Education ‘inconvenient truth’: Part one- Persistent middle class advantage

Abstract

As a policy sociologist I have long been drawn to uncomfortable questions about whose interests are really being served in and through education (Thrupp, 1999a). I’ve been interested in how developments in education policy and practice can lead to greater social inequalities and how seemingly worthwhile policies and practices can be undone by other developments (Thrupp, 1999b). In recent years I’ve also increasingly turned the spotlight back on us as academics and researchers, to consider the politics of our own work and ask awkward questions about whether we are part of the problem too (Thrupp & Willmott, 2003). And, to some extent, I’ve begun to take up that difficult challenge which is always being put to critical scholars, you know, ‘so what’s the alternative?’ (Thrupp, 2005).