Diane Reay is a sociologist and academic, who is Emeritus Professor of Education at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. She is noted for her study about educational inequalities among students in

state schools A state school, public school, or government school is a primary or secondary school that educates all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in part by taxation and operated by the government of the state. State-funded schools a ...

in the

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. She has maintained that there is a tendency to misuse the school selection practice to transform

social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...

differences into education. For instance, she criticized the

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application process as "institutionally racist".

Working-class student experiences

Reay's research highlights the challenges that

working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

students have in higher education, in particular when accessing and transitioning to and within higher education.

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." She taught in a London primary school for 20 years before she began work at Cambridge, where she is currently an

emeritus professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of sociology of education.

References

Selected publications

* Reay, Diane. Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. 1st ed., Bristol University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt22p7k7m. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Academics of the University of Cambridge British educational theorists British sociologists {{UK-academic-bio-stub