Life and destiny are largely determined by birth and social class position, as Salman Rushdie (1981: 141) contends in his Booker Prize-winning magical realist novel Midnight's Children: ‘All games have morals, the game of Snakes and Ladders captures as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb a snake is waiting just around the corner, and for every snake a ladder will compensate.’ The novel is a loose allegory based on events coinciding with Indian independence in 1947 and demonstrates the impact on children born at that moment in history.

Those who experience disadvantaged childhoods find themselves locked into a world dominated by poverty, discrimination and exclusion from which it is very difficult to escape. Education purportedly provides the ladder of opportunity to an autonomous and prosperous life, but participation is already constrained for young working-class people and marginalised ethnic minorities by a lack of what Pierre Bourdieu has called cultural, social and economic capital. Bourdieu (1973: 60) argued that the main function of education is the cultural and social reproduction of power relationships and the maintenance of privilege and social hierarchy across the generations:

DEIS schools seek to compensate for often invisible inequalities hidden in divergent expectations, cultural codes and popular vernacular shared meanings. Disadvantage is also visible in the material poverty of children's lives, where every day is a struggle for existence, including adequate nourishment and food security. At the core of educational inequality is the class system based on a binary between privilege and disadvantage that has both objective and subjective dimensions.

Pierre Bourdieu, at a conference in Grenoble in December 1997, delivered a paper entitled La Precarite est aujoud hui partout, in which he identified alienated youth as ‘the precariat’, recognising the vulnerability and support needs of this marginalised group.

Children are faced with a rapidly changing world that is having a significant influence on their health and wellbeing. These changes include alterations to our food supply, new approaches to the marketing of food and other lifestyle factors that influence children’s food consumption. The early years represent a pivotal period in the establishment of food literacy – that is, dietary education, behaviours and preferences – when children are forming their tastes and preferences and are most receptive to health messages. Food literacy is a relatively recent concept that has emerged over the past decade (McManus et al., 2022), and early years settings, schools and caregivers are ideally placed to assist early years learners to develop positive attitudes towards, and knowledge about, healthy food. This is also relevant to schools because healthy children are better learners, and evidence suggests that a holistic approach to education that includes health and nutrition has wide-reaching benefits for children and educators.

Executive functions refer to the higher-order skills we use to engage in purposeful and goal-directed behaviours (Carlson et al., 2013). ‘Purposeful’ means that we call on these functions when we have a goal in mind. Developmental psychologists compare the brain with a bustling airport, referring to executive functions as the mind’s ‘air traffic control’ system (Center on the Developing Child, 2011). In the same way that an air traffic controller manages the arrival and departure of several aeroplanes at the same time, the brain’s executive functions enable us to manage a lot of information. Executive functions help us to focus and resist distractions, to think before acting, and to cope with frustrations and rules simultaneously. Young children use executive functions in all aspects of their everyday lives, such as remembering the rules of a game, resisting temptations or impulsive reactions, waiting their turn, staying focused, recalling routines and respecting different points of view. This chapter begins by defining executive functions and their role in children’s learning. It then describes how educators work across the early years to promote executive functions. The final section of the chapter lists questions that may help early years educators to reflect on the ways in which they support children’s emerging executive functions.

The university in the knowledge economy

Pierre Bourdieu (in a televised conversation with the writer Gunter Grass) described the complexity of the times we live in and the challenges involved in unravelling their political meaning:

Later in their conversation, Bourdieu dismissed his critics as ‘dinosaurs’ (Bourdieu and Grass, 2002: 65). Where does public education and the role of the university in civil society fit in this changed neoliberal cultural landscape, called the ‘knowledge economy’? The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins, a distinguished public intellectual and social scientist, has pondered the future role of the university: ‘Are the great universities of the world, rather like the stones of monastic sites visited today, to become like them in time, merely tourist attractions of the future’ (The Irish Times, 8 June 2021). We are living through challenging times for higher education in the 21st century that will test the institutional sustainability of the university.

Public education encompasses education funded by the state, democratically accountable to the public and free and accessible to everybody. It is normally secular in ethos. As a cornerstone of an ethical civil society, public education is an embattled concept in a neoliberal society, where culture wars – between secular and traditional religious values – increasingly threaten the independence of schools to teach about diversity (for example Black history) and human rights. Books in school libraries are being banned – reminiscent of past cultural intolerances in Europe, such as book burnings in Nazi Germany. The American Library Association has stated that, in 2022, a record 1,269 demands were made to restrict or ban books and other materials in schools and libraries, up from 156 in 2020 (Los Angeles Times, 23 May 2023). Florida has passed the Stop Woke Act, seeking to curtail instruction in historic human-rights violations against minorities, such as slavery.

This chapter focuses on a diverse group of vulnerable learners–children with special educational needs (SEN). These children are at high risk of developing social and emotional problems because their presenting conditions negatively influence growth in two critical areas of functioning: attention, planning and problem-solving; and language and communication (Stormont, 2007). It follows that delays in these areas routinely create the conditions for reduced opportunities to engage, interact and learn with others, and also the increased likelihood of developing challenging, unsafe and socially inappropriate behaviours.In this chapter, the Pyramid Model (Hemmeter et al., 2016) is recommended as an evidence-based, multi-level framework for promoting children’s social–emotional development in the early years while preventing problem behaviours. Next, we discuss aspects related to decision-making about (1) what to teach and (2) how to teach. We then highlight the critical importance of resilience and the need to develop a sense of connectedness and social understanding in children with SEN. Finally, we argue the case for partnering with families in order to strengthen SEL outcomes of these children across school, home and community environments.

