Battling through the system: a working-class teacher in an inner-city primary school

Abstract

This paper explores the told story of a white working-class woman still teaching in an innercity primary school in the UK. Issues of her continuing exclusion despite early career success demonstrate how social class bias can operate within the UK education system in a variety of ways. Her story is set in the context of new EAZ, the appointment of ‘superheads’ to failing schools and other government initiatives aimed at improving the education of children from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Jenny is from this background herself and finds the cost of trying to maintain and celebrate her class identity very high—she describes it as a ‘constant battle’. Her voice responds to Maguire's exploration of how Teacher Education in the UK reaffirms the middle-class ‘promise’ of becoming a teacher by both denying and disowning working-class cultures. This paper calls for more extensive research into the lived reality of difference when students from non-traditional backgrounds attempt to enter the profession and teach within it.