Interpreting ordinary suffering: pupils’ lived experiences of academically selective education

FORUM - Print ISSN 1474-7685 - Online ISSN 2047-7171
Volume 68 Number 3 (2026)

Interpreting ordinary suffering: pupils’ lived experiences of academically selective education
Francesca McCarthy pages 91‑100
DOI: 10.3898/forum.2026.68.3.08

Abstract

This article revisits the ambitions of the Education Act 1976 by examining the continued lived reality of academically selective education in the minority of English local authorities where grammar schools remain. Rather than documenting inequalities through educational outcomes alone, it explores how pupils who did not pass the 11-plus recognise, interpret and negotiate the ordinary consequences of academic selection within their everyday lives. Drawing on narrative interviews with three pupils, the article uses Bourdieu’s concept of ordinary suffering to show how seemingly routine encounters become sites through which educational assumptions, judgements and hierarchies are recognised and questioned. In doing so, it argues that understanding academically selective education requires attending not only to the inequalities it produces but also to pupils’ interpretations of those inequalities. The article contributes a pupil-centred perspective that positions young people as thoughtful interpreters, rather than passive recipients, of academically selective education. 

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To cite this article
Francesca McCarthy (2026) Interpreting ordinary suffering: pupils’ lived experiences of academically selective education, FORUM, 68(3), 91-100 . https://doi.org/10.3898/forum.2026.68.3.08

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