Education's 'inconvenient truth': persistent middle class advantage.

Abstract

This Inaugural Professorial Address explores how schooling is geared to the concerns and interests of the middle classes. It begins by discussing the likely advantages provided by predominantly middle class school settings and examines how the middle classes target such schools for their children. It goes on to consider how those who work in the education sector help to perpetuate middle class advantage in education: how teachers and principals collude with the middle classes as they seek out advantaged settings for their children; how policymakers and politicians fail to challenge the middle class for electoral reason, and how some academics provide support for these inequitable stances. The article concludes with suggestions for reducing middle class advantage in education including the need for more public debate about the costs and ethics of a highly segregated schooling system.