RETHINKING SOCIAL-CLASS - QUALITATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON CLASS AND GENDER

This paper draws on data from a qualitative study of mothers' involvem ent in children's education in order to present a different perspectiv e on gender and class from those embedded in contemporary dominant dis courses on social class. It argues that class is a complicated mixture of the material, the discursive, psychological predispositions and so ciological dispositions. As such, the ways in which class as a complex set of interrelated issues contributes to social inequalities are bes t understood by combining quantitative approaches to social class with more qualitative studies which attempt to explore how class, and the inequalities it generates, are lived in gendered and raced ways.