Working title and abstract for the book chapter UWE Research 工作标题和摘要本章系统的研究.docxVIP

PAGE  PAGE 13 Transgression for transition? White urban middle class families making and managing ‘against the grain’ school choices. David James and Phoebe Beedell University of the West of England, Bristol CONTEXT As the editors of this volume point out in the introduction, there is a contemporary belief amongst policy makers and many educational professionals that the concept of transition may be highly significant in issues of social inclusion and exclusion. There is also a belief that enabling people to manage transitions more effectively is itself a possible and worthwhile policy objective with implications for achieving greater social justice. With these beliefs in mind, this chapter draws upon a study of middle-class school choices at a pivotal transition, namely that from primary to secondary schooling. Both this and the subsequent period of secondary schooling were highly managed processes. As well as revealing the nature of a particular kind of ‘transition management’, the data and analysis lead us to question the idea that such practices do anything to promote equality: indeed, they may do the very opposite. We begin the chapter with a sketch of the features of the study that are most relevant to this discussion. We then set out several important concepts of transition that appear helpful to understanding the social practices of families as they anticipate, make, manage and live with ‘against the grain’ school choices. Finally, we focus upon the nature and extent of the management of the transition, comparing this to other research-based insights on parenting. We show that even counter-intuitive school choices appear to bring advantages to middle class children, and suggest that these may be at the expense of other school pupils. The project to which we refer was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Award reference RES-148-25-0023) as part of their Identities and Social Action Programme. Entitled Identity, Educational Choi