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Schools, 'Ferals', Stigma and Boundary Work: Parents Managing Education and Uncertainty in Regional Australia

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Title: Schools, 'Ferals', Stigma and Boundary Work: Parents Managing Education and Uncertainty in Regional Australia
Language: English
Authors: Butler, Rose
Source: Ethnography and Education. 2015 10(3):340-355.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 16
Publication Date: 2015
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Descriptors: Economic Factors, Geographic Regions, Social Class, Middle Class, Foreign Countries, Parent Attitudes, Social Differences, Anxiety, Security (Psychology), Qualitative Research, Social Bias, Whites, Social Attitudes, Elementary School Students, Interviews, Indigenous Populations, Racial Attitudes
Geographic Terms: Australia
DOI: 10.1080/17457823.2015.1051071
ISSN: 1745-7823
Abstract: This paper examines forms of boundary work undertaken by parents in a regional Australian city to negotiate social processes around the school market amidst rising economic insecurity. It outlines structural changes, which have increased economic inequality in Australia and impacted on educational reform, and the specific challenges faced by public schools in regional settings. Drawing on 18 months' qualitative research in one regional location, it identifies and analyses forms of boundary work undertaken by middle-class families to manage these uncertainties in a field of scarce economic and cultural resources. Theories of class culture, stigma and whiteness are used to show how local social labels such as "ferals" and "shiny people" acted as classed and racialised ways of negotiating this social and economic landscape through the school field. Such practices engendered feelings of security and control and shed light on feelings of class-based resentment and anxiety in regional Australia, specifically a middle-class "fear of falling".
Abstractor: As Provided
Number of References: 46
Entry Date: 2015
Accession Number: EJ1070152
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0108580659;[15uw]01sep.15;2019Feb11.12:52;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0108580659-1">Schools, ‘ferals’, stigma and boundary work: parents managing education and uncertainty in regional Australia. </title> <p>This paper examines forms of boundary work undertaken by parents in a regional Australian city to negotiate social processes around the school market amidst rising economic insecurity. It outlines structural changes, which have increased economic inequality in Australia and impacted on educational reform, and the specific challenges faced by public schools in regional settings. Drawing on 18 months' qualitative research in one regional location, it identifies and analyses forms of boundary work undertaken by middle-class families to manage these uncertainties in a field of scarce economic and cultural resources. Theories of class culture, stigma and whiteness are used to show how local social labels such as 'ferals' and 'shiny people' acted as classed and racialised ways of negotiating this social and economic landscape through the school field. Such practices engendered feelings of security and control and shed light on feelings of class-based resentment and anxiety in regional Australia, specifically a middle-class 'fear of falling'.</p> <p>Keywords: schools; class culture; boundary work; stigma; whiteness; regional Australia</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-2">Economic insecurity and the Australian school market</hd> <p>The economic reforms of the 1970s and 1980s in the USA and Western Europe, which unfolded in Australia a decade later, have led to significant changes in the structure of work and the nature of schooling across the country (Pusey [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref1">34</reflink>]). Deregulation of the labour market and the growth of precarious employment in Australia have seen a rise in jobs with fewer rights and less stability (Woodman [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref2">46</reflink>], 1075). Echoing trends in the UK, the USA and Canada, Australia's labour markets have split into well-paid, high-skilled jobs with good conditions and a pool of low-paid, insecure and poor quality conditions (Goos and Manning 2007 in Strazdins et al. [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref3">41</reflink>], 2052). A further growing gap between upper and lower incomes in Australia, reflecting global patterns in affluent nations, has seen an increasing number of low-income earners and experiences of poverty among certain sectors of Australian society (Skattebol et al. [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref4">39</reflink>], 1). These levels of disadvantage are higher among people receiving welfare, sole parents (primarily women), people who are unemployed (especially youth), sections of the elderly and Indigenous Australians (Saunders [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref5">36</reflink>]; Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref6">17</reflink>], 99–100).</p> <p>It is to this significant gap between affluence and need that the term 'working-poor' has arisen. This concept, used to describe a specific spectrum of people within the identification of 'working-class', is a recent phenomenon in Australia and reflects these changing economic experiences and labour conditions. As Greig, Lewins and White ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref7">17</reflink>]) argue, many people have moved up and down the income scale over the past 25 years as a result of the transformation of working life. Among the most disadvantaged in Australia, there has been an important development in the close proximity of these categories to the 'working-poor' (Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref8">17</reflink>], 99–100). Insecure labour markets have intersected with increased job insecurity, a narrowing gap between 'under-class' and 'working-poor' experiences and the rise of social immobility (White and Wyn [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref9">44</reflink>]). This has reduced the proximity between social groups once secure in their social status (Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref10">17</reflink>], 99–100).</p> <p>Through these processes, a new era of heightened uncertainty has risen in place of state security, one in which 'instability is meant to be the new normal' (Sennett [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref11">38</reflink>], 31). Individuals and private providers across various social and economic platforms in Australia are increasingly made responsible for many of the services once taken for granted under the welfare state (Cash [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref12">6</reflink>], 26–27; Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref13">17</reflink>], 46). This is felt acutely not only in work but also in the field of education, where individualism, flexibility, market prerogatives and the growth of a school choice regime have all pushed for greater responsibility from parents and students (Webb, Gulson, and Pitton [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref14">43</reflink>], 34). Deliberate government policy has seen the withdrawal of public funding for education and the growth of privatisation, both of which have driven the idea of 'unconstrained choice' in Australia's school market. The burden now rests on parents to 'choose' the school deemed most appropriate to their own child's needs (Connell [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref15">9</reflink>]), at the same time that schools have become increasingly essential in securing children's futures (Campbell, Proctor, and Sherington [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref16">4</reflink>], 56; White and Wyn [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref17">44</reflink>], 101).