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Call for book proposals: The BERA Guides series

Closes 31 Dec 2026

Call for book proposals: The BERA Guides series BERA, in collaboration with Emerald Publishing, invites book proposals for new titles in The BERA Guides series. This series aims to provide short,...

SIG Meet & Discuss: Higher Education

5 Nov 2025 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm

The aim of the Higher Education special interest group is to contribute towards and enhance critical debates and perspectives on higher education policy, pedagogy and practice. This is a broad...

Flipping the deficit narrative: Working-class people in UK higher education

Working-class people in UK higher education (UKHE) have historically been viewed through the lens of deficit (Crew, 2024), amid a shifting and transient understanding of what it means to be...

Editorial: Flipping the deficit narrative: Working-class people in UK higher education

Working-class people in UK higher education (UKHE) have historically been viewed through the lens of deficit (Crew, 2024), amid a shifting and transient understanding of what it means to be...

Celebrating working-class strengths in higher education: Leveraging capitals to change the narrative

In higher education (HE), working-class people have long been viewed through a deficit lens which overlooks their cultural wealth and transformative potential. Drawing from our edited collection...

The centre should not hold: Class-based disablism in the academy

Universities play a key role in the ‘meritocratic myth’. In our contribution to this BERA Blog special issue, we consider how disability and social class challenge the persistent regulative...

Adopting ‘a view from within’: On the importance of centring working-class knowledges in university curricula

UK higher education (HE) has undergone profound transformation since its early inception. No longer the preserve of the elite few, HE has since massified. Despite the expansion of UK HE being a...

What can working-class professional services staff bring to the academy and why does it matter?

There is plenty of literature examining the challenges that people from working-class backgrounds face in UK higher education – particularly in more ‘elite’ institutions (Reay et al., 2018)...

Black working-class and missing: Where is the representation?

In this post for this BERA Blog special issue I reflect on the underrepresentation of Black working-class voices, which remain starkly underrepresented in education and literature. This is not...

Relatability, empathy and reflexivity: Why working-class academics don’t just belong in academia, they make it better

As a working-class woman, my positionality has shaped my perspective – not just as a learner but as a researcher and educator. My class background is a source of strength. Through my teaching...

How classist is Classics?

In this contribution to this BERA Blog special issue we report the findings of a national survey which investigated how far current demographics of the Classics teaching and learning community...

Framing for participation: Creating space for working-class students’ academic growth

Ed recently completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford’s Department of Education and teaches academic skills at Oxford. Isabelle is an undergraduate historian who works with Ed regularly....