Research Database, University of York.
Warnock, D. (2016) Paradise Lost? Patterns and Precarity in Working-Class Academic Narratives. Journal of Working Class Studies, 1(1), pp.29-41. Higher Education
Welsch, K. (2004) Those Winter Sundays: Female Academics and Their Working-Class Parents. University Press of America. Class and Gender
Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour Education and Gender
Winterton, M.T., Irwin, S. (2012) Teenage expectations of going to university: the ebb and flow of influences from 14-18. Journal of Youth Studies. 15(7), pp.858-874. Higher/Education
Working Class Writing
The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton, 1967)
The Grassy Arena (J. Healy, 1988)
The Unbelonging (J. Riley, 1985)
Inner London Buddha (M. Guffan, 2018)
From the City, from the Plough (Alex Baron, 2010)
These Bones Are not my Child (Toni Cade Bambara, 2001)
Cloudstreet (Tim Winton, 2001)
Born Between Crosses (N. Carthew, 2020)
A Working Class State of Mind (C. Burnett, 2020)
Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers (Kit de Waal, 2019)
Useful Websites:
Race and Class: https://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects-and-publications/employment-3/we-are-ghosts-race-class-and-institutional-prejudice.html
Disability and Class: https://honisoit.com/2020/10/disability-community-and-the-working-class/
LGBTQ+ and Class: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/lgbtq/
Committee Members Publications and conference contributions:
Archer, V., Binns, C., Coogan, R., Craddock, P, Johnston, C. (2018) ‘Being working-class in the academy’ . Times Higher Education, 25 October.
Binns, C. (2019) Experiences of Academics from a Working-Class Heritage: Ghosts of Childhood Habitus, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Binns, C. (2019) ‘A bridge too far: is a degree the right path?’ Times Higher Education, 7 March
Binns, C. (2019). Are working-class students and academics avoiding top universities? The Conversation
Bradford, Simon, Laura Hills & Craig Johnston (2016) Unintended volunteers: the volunteering pathways of working class young people in community sport, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 8:2, 231-244, DOI: 10.1080/19406940.2016.1161654
Coogan, R. (2019). A working-class accent in academia is a blessing and a curse. Times Higher Education, 27th November 2019.
Coogan, R. (2016). Not for you: what ‘experts’ debate tells the working class. Times Higher Education, 4th August 2016.
Johnston, C and Bradford, S. (2019): Alternative spaces of failure. Disabled ‘bad boys’ in alternative further education provision, Disability & Society DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2019.1601070
Johnston, C. Bradford, S. & Hills, L. (2016) Unintended volunteers: the volunteering pathways of working class young people in community sport: International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 8, (2)
Johnston, C. (2020) Review: Young Working-Class Men In Transition Journal of Applied Youth Work Studies (In press)
Johnston, C. (2020). Dis/locating Imagined Futures: The disabled habitus and young disabled people in alternative provision. 14 (2), 173-18. https://extra.shu.ac.uk/ppp-online/dis-locating-imagined-futures-the-disabled-habitus-and-young-disabled-people-in-alternative-provision/
Larcombe, P.J. (2016). I’m a professor with a working-class accent – get over it. Times Higher Education, 4th June.
Michell, D., Wilson, J and Archer, V. (2015). Bread and Roses: Voices of Australian Academics from the Working Class. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Sherman, Jennifer. (2021). Dividing Paradise: Rural Inequality and the Diminishing American Dream. Oakland: University of California Press.
Van Bueren, G. (2021). Inclusivity and the law: do we need to prohibit class discrimination? European Human Rights Law Review 3, 274-284.
Van Bueren, G. (2021). Class, Intersectionality, the Right to Housing and the Avoidable Tragedy of Grenfell Tower. In Atrey and Dunne eds, Intersectionality and Human Rights Law, 2020, 111-125.
Van Bueren, G. (2016). The class ceiling: why aren’t there more academics like me? Times Higher Education, October 20, 2016.
Van Bueren, G. (2005). Why we need more Working Class Professors. The Independent, 6th October 2005. [Online, available from:
Wilby, P. (2019). The lawyer who wants more academics to ‘come out’ as working class. The Guardian, 9th July 2019.
Conferences
Binns, C. (2019) British Sociological Association (BSA) Annual Conference: Presentation entitled: ‘Decades Later: the ghosts of childhood habitus’
Binns, C. (2018) UoB Annual Learning, Teaching & Research Conference: Presentation entitled: ‘Sharing knowledge for teaching and learning: overcoming personal network barriers’.
Binns, C. (2017) National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) Summer Symposium. Presentation entitled: ‘Experiences of designing modules for a wider audience in Higher Education: helping students to achieve their potential’.