</p> <p>As education scholars have made clear, 'unconstrained choice' in the school market is now a part of the consciousness and decision-making practices of middle-class families in many parts of the globe. In Australia, this rise of choice takes place alongside the increased focus on educational 'excellence' over 'equity' and a changing emphasis of national governance from citizenship and service towards 'clientship and consumerism' (Lingard 2000, in Forsey [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref18">14</reflink>], 286). There has been a strong movement of Australia's middle-class families into the corporate and religious school sector, as parents have increasingly moved away from an education system based on egalitarian principals once held in high esteem, though which, as Campbell, Proctor, and Sherington ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref19">4</reflink>]) have shown, remains deeply valued as a cultural ideal. This growing inadequacy of public funding has taken place alongside the disappearance of a full-time youth labour market traditionally mobilised by Australia's working-class adolescents, all of which has unhinged the security of the nation's public education system (Marginson [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref20">28</reflink>], 11–19, 27; Connell [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref21">9</reflink>]).</p> <p>These educational markets greatly exacerbate the differences between well-resourced and poorly resourced school communities (Campbell, Proctor, and Sherington [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref22">4</reflink>]; Forsey [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref23">15</reflink>], 67). Schools which serve high concentrations of young people from families of lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to be dealing with a range of economic and social problems, and to require additional resources to meet their students' needs. Yet this provision is not adequately accounted for under the market-driven politics of current education policies (Cuervo and Wyn [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref24">10</reflink>], 101; McLachlan, Gilfillan, and Gordon [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref25">29</reflink>], 18). These inequities are also becoming increasingly linked to place-based disadvantages, as geographic variability impacts on educational levels, expectations and opportunities outside of Australia's capital cities (McLachlan, Gilfillan, and Gordon [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref26">29</reflink>], 18; White and Wyn [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref27">44</reflink>], 151). The growing divide between wealth and poverty in Australia more generally is acutely evident in the increased marginalisation of regional areas (Catholic Social Services Victoria [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref28">7</reflink>]), all of which places low-income, underprivileged and already vulnerable families in deprived areas at a further disadvantage. As a result, children from low socio-economic backgrounds have come to dominate the public school system (White and Wyn [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref29">44</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-3">Boundary work and class culture in insecure times</hd> <p>This intersection of economic insecurity and educational change in Australia, and the closer proximity of social groups to one another in the low-income spectrum, underpins the central focus of this paper. This work examines how middle-class parents in one regional city of Australia experience and manage a less secure economic distance between themselves and groups which they see as having low status. The changes outlined above have made school choice and children's educational careers a highly fraught arena. In regional and rural Australia, this process is exacerbated by existing social and structural inequalities. As I show through three case studies, middle-class parents in my field site asserted strong moral boundaries towards specific others in order to produce feelings of security. Drawing on the works of Hall and Lamont (2013), Lamont and Fourier (1992) and Lamont (2000), I argue that moral boundaries were ways of managing this social field in which economic boundaries were less secure, and in circumstances where the risk of downward social mobility was a source of anxiety.</p> <p>Writing in the USA, Hall and Lamont argue that growing numbers of middle-class parents are devoting increasing amounts of resources to improving economic prospects for their children. Even affluent members of the middle class have developed new concerns about reproducing their class position. The presence of 'the poor' in public spaces keeps alive a 'fear of falling' (Ehrenreich [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref30">13</reflink>]), while rising competition for jobs intensifies people's concerns about losing ground to low-status group. As a result, those who feel vulnerable to the tide of downward mobility undertake strong boundary work to maintain feelings of trust and security (Hall and Lamont [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref31">18</reflink>], 8). The enacting of such boundaries reaffirms people's positions in their social lives while shedding light on deeper insecurities (Lamont and Fourier [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref32">24</reflink>], 1).</p> <p>In her earlier research with male workers in the USA, Lamont ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref33">23</reflink>]) highlights the importance of boundaries among workers in the insecure American job market. Boundaries about class, like race, are extensions of the moral criteria that adults use to evaluate one another. When examining such boundaries, they need to be located within a broader moral worldview and construction of moral worth, rather than as isolated attitudes. For US male workers, Lamont argues, traditional forms of dignity and moral self-worth which previously came from economic capital accumulation are today largely unattainable for people without a college education. Instead, people must now develop and sustain feelings of self-worth through other avenues and from different sources. Strong moral standards in particular have come to function as an <emph>alternative</emph> to economic definitions of success.</p> <p>Workers in Lamont's study were inclined to identify with qualities such as hard work, personal integrity and traditional morality, allowing them to put themselves above others. Through such boundary work, workers without a college degree could compensate for their low economic status while continuing to align themselves with core values of the American dream. Through this process, Lamont shows how workers outlined an imagined community of 'people like me' with whom they shared the same sacred values. Erecting moral boundaries was a way for people to take control of significant parts of their immediate environments – notably those with whom they socialised, worked and were prepared to share limited resources. Boundaries around work and responsibility were thus largely mobilised to assert control over uncertainty and insecurity.