The more things change--: educational research, social class and 'interlocking' inequalities

This lecture examines a set of issues involved in how social class gets ‘done’ in various sites: the day-to-day processes of social reproduction within families; the discourses of public policy; the routine practices of social institutions.

The author is interested in social class as a lived condition, rather than a set of abstract relationships.

His focus here is on the pro-active tactics of certain families, in particular the making-up within some families of the ‘successful’ educational subject.

He outlines a set of interlocking inequalities: the complex interlocking between education policy, institutional orderings and family actions.

Stephen Ball concludes that, at this point in time, education policy and institutional orderings are particularly potently ‘classed’ – that in a number of respects they reflect and enhance the social and economic interests and concerns of the middle classes.