Let’s talk about class – exploring the everyday emotions and experiences of classism in Irish education: a thematic analysis of Irish Twitter conversations on class and education between 2018 and 2022

Abstract

This paper examines attitudes to classism in Irish education using a thematic analysis of social media conversations about social class between 2018 and 2022. Previous research indicates that Irish education systems are designed by and favour the dominant and ruling classes. However, few studies use the voice of the lived experience to explore the phenomenon. This article investigates Irish people’s communication of class inequalities in education via the social media platform Twitter (X). Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis was employed to analyse and group the Tweets, with Dean’s framework on communicative capitalism to guide the findings. This study indicates that social media has become a legitimate platform to challenge hegemony in education by creating online communities or collective identities in struggles against social inequalities in Ireland. Findings reveal that classism continues to prevail in Irish education, with working-class Tweets on the lived experiences of discrimination providing novel insights on emerging themes such as elitism, inequality of access and symbolic violence. Future research in this area needs to focus on the effects of social class on educational attainment, access, and participation in Irish settings. In particular, examining weaknesses in current structures to support working-class students, and possible grassroot interventions and policies to mitigate the impacts of social class on education.