Cambridge professor Diane Reay grew up on a council estate. Her book Miseducation: Inequality, education and the working classes uncovers the massive inequalities in our school system
The most important thing I found out was that we are still educating different social classes for different functions in society.
“Miseducation would benefit anyone interested in social mobility and education in the UK, particularly given the stagnation (or even increase) of inequality in this realm, and the book has the potential to help inform innovative policy directions. Reay’s contribution to debates on education and social background is to personalise everyday working-class experiences of school and university, something usually absent from current discourse. This, combined with statistical evidence of the extent of inequalities, makes for particularly engaging reading.”