Psycho-spatial disidentification and class fractions in a study of social class and identity in an urban post-primary school community in Ireland

Abstract

This paper draws on a three-year critical ethnography which interrogated intersections of social class, school and identity in an urban Irish community. The focus here is on the psycho-spatial disidentifications, inscriptions and class fractioning enacted throughout the school and community of Portown by a cohort of succeeding students from this predominantly working-class community. This paper makes a significant contribution through a unique focus on the intersections between class, schooling and identity in the Irish context. Themes based around perceived distinction and differences serve to highlight the effects of pervasive neoliberal philosophies pertaining to the commodification of education and competitive individualism. Some participants in the study engaged in identity work enacting escape and difference from their working-class community as artefacts of success. An angelicisation of the middle-class habitus is engaged throughout as the participant identities are wrought from their experiences of school and community actions, interactions and perceptions. The central concern here is the interplay between social mobility, social class and student identity in an Irish urban environment.

Keywords:

• Social mobility
• psycho-spatial disidentification
• neoliberalism and education
• identity and education