Diane Reay is Professor of Education at Cambridge University, UK. She is a sociologist working in the area of education but is also interested in broader issues of the relationship between the self and society, the affective and the material. Her priority has been to engage in research with a strong social justice agenda that addresses social inequalities of all kinds.

Carol Vincent is a Professor in the Faculty of Policy and Society at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. She is a sociologist, with a particular research interests in the relationship between parents and educational institutions and how these relationships are mediated by social class and ethnicity.