SPOILT FOR CHOICE - THE WORKING CLASSES AND EDUCATIONAL MARKETS

Drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) fu nded study of market forces in secondary education, this paper explore s the ambivalence displayed by many working-class parents in the resea rch to the idea of choice of school. School is frequently associated w ith powerful memories and images of personal failure. The authors argu e: that for working-class parents choice can sometimes involve complex and powerful accommodations to the idea of 'school' and is very diffe rent in kind from middle-class choice making; that social class remain s a potent differentiating category in the analysis of home-school rel ations; and that choice is a new social device through which social cl ass differences are rendered into educational inequality. Extracts fro nt interview data are quoted to support and illustrate these arguments .