</p> <p>Lamont's work also highlights the importance of class in people's boundary work within a context where class is largely denied. As Ortner (1[<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref34">30</reflink>]) has argued elsewhere, when class is rendered invisible in social class structure, other categories of difference inevitably come into play. In such environments, categories such as gender, ethnicity and race work to sustain an enduring ideological representation of 'classlessness' and to reframe discussions (Ortner [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref35">30</reflink>]a). An obscured class system will be expressed through other 'locally charged' signs and objects. These might range from taste, desire, how people use their bodies and the 'niceties' of language (Cole [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref36">8</reflink>], 100), to labels and arenas such as 'success', 'money', 'values', 'intelligence' (Ortner [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref37">31</reflink>]b, 4–5) and 'sub-cultural styles' (Bettie [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref38">2</reflink>], 201). Such markers conceal the reality of socio-economic inequalities because they are not terms that we recognise as being 'about class' (Ortner [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref39">30</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref40">31</reflink>]b, 4–5; Ehrenreich [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref41">13</reflink>], 11–13). Instead, class is depicted as a consequence of some personal inadequacy or individual failure (Bettie [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref42">2</reflink>], 137).</p> <p>Focusing on class in this context is also crucial because one of the most significant outcomes of the structural changes associated with neoliberalism over the past 40 years has been the increasing polarisation of rich and poor and the subsequent 'new lines of global class' (Thorne [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref43">42</reflink>]). As Harvey asserts, class has effectively re-materialised in and through the conditions of late modernity, with neoliberal policies having re-established conditions of capital accumulation and restoring the power of economic elites (Harvey [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref44">21</reflink>], 19). In the present era, people with the resources and skills to prosper in competitive markets – or as having significant economic and cultural capital (Bourdieu [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref45">3</reflink>]) – do well, while those who lack such resources remain or become disadvantaged (Hall and Lamont [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref46">18</reflink>], 7).</p> <p>The concept of 'class' is also significantly avoided in Australian public life. As Connell and Irving have noted, the absence of an aristocracy and landed gentry in Australia, and an active opposition to the forms of deference associated with European class practices and experience, have all contributed to a widespread false belief in the 'levelling' of cultures and manners and the downplaying of the significance of class (Bennett, Emmison, and Frow [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref47">1</reflink>], 193–194). The idea that classlessness pervades Australian culture continues to be viewed as a characteristic which distinguishes the post-colonial state from its white origins. Instead of 'class', words like 'fairness', 'fair' and 'egalitarianism' saturate Australian English, creating a silence on articulating class inequalities (Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref48">17</reflink>], 4, 168). This silence around 'class' is particularly important in this regional Australia-based research, where middle-class parents, anxious about losing status ground, asserted strong moral boundaries through deeply classed and 'locally charged' terms.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-4">Research method</hd> <p>The data presented in this paper stem from 18 months of qualitative research that I completed in two public primary school communities in a regional city of Victoria I call 'Avoca', between December 2010 and June 2012. Over these 18 months, I undertook semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 129 participants. This included 46 parents, 20 community professionals and 63 children between the ages of 8 and 13. Interviews with parents took place in their homes, work places, public environments and school grounds. These were in-depth and lasted mostly between one and two hours, and I interviewed several parents twice. Interviews with children were informal chats that occurred in schools and homes and lasted between 10 and 30 minutes. Several of these children and their parents also attended other local primary schools, both public and independent, as well as Year 7 in public and independent high schools. All names of participants, schools and identifying features have been changed to protect privacy.</p> <p>Among parents I adopted a 'community sampling strategy' whereby informants knew one another from school and lived in a relatively similar social world. This enabled me to see, as Pugh has shown, how meanings were constructed as a social process through interactions across space and time ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref49">33</reflink>], 31). In this process, I sought to detail different experiences between parents in terms of class, race, age, gender, education, family structure and income across the research field; however I had difficulties enabling participants to disclose their income, for reasons not discussed here. All income was self-reported or un-reported. In lieu of this data, I examined how parents described themselves, their education, their parents' education, if they received parental benefits, if they were on single or dual incomes, their working history, their current employment status, their child's school and where they saw themselves in a 'class structure', if they saw one at all.</p> <p>I also undertook ongoing participant observations of children at school, during which time I sat in classrooms, joined in with games, listened to informal conversations and attended school excursions. As I came to know families, I undertook home observations with six core families. I would spend an afternoon, evening or weekend watching social interactions and joining in with family activities. This included, among other activities, after-school extra-curricular events, attending sports and music training and sharing meals in people's homes and my own. The names of all participants and schools have been changed to protect privacy.</p> <p>Drawing on this research, this paper analyses the boundary work of three middle-class parents in Avoca to manage feelings of insecurity within this cultural environment. These experiences are presented here as being indicative of middle-class parents' insecurities more generally among my research sample. Such feelings, I argue, were linked to the close proximity of social groups in the low-income spectrum, and the increasing role of schools to secure class status in Australia. Local social labels such as 'ferals' and 'shiny people' used by such parents and children were classed and racialised ways of making sense of this transforming social landscape and asserting control over uncertainty. Strong moral boundaries towards specific others through these terms, as well as through practices such as cultivating competiveness and seeking out similar value systems, produced feelings of security and revealed class-based anxieties around a 'fear of falling'.