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Diane Reay is a sociologist and academic, who is Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge.[1][2] She is noted for her study about educational inequalities among students in state schools in the United Kingdom.[1] She has maintained that there is a tendency to misuse the school selection practice to transform social class differences into education.[3] For instance, she criticized the Oxbridge application process as "institutionally racist".[4]

Working-class student experiences

Reay's research highlights the challenges that working-class students have in higher education, in particular when accessing and transitioning to and within higher education.[1]

Background

Reay is the daughter of a coal miner and the eldest of eight children. She was raised on a council estate and was given free school meals while a young student. In an interview, she said, "I learned as a small child I had to work at least twice as hard as the middle-class children to achieve the same result."[1]

She taught in a London primary school for 20 years before she began work at Cambridge,[1] where she is currently an emeritus professor of sociology of education.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Donna Ferguson (21 November 2017), "Working-class children get less of everything in education - including respect", The Guardian
  2. ^ Diane Reay, University of Cambridge, 2017
  3. ^ "In the zone: making education fairer". Indonesia at Melbourne. 2019-03-04. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  4. ^ "Oxbridge Application Process Branded 'Institutionally Racist' By Cambridge Professor". HuffPost UK. 2015-03-23. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  5. ^ Lightfoot, Liz (2018-09-04). "Let teachers sack heads … and other ideas for a National Education Service". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-04-22.

Selected publications