The ‘college doesn't matter’ meme

The meme that ‘It doesn't matter whether you go to college’ is commonplace among sceptics of the value of widening participation in higher education. It is predicted by historian Peter Turchin (2023) that ‘elite over-production’ of degrees may cause future social and political instability, because there are not enough high-status positions to satisfy graduate demand. The Wall Street Journal reported (Adamy, 2023): ‘An overwhelming share of Americans aren't confident their children's lives will be better than their own, according to a to a … poll that shows growing scepticism about the value of a college degree and record low levels of overall happiness.’ The abolition of free tuition in many jurisdictions, leading graduates to incur massive debt from student loans, has combined with spiralling mortgage costs, to create a bleak future for many graduates and a challenge to intergenerational justice. Jokes about BA graduates working in fast-food outlets abound and reinforce prejudice against studying the humanities, which, according to US data, is in sharp decline (Heller, 2023).

The financialisation of higher education and the resulting marketisation of degrees, as costly commodities out of the reach of many, has fed this cultural scepticism. It is a long way from the original high-minded humanist mission, advocated by philosopher and founder of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), challenging the university to bring enlightenment to the world. Von Humboldt believed that higher education enabled students to become autonomous individuals and citizens, anticipating democratic society. Undoubtedly, no amount of education can be a substitute for good social skills and common sense. Yet, Socrates’ (470–399 bce) powerful statement ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ resonates down the millennia as part of his monumental intellectual legacy to Western humanism.

A primary degree offers a foundation for self-improvement, personal empowerment, intellectual awakening and human flourishing. Education is, as Nelson Mandela (1995: 194) asserted, ‘the great engine of human development’. It also brings enhanced self-esteem, career advancement and greater knowledge and social equity. These are the intangible benefits of higher education.

This chapter investigates friendships and children’s wellbeing in the early years of schooling. Having a friend, and being a friend, is closely connected to children’s health and wellbeing in the early years. Friendship safeguards children from social isolation and is associated with academic attainment and social success. In early childhood, children most often make friends through play, having common interests and doing shared activities.Using children’s direct accounts and visual representations of their friendships, we explore characteristics of friendship and the strategies that children use to make friends and manage disputes as they negotiate their social and emotional relationships through play and shared spaces. Three aspects of friendships are evident in the children’s accounts: friendship is enduring; friendship is a mutual relationship; and friendship involves an emotional investment. This chapter provides educators with an understanding of the important role of friendships in young children’s everyday lives, and to their happiness and wellbeing in the early years.

When children are effective communicators, they have a strong sense of identity and wellbeing, are connected to their world and are confident and involved learners. Supporting the development of effective communication in the early years also assists children to become confident and creative individuals, successful lifelong learners, and active and informed members of the community, which is the ultimate goal for education in Australia, as articulated in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2019). In this chapter, we define communication and distinguish between different types of communication. We describe stages in the development of communication skills in the early years, explore the key achievements associated with each stage, identify features that may indicate reasons for seeking help, and suggest strategies for stimulating and supporting communication development across the early years.

In Australia, the intentional teaching of social and emotional competencies and the implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have increasingly engaged early childhood educators over the last decade. Disruptions to normal routines from fires, floods and the COVID−19 pandemic have heightened the need to support children, families and educators, and have made SEL an essential part of curricula (Cahill et al., 2020). This chapter establishes the broad rationale and key concepts associated with SEL, and also details recommended approaches and evidence-based practices relevant to teaching for SEL. It also considers the crucial role that educators play in supporting young children during troublesome times.

This book is based on a sociological analysis and policy discussion of educational stratification, meritocracy and widening participation. The theory of Pierre Bourdieu has been particularly helpful in illuminating our analysis, notably his concept of cultural capital. His intellectual legacy has transformed understanding of educational inequality and its complexities.

Our study is also informed by empirical research based on the experience and aspirations of students, parents, teachers and youth and community workers living and working in disadvantaged areas and communities in the European Union (Ireland). The participants’ voices contextualise the profound issues at stake, which are global in scope.

The analysis takes place at a time when major changes are occurring globally in post-industrial society, which have produced new forms of labour based on educational attainment, new identities – the appearance of a ‘left-behind’ class – and changed political allegiances – the emergence working-class conservatism. The precariousness of life for working-class and ethnic young people in the gig economy is the devastating social reality of our times. It is potentially returning social relations to the inequalities of Victorian society, as the safety net of the welfare state is gradually dismantled. In this closing chapter we address the future of education through the prism of transformative change and what it would look like in a world liberated from Aristotle's hierarchical prescription for society.

The symbolic and material treatment of young people in post-industrial society reflects broad social and cultural shifts placing education at the centre of youth policy. While these changes have transformed the lives of many young people for the better, others have been left behind. This has created a potentially dangerous aspirational-achievement gap in global society. For disadvantaged working-class young people, biographical choices, lifestyles and consumption are limited and identities destabilised by precarious lives. Poverty and marginalisation constrain their lives and generate a sense of powerlessness, social discredit and hopelessness, leaving them viewing themselves as ‘minor citizens’ (Powell et al, 2012). Higher education has emerged in this new social order as a pivotal societal influence in terms of the pursuit of social equality and human flourishing. It offers new grounds for hope for many young people, but does it pass the social justice test?