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-5">Poverty and stigma in regional Australia</hd> <p>When I first met Jenny, she had been back living in Avoca for five years. A single, Anglo-European mother in her early fifties, Jenny was raising three children, finishing a postgraduate degree, and hoping to be working in the near future. She had spent her own childhood in Australia's capital cities, as her family followed her father's medical career and socialised with other families from 'middle-class type backgrounds'. As an adult, Jenny moved to Avoca when she married. The family later relocated to her husband's home country for 8 years before he and Jenny separated and she moved back to Avoca with their children, where she and her husband owned a house. Jenny now supported the family through parental benefits, self-reporting that her ex-husband contributed 'sporadically' to the children's upbringing but did not provide ongoing financial support.</p> <p>On returning to Avoca, Jenny struggled financially, unable to secure work and raising three children. Her primary school-aged son attended his locally zoned public school, Inner North. Her eldest daughter was sent to a local public high school. Jenny disclosed that she would have preferred to send them both to independent fee-paying schools at the time but could not afford the costs. She used this lack of choice to stress how far she had 'fallen' over her life, having come from what she felt to be a relatively prosperous background. Both her parents were deceased and she was an only child. Now divorced, and having been out of the work force for over 10 years, Jenny outlined that she had come back to Australia 'unprepared' for the education system. She described her resettling self as having been 'ignorant' of how to make the education system work to her advantage.</p> <p>During my time researching in the Inner North community, this small government school was in the process of rebuilding both its opportunities and its reputation. Like government schools in most parts of the world, Inner North carried enormous burdens of conflicting and often unrealistic expectations. As Forsey ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref50">14</reflink>], 293) argues, most government schools in Australia continue to proclaim a commitment to meeting the needs of <emph>all</emph> students. However, this is extremely difficult when education systems are under significant pressure to downsize and rationalise, and when they need to retain market share through a pursuit of excellence which is often measured by comparisons with highly selective private schools.</p> <p>Inner North faced such circumstances. The school was under intensive restructuring in an effort to retool its educational opportunities and better meet the diverse and complex needs of its students and community. In particular, the area's changing demographics showed an increased number of disadvantaged children living in the region who were now attending this school. As one experienced teacher explained, 'it's a lower socio-economic group now. The people who have bought houses have moved out, and these are more renters in the area now. Some kids don't get lunch. They're poorer, it's different parenting now. Some kids go hungry'.</p> <p>When Jenny first moved back to Avoca, her son Michael, aged eight at the time, started at Inner North in late primary school. In his first weeks of school, Michael 'got knocked around a bit', Jenny explained, 'and that was a shock to him, because he was sort of a little home-schooled boy sweet as anything'. She subsequently enrolled Michael and his sister in a self-defence class, which '<emph>really</emph> helped indeed. There was no one who would bash him by the time he got to grade 6'. During this time, Michael had also been paired up with a child with significant socio-economic disadvantages, and this had strong effects on Michael's identity shaping practices throughout his early adolescence. 'He was made to be friends with some who were classed as "povo-retards"', Jenny described, 'who had parents who had him drinking alcohol at the weekend ... If he [Michael] was here now he would still say how he didn't want to be a part of this!'</p> <p>When I asked Jenny to define what she meant by 'povo-retard', she explained it was a label she had adopted from her son after he started high school:</p> <p>Well they're 'povo', meaning, of poverty or poor, and 'retard', as in, not as developed, they're behind in their outlook, they're behind in their social interaction with the group, him and his friends, and with girls ... They're probably not as good at sport, they can't fight, they can't defend themselves ... 'Povo retards' is a class of people really.</p> <p>This was a common label used among Michael's adolescent peers. It revealed ways in which young people perceived poverty as an under-class of encultured and performed traits, and being immediately categorised with this classmate, Jenny explained, had really 'stuck' with Michael:</p> <p>Having a 'povo-retard' close in your group, in your class, it's like a personal liability, what I would even call a spiritual liability ... when you're struggling in this kind of system yourself, and struggling not to be that way, or you're pulled down that way because you don't have enough money or you don't have enough opportunity, then having someone there ... it can, you know, just, rub off on you.</p> <p>Michael subsequently went to great lengths to separate himself from this 'class' of children through self-management practices and bodily cultivation, using his body in an overt form of boundary work:</p> <p>So now he's really built you see, so he's gone from being this really puny no muscle sort of sweet boy to this, you know, working on getting a ten pack and showing it off! [<emph>laughs</emph>].... He's got a photo of himself. He really felt that he was one of those, you know, small weaklings.... So in five years he has gone from the kid who was bashed up, to, you know.</p> <p>Michael's experiences, perceptions and subsequent body-work highlight the powerful role of stigma towards entrenched poverty and class culture in this regional context. This is a poverty which is passed down from generation to generation, and one which is seen by outsiders to embody both a lack of material resources and what Wilson ([<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref51">45</reflink>], 388) calls an aggressive 'distrust in the notion of upward mobility through socially sanctioned work-oriented pathways'. Referred to as an 'underclass' in the literature, people experiencing such poverty are generally not only marginal to the labour market, but excluded from it altogether (White and Wyn [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref52">44</reflink>], 21). Such families may be dealing with a range of difficult experiences, from mental health concerns and persistent unemployment, to substance abuse and domestic violence. The costs of this kind of disadvantage are difficult to estimate, as these burdens are imposed not only on the people who experience them, but also on those close to them and the broader community (McLachlan, Gilfillan, and Gordon [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref53">29</reflink>], 15, 21). Children who experience abuse, neglect or persistent stress in their earliest years become more likely to experience ongoing behavioural and learning problems as they grow up, such as engaging in violent behaviour and substance abuse, and experiencing poor mental and physical health (Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref54">17</reflink>], 50–52). These gaps appear early in life, and starting school 'behind the eight ball' can begin a cycle of disadvantage which sets up a trajectory for poorer outcomes later in life (McLachlan, Gilfillan, and Gordon [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref55">29</reflink>]).