McCarthy, Francesca Louise; (2023) Victims and survivors of symbolic violence: an examination of the lived experiences of 'near-miss' pupils within an academically selective education system. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Eleven of the 151 Local Education Authorities which contain secondary schools in England are classified by the DfE as being ‘highly selective’. Pupils who live in such areas take a test (‘the 11+’) in their final year of primary school which determines whether they gain access to an academically selective school (‘a grammar school’). This thesis focuses on the lived experiences of three pupils who took but did not pass the 11+, but whose Key Stage 2 attainment (as measured by statutory testing administered to all pupils across England in the final year of primary school) categorised them as ‘higher attainers’ (‘near-miss pupils’). This thesis draws upon Bourdieu’s thinking tools to explore the relationship between the subjective lived experience of an individual pupil and the objective, but often unseen structures of the education system they were part of. I draw upon the Mosaic approach as a means of centralising the participant within this research and use a multi-method approach to create an overall ‘picture’ of their lived experiences. Using an analytical framework centred around a narrative approach, I construct and analyse thematic narratives based on the stories which emerged from the participants’ data and then use these to re-present the lived experiences of the participants. The synthesis of the re-presentations leads to the findings of this research. These demonstrate that in addition to falling victim to symbolic violence, the participants’ survival was also evident, resulting from their knowledge of the ‘game’ and its rules. This therefore presents a more nuanced perspective on academically selective education than the dominant/dominated binary within Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of symbolic violence. In addition, this thesis highlights that qualitative engagement with pupils’ perspectives on academically selective education has, to date, been largely underused within both education policy and academic literature. This thesis argues that centralising such perspectives serves to raise important considerations for the relationship between education and social justice by demonstrating what can be learned from engaging with the nuances within the lived experiences of pupils.

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