Psychosocial Aspects of White Middle-Class Identities

Abstract

This article draws on qualitative in-depth interviews with 63 white middle-class families whose children attend inner London comprehensives.The white middle classes, as they are inscribed in policy discourses, best fit the ideal of the democratic citizen — individualistic, rational, responsible, participatory, the active chooser. Yet, narratives of white middle-class choice reveal both powerful defences and the power of the affective. Sublimated in the psyche of the majority white middle classes who avoid inner-city comprehensives and the more inclusive parents in this ESRC-funded research project are multifaceted and differing responses to the classed and ethnic `other'. This article examines frequently overlooked anxieties, conflicts, desires and tensions within middle-class identities generated by education choice policies. However, the main focus is white middle-class relationships to their classed and ethnic `other', and the part played by the psychosocial in white middle-class identities and identifications within predominantly working-class, multi-ethnic schooling.