</p> <p>Negative labels like 'povo-retard', and the more common 'feral' in Avoca, represented a set of conflations which linked poverty, 'backwardness', regionalism and sometimes 'whiteness' (see Darling [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref56">11</reflink>], 17). Within this label, biological explanations of the body were used to justify the 'naturalness' of inequalities and the sense of 'otherness' to which they gave rise (Marcovich 1982 in Greig, Lewins, and White [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref57">17</reflink>], 17), and this resulted in a disconcerting nod to eugenics. In Michael's experience, this deeply entrenched stigma was constructed and experienced by others as something which could 'you know, just, rub off on you', which implied a level of pollution and contamination (Douglas [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref58">12</reflink>]).</p> <p>As Erving Goffman long ago argued, strong boundary work itself is always symptomatic of something (Goffman [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref59">16</reflink>]). Emotionally motivated boundary work frequently stems from feelings of insecurity, and such practices are particularly strong in groups anxious about their position in relation to those 'above' and 'below' (Sayer [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref60">37</reflink>], 953). Unable to send her children to a school where she felt they belonged, Jenny and her son undertook strong moral boundary work in lieu of economic ones, living and socialising in close proximity to those they saw as a liability to their own social status. In the process, terms like 'povo-retard' and 'feral' signified an absent class discourse which was felt but which could not be politically articulated (Ortner [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref61">30</reflink>]a; Bettie [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref62">2</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-6">'Feral' as risk</hd> <p>Both working-class and lower-middle-class families in Avoca performed moral boundary work against the identity 'feral', an everyday term used to refer to deeply entrenched disadvantage. One low-income Anglo-European mother from another public primary school, Redfield, made this clear to me when she relayed a recent conversation she'd had with her husband; 'He said something about us being lower class, and I said "I'm not lower class! I'm educated! I work! I'm not some druggie who can't look after their kids!'</p> <p>Melanie, another low-income Anglo-European mother, explained why she had volunteered for Neighbourhood Watch:</p> <p>'Cause there's too many [<emph>pause</emph>] 'feral' people out there, 'cause if the kids have got somewhere quick to run, I just teach my kids now, if someone does [<emph>approach you</emph>] just jump in anyone's yards, jump! Can't get in? Hide behind a tree. If you got time, knock on their door, it's safer than if someone's chasing them, it's better than being caught.</p> <p>'Feral', like 'rough family', was a word given to families who crossed a range of categories, but who were fundamentally judged to be defying basic social mores, particularly not caring for oneself or one's children, and having no income besides social security. In Melanie's definition, 'feral' also connoted abuse (physical and sexual) towards children, although this was not the assumed meaning of the term on its own. The word 'feral' did, however, note attributes of neglect and anti-decorum, the antithesis to being 'civilised', and was used to signify bodily comportment and social behaviours among all research participants. It was primarily used to refer to a disadvantaged 'under-class' of families who experienced systemic poverty, and who were significantly socially and economically marginalised. This was an assessment based on bodily behaviour, communication, language and appearance of families who were seen to 'let their kids do anything' and 'don't look after their kids properly', as Melanie had phrased it.</p> <p>'Rough' and 'feral' were also interchanged by one Indigenous family I interviewed with the label 'white trash', a category which drew on popular cultural stereotypes from American TV shows. While Indigenous students and families were also labeled 'feral', it appeared to be far more socially prevalent that specific white families were openly referred to as 'feral'. The word 'Aboriginal' was already deeply stigmatised among some non-Indigenous people in this cultural environment, and the non-Indigenous children I observed tended to avoid using it altogether as an adjective. They were taught that it was unacceptable to identity others by race and/or skin colour, so appeared confused over the term 'Aboriginal' because it was associated with racism by some non-Indigenous people in this context. For example, when I arrived at Inner North Primary School one morning, three non-Indigenous fifth graders were watching an altercation across the road in which two police officers were talking to a distressed woman on the street. One of these girls took it upon herself to explain to me, 'That's Jarrod's mum, that woman, the one talking to the cops, the Aboriginal woman. I'm not being racist'.</p> <p>Children also used the word 'feral' in their social and cultural lives to identify moral and social boundaries. In their desire to separate themselves from some peers and to belong with others, children focused on stigmatised bodily traits and practices which offered certain reassurances of the 'natural' and 'rightful status' of their own positions (Raisborough and Adams [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref63">35</reflink>]). This was evident in the following casual conversation I had with Nicola, a 10-year-old Anglo-European girl. I had asked Nicola, in an unrelated conversation, to describe the kinds of things about which kids today might worry, and she explained:</p> <p>N: Well, this isn't really a worry but some kids worry about catching head lice, like Jessica in our class, everyone thinks she has head lice and that.</p> <p>RB: Why do they think that?</p> <p>N: Um, I don't know why they exactly think about it, sometimes she's a little bit feral.</p> <p>RB: What does that mean?</p> <p>N: Sometimes she eats stuff off the ground and goes through people's bags so, everyone, like, thinks that...</p> <p>RB: She becomes known for being like that?</p> <p>N: Yep, and then when she tells the truth no one really believes her because last time she lies and ...</p> <p>RB: I heard other people call other kids 'feral' and I wondered what 'feral' means?</p> <p>N: That's what I think 'feral' means but I don't really call anyone feral but when it comes to people that take stuff and that eats stuff off the ground...</p> <p>As Nicola makes clear, children denoted marginality through their perception of hygiene and habitus and this in turn reinforced social boundaries (Campkin and Cox [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref64">5</reflink>], 5). Unlike the transmission of 'cooties', an invisible contamination that passes from one child to another in children's social worlds (Hirschfield [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref65">22</reflink>], 617), 'feral' had highly specific and tangible signs which were symbolically coded in this cultural environment.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-7">Cultivating competitiveness in a global market</hd> <p>During our interview, I asked Jenny if she thought there were parents shuffling their children between schools to avoid families from the social demographics which her son identified. 