‘I’m so much more myself now, coming back to work’ - working class mothers, paid work and childcare.

‘intermediate’ occupations (usually in administrative capacities) and semi-routine
occupations (in retail or personal services) as the two dominant occupational groups
(see appendix table 1 for mothers’ classifications of current or most recent
occupations). The fathers in the study also worked in jobs across the socio-economic
spectrum, with own account workers (NS-SEC 4) such as self-employed builders and
carpet-fitters as the largest group (15 out of 56 fathers on which we had information).
In terms of respondents’ education qualifications as well, there was considerable
variation. For example, whilst only a small minority of mothers (8) had no
qualifications, eight had degree level qualifications (attained as mature students via
part-time routes). GCSE and/or Further Education qualifications were the most
common qualifications of the mothers in the sample (28). The research presented
here follows an earlier study by Vincent and Ball of middle class and professional
parents with young children in the same localities. Findings from this study of 59
families, which is presented in Vincent and Ball (2006) will occasionally be drawn on
for comparative purposes throughout the text and referred to as the ‘middle class
study’. Crucially, that group of parents differed considerably from the families in this
study even if they shared a socio-economic indicator. For example, a mother
categorised as Class 2 in this study was working as a manager of a betting shop,
whilst a Class 2 mother in the middle class study was working as a drama therapist.
Equally, of the eight mothers with a degree level education in this study, none
followed a straightforward path from school to university and all obtained their
qualifications as mature students through part-time routes. This contrasts with the
mothers in the middle class study who were nearly all qualified to at least degree level
(52 out of 59 mothers) and for whom seamless progression through the education
system was the norm. Most of the families in the working class study lived in public

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