Didier Eribon and Darren McGarvey: How to talk about social class, education and mobility

Prof. Dr. Markus Rieger-Ladich, Tübingen University

Abstract

The lecture focuses on upward social mobility through education. To examine its inherent contradictions, it turns to books by Didier Eribon and Darren McGarvey. Despite their differences—Eribon is a French sociologist, McGarvey a Scottish rapper—both have recounted their own experiences of social advancement in their books. These books will be the central focus of the lecture. In them, the authors describe experiences of shame and degradation at the hands of educational institutions.

Bio

Markus Rieger-Ladich holds the chair for Philosophy of Education at the Institute of Education, University of Tübingen. He is a member of the DFG Research Training Group "Doing Transitions" and the DFG Network "Theoretical Research in Educational Science".
He is currently interested in the analysis and critique of privilege. The focus is on educational privilege, but also on class and gender, whiteness and heteronormativity. First results were published as "Das Privileg. Kampfvokabel und Erkenntnisinstrument" (2022). He also does research on identity politics and autosociobiographical texts: Books in which educational climbers reconstruct their lives provide valuable insights into practices of exclusion, shaming, and discrimination at school and university. Furthermore, together with Christoph Koller (Hamburg), he is leading the DFG project "On the Failure of Educational Ambitions as Reflected in Literature" (2023-2026).

Joining Online
This event will be accessible via Microsoft Teams. If you would like to attend online, please contact ed.research@durham.ac.uk to request the Teams link.