Social mixing in urban schools: class, race and exchange-value friendships

Based on empirical, qualitative research on ‘social mixing’ in multi-ethnic London schools, this paper argues for a conceptualisation of social mixing as an exchange of the self. Through analysis of three working-class, minority ethnic students who attempt to ‘cross borders’ into White middle-class subcultures, I explore the differing capital value embodied in their raced, classed and gendered identity positions. Friendships across this border are characterised by ‘semi-investments’ on both sides, and promise only partial possibilities for social mobility via social mixing, though limited access to academic capital and embodied Whiteness

A sociological exploration of social mixing: young people's friendships in urban schools

This thesis begins with the question of whether socially and ethnically mixed schooling leads to mixed friendships. Located within a policy agenda promoting community cohesion and the benefits of mixed communities, this thesis examines the urban school as a key site of social mix, critically exploring mixing amongst urban youth. Challenging policy rhetoric's static concept of mixing and cohesion, a key contribution of this thesis is to explore mixing as a social process, attending to social class and gender as well as race in shaping young people's evolving friendship-making. Drawing on small-scale, discursively informed, interview-based, research with 16-19 year aids in two socially and ethnically mixed London schools, this thesis aims to examine the patterns of young people's friendships. This thesis investigates the socia-spatial, institutional and discursive processes which lead to differentiation, stratification or mixing in these friendships. The overarching contribution of this thesis is to understand friendship-making as a classed process. I argue that social mixing is a form of social capital/resource accumulation, a process in which some classed, raced and gendered bodies have more exchange value than others. To begin, I show how different demographics of schools constrain and enable the discursive production of the school as space for social mixing, and moreover how this is intimately connected to academic inclusivity or exclusivity. I then show how urban school-based subcultures are implicated in the production, maintenance and regulation of gendered, classed and racialised identities, which constrains the possibilities for mixing. Exploring the located, micro-politics of social mixing in urban schools - of those who mix across borders and boundaries of class and race- I show how certain favoured learner identities allow the acceptable minority ethnic Other more easily into privileged White middle class friendship groups in the school, while Black working class students are more constrained in sustaining White middle class friendships and hence, the promise of social mobility. Finally, through analysis of the 'misfits' -students who are outside of subculture in the school- I argue that, while a space of exclusion, this is a space of non-normative productions of race, gender and social class and is the hidden space where there is potential for 'real' mixing to take place. Here, I propose that, in this transgressive space of mixing, use-value comes to the fore, and has potential for the production of an alternative kind of self

Urban Schools as Urban Places: School Reputation, Children's Identities and Engagement with Education in London

Drawing on empirical data from a project exploring the experiences and identities of London school children who were identified by their schools as being 'at risk of dropping out' of education, this paper highlights schools as important local spaces in urban children's identity constructions. It is argued that the way in which schools and local areas are materially and discursively constructed can impact on children's identities as learners and their engagement with education. The paper shows that urban children's relationships to their school and local area are complex and contradictory, generating feelings of attachment and positive identification, but also fear and disgust. It is also argued that these feelings about place impact on children's relationships to education.

An exploration of parents' engagement with their children's learning involving technology

The report presents an initial exploration of parents' engagement with their children's learning involving technologies and the impact of this in their family learning experiences