The public funding or even toleration of religious minority schools, particularly Muslim faith schools, is controversial in West European countries. Political theorists often posit that parents' right to choose these schools conflicts with the equally or more important societal concerns with child autonomy and civic integration or education to…

This qualitative study explored the university experiences of 13 students from Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) communities in England and Scotland. Using conceptual tools, informed by the work of Bourdieu, such as racialised habitus and racialised cultural capital, as well as Elias's work on established-outsider figurations we show that GRT…

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of…

Using a unique database from Hungarian primary schools, this study investigates whether academic self-assessment and educational aspirations differ between Roma minority and non-Roma majority students with similar cognitive skills and abilities. I find that Roma students have lower self-assessment, on average, than their non-Roma classmates with…

This study aims to fill a gap in our understanding of the relationship between two major topics in educational research: higher education choices and students' conceptions of employability. It explores, first, the balance between vocational calling, instrumental considerations and chance in subject choice and, second, the relation between…

This study sought to gain a deeper understanding of the spatiality and spatial justice of guidance counselling in basic education. The spatial framework was applied to analyse the recognition of diversity and adolescents' positioning in guidance counselling (lessons, excursions and information events). This study used a phenomenological research…

Global movements to decolonise sociology have gained significant momentum in recent decades and offer far-reaching implications for the field of education. One understudied area of research, however, concerns the sociologies of education taught and experienced in teacher education outside of Anglo/European contexts. This paper uses…

There is a growing body of scholarship on how students see themselves, and also on how they are conceptualised by other social actors. However, what has been less explored is how students believe they are seen by others, and how this impacts them. Drawing on focus groups with students across Europe -- and particularly plasticine models students…

Young people are encouraged to take responsibility for their educational outcomes by actively engaging in their education (their 'project-of-self'), but many also take responsibility for the care of family members who have serious health concerns (their 'project-of-family'). Drawing on the concepts of responsibilisation and neoliberal governance,…

Ethnic minority students--often descendants of earlier waves of immigrants from neighbouring South and Southeast Asian countries--have been under-represented in enrolment in higher education in Hong Kong. In addressing low university/college-enrolment, traditionally under-represented students' family and community are considered deficit and…

In highly marketised higher education systems, massification has afforded greater access, particularly for first-in-generation students. Generally, this expansion has been fuelled by neoliberal ideologies that valorise the notion of choice and promise of social mobility. In this study, using interviews with 25 first-generation students, the issue…

In this article, we draw from a recent empirical study to consider how a person's classed trajectory impacts students from different class backgrounds in higher education (HE). Students face rapidly evolving social and academic circumstances and must build reasonable strategies to navigate their trajectory from education to work. In these…

This paper examines how pupils' aspirations towards higher education (HE) are shaped and reinforced in Chile. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework and building on relevant scholarship focussed on HE decision-making and choices, it introduces two dual-headed conceptual tools which allow a grasp of relevant differences between social…

This paper undertakes an intersectional analysis of the ways in which socio-economically elite higher education students in Chile reproduce privilege through everyday practices of whiteness and beauty. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews and observations with 20 privileged students at an elite Chilean university, the paper identifies and…

In predominantly white universities in the United States, international students are frequently exposed to racism, xenophobia, and other forms of exclusion. This ethnographic research examines how students from China's Pearl River Delta negotiate a predominantly white Midwestern university in an era of reenergized racism and nationalism. It…