Jenny Underhill
PhD Student

Profile

Biography

PhI completed both my BA in Sociology and MA in Social Research here at the University of York, and took up a job working within the University's DOFM to fund further study here with the Department, commencing a part-time PhD in October 2009.

Current research interests

For this PhD I am interested in studying the relationship between class and achievement in education, in a supposedly equal, meritocratic societal system. The project will take an ethnographic approach to data collection, utilising Bourdieu's theories of reproduction in education, cultural and social capital, and habitus, to explore the engagement that young people have with the dominant culture and the working world through the institution of education. In bringing up to date the conclusions drawn by Willis in his 1977 research 'Learning to Labour', I will explore the changing relationship between work and education, and the effects this change has had on the life chances and choices of young adults in contemporary Britain.

Supervisor: Dr Simon Winlow and Dr Ruth Penfold Mounce
Registration: Part Time MPhil / PhD