In this presentation, Fiona will consider the processes by which social class advantages and disadvantages are reproduced over time and space. She will draw on a theory which defines class in terms of economic, cultural and social resources. Drawing on her previous research in the UK (and the US), She will examine how middle-class parents mobilise these three types of resources to ensure their children enjoy educational and occupational success. In this way, such parents ensure their children remain in the middle class rather than fall into lower working-class positions. At the same time, she will emphasise that how parents help their children do well in school and work is not easy or straightforward. It is not inevitable that advantaged children do well and this is why there is much public anxiety and `fear of falling’. She will draw on recent research in Manchester which extends this interest in social stability and social mobility to and explores how is advantaged working-class parents help their children do as well as possible in the education system and then in the labour market.