'Yes there's many doing that' she detailed:</p> <p>They are choosing Mercy College, many who don't know any better are choosing Sand Hill, many who are trying to avoid Sand Hill, others some when they can afford it are sending their children to boarding school in the city from year 10.</p> <p>Jenny saw the reasons for these choices as being about social 'influences' rather than different academic standards. The goal for some parents, she felt, was simply to avoid certain groups rather than seek out a higher standard of education. 'Standards don't seem to be too important in this culture' she surmised bitterly. However, most of the affluent parents I interviewed were seeking <emph>both</emph> a higher academic benchmark as well as trying to avoid children who might be a 'bad influence' or from a 'feral family'.</p> <p>Carmen, for example, was not confident in any of the high school options available to her son Willow when he completed primary school. Willow was now in year 7 at an independent religious high school, which Carmen felt had 'more people like us ... I hate to say it'. She still lamented her decision not to send Willow to boarding school, feeling that the pre-established benchmark was lower across the board in this region, and being acutely aware of statistics which show lower student performance in regional Australia more generally. She was concerned that this would essentially reduce her son's sense of competitiveness. This was 'an old worry', Carmen explained, and she admitted to experiencing recurring feelings of guilt for not following her friends' examples. 'We could have done something like that, or sent Willow away', she explained, frowning.</p> <p>Identifying as 'probably lower middle class', Carmen had 'felt like a failure for a long time' in her own life. Born and raised in South Asia, Carmen had followed the migration patterns of her siblings in search of social and economic mobility elsewhere. While her elder brothers travelled to America, Carmen moved to Australia on a scholarship. After she completed an MA and Ph.D. in a capital city, but had been unable to secure a post-doc or further work in academia. When she moved to Avoca it was to accept a research position which did not require a Ph.D., and it was only later in her career, she explained, that this fact began to lose significance among her feelings of self-worth. Carmen had later married an Anglo-European Australian man with whom she had one child. At the time of our first interview, Willow was aged 11 and attended a local catholic primary school. The following year, I re-interviewed Carmen after Willow had started high school at a religious fee-paying institution. Carmen then described her schooling decisions further:</p> <p>I think maybe that subconsciously you feel, a lot of the people at Mary's College are actually, if you put them in a social class, they would be above us as well, money-wise ... so the parents were all probably of a more educated background, maybe that made me feel a bit more comfortable, it's probably not right, but that's actually just the impression ... yeah so I probably was a bit snobbish in that part of it [<emph>laughs slightly</emph>]. I didn't think it all clearly but maybe just, you know, friends I know and they said 'oh we're happy', but all my friends are well-educated and working, ... and I thought, ok if they're happy.</p> <p>In her comments, Carmen aligned herself with people of traditional middle-class cultural and economic capital, notably those with middle-class educational attainments, aspirations and income. Yet she then reflected on this decision itself, suggesting she might have been 'snobbish', and indicating that she felt shame in having made a value judgement of others based on their socio-economic status. She doubted the moral imperative of her own ability to choose a school based on the outcomes of the market and her economic affluence, rather than taking this to be the natural order of things.</p> <p>When it came to choosing her son's high school, Carmen had been particularly forthright and prepared in her education choices, adopting classic practices of 'concerted cultivation' as identified by Lareau ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref66">25</reflink>]). In her analysis of child-rearing strategies in the USA, Lareau compares the converted cultivation strategies of affluent parents with what she calls the 'accomplishment of a natural growth' among low-income families. In my own regional Victorian study, Carmen had undertaken similar concerted strategies against the 'easy going' attitudes of parents around her, as she explained:</p> <p>Sometimes I get a little bit stressed about the study side of things, 'cause I want him to do well ... I talk to some friends, and they say 'if we don't do it, whose going to do it?' This Australian idea of just easy going, you know, 'that's fine, they're going to school, oh we all came though there didn't we? We went to any local school, our teachers did that, we didn't do homework, we did well didn't we?' ... I don't feel that that's quite [<emph>laughs</emph>], you know maybe you were lucky.... Or by chance the population was lower so the school standards were pretty good at that time and you had enough brains and ... people knew each other, the social structure was different, you went to school [where] teachers knew your parents ... in a smaller town sort of thing, people knew each other so much everybody looked after, it's so different from now.</p> <p>When Carmen referenced the 'easy going' attitude of other parents, she was referring to the ethos of egalitarianism that some parents in her network continued to hold about Australia's education system. This is an expectation that schools will provide children with the sufficient skills required for social mobility, or at the very least to reproduce their social position. Carmen was especially concerned that in this isolated regional context, her son was out of touch with the global class of students against whom he was competing:</p> <p>[Where I grew up] you have to study to get somewhere, and it's the competition that makes you feel that ... I can't forget everyday this thinking ... I can't sit back and relax ... I'm not as strict as couple of my brothers [in the USA], their family and children they send to private school, pay a lot of money and one of my sisters-in-law she would make sure their kids are doing extra work ... it's more of the Asian thing that bit more time set for studies and it is important, you need to do well, so you expect to do well, and if you are not doing well at school you are struggling, I will spend money to do something, I will give you extra help.... Here if you need extra help I can't even openly go and look for someone, I feel like people will say 'gosh, she's pushy'.... In the cities I think it would be different ... I want to do it quietly as well.</p> <p>To engender feelings of trust in a field that she felt to be immensely insecure, Carmen supplemented Willow's school work vigorously and trained him in emotional and social skills she felt were essential to social mobility within a global economy. These included prioritising Willow's structured time to study music, providing him with extra homework and school readers to extend class-based lessons, encouraging him to discuss his feelings and emotions and hosting performance nights with other families and children with whom Willow studied music. The aim was to 'help them get used to playing in front of people', and 'to give them confidence'. In this process, Carmen sought to train Willow in developing certain attitudes and sensibilities towards engaging with the world, notably competitiveness, passion and ambition. She particularly sought to combat what she felt was Willow's laissez-faire attitude to life, one which Carmen saw as being largely a product of the local education field. 