Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes - Paperback

by Diane Reay (Author)

SECOND EDITION COMING APRIL 2025

In this book Diane Reay, herself working class turned Cambridge professor, presents a 21st century view of education and the working classes

Drawing on over 500 interviews, the book includes vivid stories from working class children and young people. It looks at class identity and the effects of wider economic and social class relationships on working class educational experiences.

The book reveals how we have ended up with an educational system that still educates the different social classes in fundamentally different ways and, vitally, what we can do to achieve a fairer system.

Author Biography

Diane Reay grew up in a working-class coal-mining community before becoming an inner-city primary school teacher for 20 years. She is now Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge and visiting Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, with particular interests in social justice issues in education, and cultural analyses of social class, race and gender. She has researched extensively in the areas of social class, gender and ethnicity across primary, secondary and post-compulsory stages of education.