Class, cultural capital, and social reproduction
Most inequality isn’t maintained by villains. It’s maintained by systems that feel normal.
This section brings together what I’ve written about class, education, and the quieter forms of gatekeeping — the bits that get misrecognised as “standards”, “fit”, “professionalism”, or “just how things are”. If you’ve ever looked at a supposedly level playing field and wondered why the same people keep winning, start here.
If you’re new to this strand, the easiest way in is to read one short piece, then follow your curiosity from there.
Inequality and class reproduction
A lot of class reproduction is invisible precisely because it looks like personal preference, individual effort, or “common sense”.
Latest articles:
- Where Do Young People Belong Anymore? Skills for Life, Capital and the Social Spaces of Growing Up 5 October 2026We expect young people to reach adulthood with confidence, communication skills, resilience and leadership, but rarely ask where they were supposed to ...
- Who Gets to Decide What Looks Classy? 28 September 2026A trend for bare-looking nails raises a bigger question: who gets to decide what counts as classy? Bourdieu helps us see how ...
- What the NSS Won’t Say About Itself 8 July 2026The National Student Survey is usually read as a scoreboard for teaching quality. This article argues that the NSS is better understood ...
- The Hidden Curriculum of Soft Skills: Recognition, Capital, and Who Gets Left Out 2 March 2026Job adverts demand communication, leadership, and resilience. But who actually gets credit for them? Drawing on Bourdieu, Puwar, and Rivera, this article ...
- Are Your Student Recruitment Dashboards Misleading You? Funnels, Conversion, and Inequality in HE 28 January 2026Student recruitment dashboards promise a single version of the truth about who will enrol. This article shows how small choices about funnels, ...
- The Debt Trap and the Class Gap: Why Student Loan Warnings Are a Form of Gatekeeping 26 January 2026This article uses Johanna Noble’s recent column on Plan 2 student loans to ask who is really put off university by talk ...
- “I Heard It on the Grapevine”: How Parent and Student Networks Quietly Shape School and University Choices 20 January 2026League tables and Ofsted reports matter, but school and university choices are often decided on the grapevine. This piece shows how parent ...
- Trading Places and the Myth of Meritocracy: A Sociological Analysis of Class, Race, and Capital 17 December 2025Watching Trading Places as a Christmas comfort film, it is hard not to see a ready-made sociological case study. The Dukes’ “experiment” ...
- Is Marx Still Relevant? Marxism, Class and the Gig Economy 15 December 2025Marx wrote about factories and nineteenth-century class conflict, not delivery apps or algorithmic ratings. So how far can his ideas take us ...
- Symbolic Violence in Schools: How Class Inequality Hides in Plain Sight 25 November 2025What if the rules that govern school life aren’t neutral? This article explores how symbolic violence—subtle norms and expectations—rewards middle-class students while ...
Education, credentials, and mobility
Education often presents itself as neutral. In practice it tends to reward particular forms of confidence, language, experience, and endorsement — and then calls the outcome “merit”.
Latest articles:
- What the NSS Won’t Say About Itself 8 July 2026The National Student Survey is usually read as a scoreboard for teaching quality. This article argues that the NSS is better understood ...
- Satisfied? Student Surveys, Social Position, and the Limits of Experience Data 23 March 2026The National Student Survey ranks institutions, shapes league tables, and features in marketing materials as evidence of teaching excellence. But satisfaction is ...
- Who Gets Accused? AI Detection Bias, Academic Integrity, and the Uneven Field in Higher Education 13 March 2026When universities reach for AI detection tools to police academic integrity, they reach for instruments that are neither accurate nor neutral. Research ...
- The Hidden Curriculum of Soft Skills: Recognition, Capital, and Who Gets Left Out 2 March 2026Job adverts demand communication, leadership, and resilience. But who actually gets credit for them? Drawing on Bourdieu, Puwar, and Rivera, this article ...
- From Access to Belonging: Rethinking Widening Participation Metrics in UK Higher Education 4 February 2026Widening participation policy is often judged through dashboards of access, continuation and attainment. Yet focusing on who gets in – and who ...
- Are Your Student Recruitment Dashboards Misleading You? Funnels, Conversion, and Inequality in HE 28 January 2026Student recruitment dashboards promise a single version of the truth about who will enrol. This article shows how small choices about funnels, ...
- The Debt Trap and the Class Gap: Why Student Loan Warnings Are a Form of Gatekeeping 26 January 2026This article uses Johanna Noble’s recent column on Plan 2 student loans to ask who is really put off university by talk ...
- “I Heard It on the Grapevine”: How Parent and Student Networks Quietly Shape School and University Choices 20 January 2026League tables and Ofsted reports matter, but school and university choices are often decided on the grapevine. This piece shows how parent ...
- Trading Places and the Myth of Meritocracy: A Sociological Analysis of Class, Race, and Capital 17 December 2025Watching Trading Places as a Christmas comfort film, it is hard not to see a ready-made sociological case study. The Dukes’ “experiment” ...
- Symbolic Violence in Schools: How Class Inequality Hides in Plain Sight 25 November 2025What if the rules that govern school life aren’t neutral? This article explores how symbolic violence—subtle norms and expectations—rewards middle-class students while ...
Work, class signals, and ‘fit’
Workplaces don’t just hire competence. They hire a story about competence, and that story is usually classed.
Latest articles:
- The Hidden Curriculum of Soft Skills: Recognition, Capital, and Who Gets Left Out 2 March 2026Job adverts demand communication, leadership, and resilience. But who actually gets credit for them? Drawing on Bourdieu, Puwar, and Rivera, this article ...
- Quiet Neurodivergence, Spoons, and the Sociology of Invisible Struggle 9 January 2026This article develops quiet neurodivergence as a way of naming how some neurodivergent people appear to cope in education, work and civic ...
- Is Marx Still Relevant? Marxism, Class and the Gig Economy 15 December 2025Marx wrote about factories and nineteenth-century class conflict, not delivery apps or algorithmic ratings. So how far can his ideas take us ...
- Talking to the Machine: AI, Language Codes, and the Reproduction of Inequality 27 July 2025This article explores how generative AI systems reinforce class-based linguistic hierarchies by privileging elaborated codes aligned with middle-class norms, drawing on Bernstein’s ...
- The Rise of ‘Neurodiversity Chic’: Meaningful Progress or Just Branding? 7 March 2025Discover the complexities of neurodiversity’s rise in mainstream society, from increased awareness and policy shifts to concerns over performative advocacy and media ...
- Meritocracy or Myth? The Truth About the ‘Self-Made’ Narrative 18 February 2025Is the self-made success story a reality or a myth? This article explores the sociological debate around meritocracy, examining both the arguments ...
Signposting and next steps
This pillar overlaps heavily with institutions and policy, because education and work don’t merely reflect inequality — they produce it.
- For tools and lenses: Method: how to read social life like a sociologist
- For institutional rules, compliance, and legitimacy: Power, institutions, and why policy never means what it says
- For identity, stigma, and “performing normal”: Everyday life as performance