'He's too relaxed' she criticised, 'he finds it all easy'.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-8">The right kind of affluence: 'Shiny people' and value-laden boundary work</hd> <p>Toni, another affluent parent in Avoca, had also chosen to send her children to a local religious primary school, even though Inner North was her zoned public school at the time. An Anglo-European, married mother of three children, Toni's concerns differed somewhat from Carmen's. Toni explained her reason for choosing an independent school over the public options as being due to a preference for a small school. However, the question of <emph>which</emph> non-governmental primary school to choose had raised dilemmas. At the time, Toni explained, parents with economic capital were sending their children to a particular non-public school, St Paul. This school:</p> <p>wasn't the school that we were choosing. I wanted him to be going to school with <emph>normal</emph> people ... Sort of from a mix of demographics and financial situations and cultures, not, you know, being sort of only up one end of the spectrum.</p> <p>This mixed spectrum, Toni felt, was no longer on offer in the public schools, where disadvantage was seen to congregate. Yet nor was it available at certain independent schools in the region, which Toni felt had become considerably wealthy. Instead, she and her husband chose a school which they saw at the time as being composed of a diverse spectrum of families, both economically and ethnically. However, six years later, they now felt that this demographic had changed significantly. Different families were now choosing their school, notably people Toni referred to as 'shiny':</p> <p>T: It's become more ... well, shiny, shiny people ... people with big shiny cars.</p> <p>RB: So not people who are concerned about education standards?</p> <p>T: Not so much, no.</p> <p>RB: Then why do they send their kids there?</p> <p>T: Because it's right now it's the <emph>it</emph> school ... you know how these things go in waves.</p> <p>RB: So are they people that are more into the consumable..?</p> <p>T: Yes ... but it's just more about the, probably <emph>those</emph> type of values don't necessarily resonate with us, and I felt more comfortable with my children being somewhere where there was more diversity in, as I said, culture and means, you know ... so that they ... develop a bit of a sense of empathy and that sort of thing.</p> <p>Toni used the term 'shiny people' to describe a more affluent working-class who were also seeking social mobility in Avoca through the school system. Working-class parents with economic capital also sought to move away from an 'underclass' which they associated with public education. Toni used 'shiny people' to describe such parents who she felt were choosing independent schools based on trends and economic means, rather than on educational standards or values around diversity. Like 'feral', 'shiny people' was a way of talking about class, and more specifically, working-class people who used their economic capital in ways which did not align with middle-class cultural practices (see Pini, McDonald and Mayes [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref67">32</reflink>]).</p> <p>As Skeggs has argued, the obscuration of class is particularly important around middle-class depictions of working-class identities, as fears and anxieties become condensed into classed symbols ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref68">40</reflink>]). This has been made evident in the analysis of the Australian label 'bogan', a term which frequently surfaces in Australian popular culture as both cultural icon and jest. The stereotype around 'bogans' is one of people who 'lack income and are welfare dependent' (Pini, McDonald, and Mayes [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref69">32</reflink>], 145), and is a culture frequently constructed in a way to be consumed as trashy entertainment by predominantly middle classes (Little [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref70">27</reflink>]). Yet to be 'bogan' is also to be poor, which is why the label Cashed-Up Bogans (CUBS) was created. Public cultural representations of CUBs in Australia focus on the salaries that primarily working-class people earn and their occupational status, as well as people's comparative lack of formal education compared to their accumulative wealth (Bennett and Tyler 2010 in Pini, McDonald, and Mayes [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref71">32</reflink>]). This is another form of boundary work which reasserts moral differences where economic ones have become unreliable against groups felt to be encroaching on middle-class territory. New forms of economic capital, notably generated through Australia's prosperous resource sector, have enabled working-class people to move into traditionally middle-class spaces and to challenge class-based spatial boundaries. Media representations of this identity have depicted such changes as 'threats' to residential areas, school choices and holiday destinations (Pini, McDonald, and Mayes [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref72">32</reflink>]).</p> <p>There is again a sense of pollution in these depictions, as certain class behaviours are categorised into moral and immoral groups. These kinds of categories play a strong role in establishing and maintaining cultural orders (Douglas [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref73">12</reflink>], 35, 48; Hartigan [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref74">20</reflink>], 115). As Bennett, Emmison and Frow argue, we draw boundaries constantly throughout daily life in order to anchor ourselves in relation to those with whom we identity, and those from whom we wish to differentiate ourselves ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref75">1</reflink>], 195). It is when these boundaries and groups are ranked and ordered into scales of relative human worth and achievement, that social power comes to operate through their enactment. This creates different kinds of social stratification and inequality which corresponds to such markers, and these then take shape through forms of class positioning (Hartigan [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref76">20</reflink>], 9, 14–15, 20).</p> <p>Yet these terms are also different ways of discussing white identities in Australia. There is a hidden narrative here about what successful white identities can look like, where class distinctions alter their racial and ethnic meanings (see Hartigan [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref77">19</reflink>]; Thorne [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref78">42</reflink>], 96). Terms like 'shiny people', and to a large degree 'feral', refer to specifically classed ways of being white which are embedded in the cultural interpretation of relationships between class and race in Australia. Like Lamont's (2000) focus on boundaries used to separate 'good' and 'bad' people and to redefine the parameters of moral worth, the same conditions lead people to re-assert taken-for-granted forms of authority and dominance through forms of whiteness (Hartigan [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref79">20</reflink>]).