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In the first part of this programme Sue Sharpe explains how and why her work came to be focused on working class girls, her shift from quantitative to qualitative methods and her use of content analysis.

In the second part, she discusses the correspondence she found between the images of femininity portrayed in popular culture and the aspirations of the majority of girls she interviewed to leave school as soon as possible, get an office job and settle down to have children. She also talks about her follow-up study 20 years later, where she found a much more cynical attitude to marriage and family but little change in girls’ educational and career aspirations.

This programme will be relevant to those studying education, stratification, gender and research.