In this article we describe evolving educational aspirations and practices of female high school students and their families in the context of rapidly changing education and employment markets in Kolkata. We interviewed 35 families of girls attending two government high schools. The families are from lower middle-class and lower income…

Many studies have highlighted the limited 'opportunity structures' of working-class undergraduates. However, there have been few studies exploring how students' agentic internal conversations mediate societal structures. Internal conversation is a reflexive process in which thoughts and decisions are considered in relation to social circumstances.…

This article is concerned with the types of lived spaces that emerged from exploring Emirati women learners' spatial experiences in higher education. By conducting an ethnographic qualitative inquiry and by utilizing Lefebvre's triad of the perceived, conceived and lived space and rhythmanalysis as a theoretical framework, two distinctive…

This paper explores the learning experiences and literacy practices of a group of female migrant domestic workers from Nepal, reporting on ethnographic data collected between 2008 and 2013. Drawing on the conceptualisation of literacy as a social practice, as well as the notion of translocational positionality, it examines the way in which the…

This paper utilises the conceptual lens of intersectionality to explore gendered academic career trajectory in the context of one participant's challenge to a normative reading of the link between her private life and its relation to a "successful" academic career. The paper then charts the recalibrations that needed to take place to…

Existing international research suggests that widespread performative pedagogy has contributed to producing educational inequalities for "disadvantaged" learners. There have also been calls for alternative pedagogies, which can be characterised as child-centred. This paper analyses pupils' hierarchical positioning in a contemporary,…

In the contemporary scholarly discourse, the under-representation of women in science is often explained by the phenomenon of women "in the pipeline". The pipeline carries a flow from one stage to another, and the flow of women diminishes between the stages. Based on the literature and qualitative studies, it can be inferred that one of…

Transitions from education to work constitute a distinct set of situations where discrimination is likely to occur. Gender beliefs generally disadvantage women, and when coupled with beliefs regarding parental responsibility, tend to heavily disadvantage mothers. Yet we suggest that professional credentials create a divided labour market, with…

Recent decades have seen a dramatic expansion in the educational attainment and occupational opportunities of German women. Both the educational and occupational positions of the mothers and those of their daughters are continuously changing across cohorts. Our study aims to detect the probability of daughters to experience maternal-line…

The paper examines processes of cultural production and reproduction among members of the elite and upper-middle classes. Drawing on findings from a study of private education in England, it explores the utility of a conceptual framework to examine how practices in and across different sites may be reproductive of various forms of…

The INCLUD-ED project's case studies of successful schools in Europe reveal that there are advantages involved in opening schools to all kinds of women as far as educational and social inclusion is concerned. "Other Women"--those whose voices have traditionally been silenced in academic settings--help in crucial ways to improve education…

This article looks at women's efforts to construct an academic leadership career. It is not a study of women's leadership in general but one that takes place in what Bourdieu calls the academic field. Drawing from an in-depth interview study of 31 women from faculties of education who occupy managerial positions in universities in Canada,…

Over the last decade it is young women who have come to be widely understood as the bearers of educational qualifications. It is girls who are now seen to have "the world at their feet" and to be able to attain the glittering prizes of academic success associated with elite universities and top occupations. And it is upper-middle-class…

This paper examines the inexorable rise of "health" as regulative discourse, highlighting its class and cultural dimensions. With reference to the policy content of recent obesity reports, analysis suggests that contemporary concerns around obesity are but a modern variant of earlier eighteenth and nineteenth century child saving crusades whose…

This article examines Asian women's experiences of belonging to communities of practice within higher education in Britain. The research explores the ways in which women engage in friendship and support networks, how they negotiate their identities and their experiences of being marginalised and "different". The research argues that…