</p> <p>Hartigan, in his analysis of the prevalent narratives of 'good' and 'bad' whites in America, has shown that white people in the USA frequently use the term 'white trash' as a form of boundary work to stabilise and reproduce homogenising practices that project a social position of authority. Rising poverty, institutionalised inequality and entrenched working classes in the USA – essentially the collapse of the middle class – have meant that the kinds of economic success previously taken for granted by white people are disappearing. The term 'white trash' is a way of maintaining this cultural order (Hartigan [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref80">19</reflink>], 95–96), as people work hard to re-inscribe and find new ways to assert class boundaries when their class positions feel particularly threatened (Lawler [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref81">26</reflink>]).</p> <p>The term 'shiny people', like 'CUBS', revealed feelings of class-based insecurity which came to the surface through the school market. This local social term valued and devalued particular aspects of cultural life including life-style, self-presentation, consumption practices and language, all of which are a means of reproducing economic privileges (Raisborough and Adams [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref82">35</reflink>]). Through this language, Toni expressed her feelings that her children's school had become too affluent in undesired ways. She sought a school which had enough diversity to encourage empathy, but also people who 'share the same values, who value education'. It was essentially a form of boundary work which reasserted moral differences where economic ones had become unreliable against groups felt to be encroaching on the middle-class territory of school choice.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-9">Conclusion</hd> <p>This paper has outlined the structural changes which have increased economic inequality in Australia and impacted on educational reform, and some specific challenges faced by public schools in regional settings as a result. Focusing on three case studies from a regional Australian city, it examined how middle-class parents undertook strong boundary work to morally separate themselves from specific others as the economic distinctions between groups and the privileges these afford were increasingly difficult to define. Local social labels such as 'ferals' and 'shiny people' were mobilised as classed and racialised ways of managing this changing social landscape in the school arena. Such language, as well as practices like cultivating competiveness and identifying families with appropriate value systems, was used to interpret the social landscape that middle-class parents found themselves acting within, and to establish moral distance from low-status groups. Drawing boundaries through class and race was thus a way to uphold and draw on feelings of dignity in this uncertain economy, as affluent parents negotiated social processes around the school market amidst rising economic insecurity and a deeper 'fear of falling'.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-10">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.</p> <hd id="AN0108580659-11">Funding</hd> <p>This research was undertaken with the support of an Australian Postgraduate Award while the author was a Ph.D. candidate at the Australian National University.</p> <ref id="AN0108580659-12"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref47" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Bennett, Tony, Michael Emmison, and John Frow. 2001. "Social Class and Cultural Practice in Contemporary Australia." In Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, edited by Tony Bennett, 193–215. 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  Data: Schools, 'Ferals', Stigma and Boundary Work: Parents Managing Education and Uncertainty in Regional Australia
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Butler%2C+Rose%22">Butler, Rose</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Ethnography+and+Education%22"><i>Ethnography and Education</i></searchLink>. 2015 10(3):340-355.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Data: Y
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  Data: 16
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
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  Data: 2015
– Name: TypeDocument
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Label: Education Level
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Elementary+Education%22">Elementary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Economic+Factors%22">Economic Factors</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Geographic+Regions%22">Geographic Regions</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Class%22">Social Class</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Middle+Class%22">Middle Class</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Parent+Attitudes%22">Parent Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Differences%22">Social Differences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Anxiety%22">Anxiety</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Security+%28Psychology%29%22">Security (Psychology)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Qualitative+Research%22">Qualitative Research</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Bias%22">Social Bias</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Whites%22">Whites</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Attitudes%22">Social Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Elementary+School+Students%22">Elementary School Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interviews%22">Interviews</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Indigenous+Populations%22">Indigenous Populations</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Racial+Attitudes%22">Racial Attitudes</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Australia%22">Australia</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1080/17457823.2015.1051071
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  Data: 1745-7823
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: This paper examines forms of boundary work undertaken by parents in a regional Australian city to negotiate social processes around the school market amidst rising economic insecurity. It outlines structural changes, which have increased economic inequality in Australia and impacted on educational reform, and the specific challenges faced by public schools in regional settings. Drawing on 18 months' qualitative research in one regional location, it identifies and analyses forms of boundary work undertaken by middle-class families to manage these uncertainties in a field of scarce economic and cultural resources. Theories of class culture, stigma and whiteness are used to show how local social labels such as "ferals" and "shiny people" acted as classed and racialised ways of negotiating this social and economic landscape through the school field. Such practices engendered feelings of security and control and shed light on feelings of class-based resentment and anxiety in regional Australia, specifically a middle-class "fear of falling".
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  Data: 2015
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  Data: EJ1070152
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        PageCount: 16
        StartPage: 340
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      – SubjectFull: Economic Factors
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Geographic Regions
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      – SubjectFull: Social Class
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      – SubjectFull: Whites
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      – SubjectFull: Australia
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      – TitleFull: Schools, 'Ferals', Stigma and Boundary Work: Parents Managing Education and Uncertainty in Regional Australia
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