World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
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Social Sciences and Humanities
UK
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Social Sciences and Humanities

D-Index
78
Citations
30763
World Ranking
427
National Ranking
73

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Social Sciences and Humanities in United Kingdom Leader Award
  • Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, United Kingdom
  • Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, United Kingdom
  • Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, United Kingdom

Overview

Diane Reay is affiliated with the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and has contributed extensively to the field of social sciences, with a focus on education, sociology, and political science. Their research spans various topics including global education and multiculturalism, educational policies, educator training, religious education, and social dynamics.

Reay's recent papers include:

  • The working classes and higher education: Meritocratic fallacies of upward mobility in the United Kingdom (2021, European Journal of Education)
  • 'The still-moving position' of the 'working-class' feminist academic: dealing with disloyalty, dislocation and discomfort (2020, Discourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education)
  • The Perils and Penalties of Meritocracy: Sanctioning Inequalities and Legitimating Prejudice (2020, The Political Quarterly)
  • English Education in the Time of Coronavirus (2020, FORUM)
  • Sociology of education: a personal reflection on politics, power and pragmatism (2020, British Journal of Sociology of Education)

Their frequently cited publication venues reflect a specialization in education and sociological studies. These include:

  • FORUM
  • Subjectivity
  • European Journal of Education
  • Discourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
  • The Political Quarterly

Co-authors working frequently with Reay are:

  • Annabel Wilson
  • Kirsty Morrin
  • Jessie Abrahams

Reay's main fields of study are social sciences broadly, with specific focus areas in:

  • Education
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations
  • Gender Studies
  • Music

Key topics of their research include:

  • Global Education and Multiculturalism
  • Global Educational Policies and Reforms
  • Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy
  • Religious Education and Schools
  • Social and Cultural Dynamics
  • Higher Education Research Studies
  • Higher Education Governance and Development

Diane Reay has been recognized as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, United Kingdom.

Best Publications

  • ‘It's all becoming a habitus’: beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research

    Diane Reay

  • ‘Strangers in Paradise’?: Working-class Students in Elite Universities

    Diane Reay;Gill Crozier;John Clayton

  • Class Work: Mothers' Involvement In Their Children's Primary Schooling

    Diane Reay

  • "Fitting In" or "Standing Out": Working-Class Students in UK Higher Education.

    Diane Reay;Gill Crozier;John Clayton

  • Choices of Degree or Degrees of Choice? Class, `Race' and the Higher Education Choice Process

    Diane Reay;Jacqueline Davies;Miriam David;Stephen J Ball

  • Degrees of choice : class, race, gender and higher education

    Diane Reay;Miriam E. David;Stephen J. Ball

  • 'Classification' and 'Judgement': Social Class and the 'Cognitive Structures' of Choice of Higher Education

    Stephen J. Ball;Jackie Davies;Miriam David;Diane Reay

  • Finding or losing yourself?: working-class relationships to education

    Diane Reay

  • Gendering Bourdieu's concepts of capitals? Emotional capital, women and social class

    Diane Reay

  • Beyond consciousness? The psychic landscape of social class

    Diane Reay

  • ’Always knowing’ and ‘never being sure’: familial and institutional habituses and higher education choice

    Diane Reay

  • A useful extension of Bourdieu’s conceptual framework?: emotional capital as a way of understanding mothers’ involvement in their children’s education?

    Diane Reay

  • Making a Difference?: Institutional Habituses and Higher Education Choice:

    Diane Reay;Miriam David;Stephen Ball

  • THE ZOMBIE STALKING ENGLISH SCHOOLS: SOCIAL CLASS AND EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY

    Diane Reay

  • 'Spice Girls', 'Nice Girls', 'Girlies', and 'Tomboys': Gender discourses, girls' cultures and femininities in the primary classroom

    Diane Reay

  • ’I’ ll be a nothing’: structure, agency and the construction of identity through assessment

    Diane Reay;Dylan Wiliam

  • Rethinking Social Class: Qualitative Perspectives on Class and Gender

    Diane Reay

  • Degrees of Choice: social class, race and gender in higher education

    Diane Reay;Miriam David;Stephen Ball

  • White Middle-Class Identities and Urban Schooling

    Diane Reay;Gill Crozier;David James

  • `A Darker Shade of Pale?' Whiteness, the Middle Classes and Multi-Ethnic Inner City Schooling:

    Diane Reay;Sumi Hollingworth;Katya Williams;Gill Crozier

Frequent Co-Authors

Gill Crozier
Gill Crozier University of Roehampton
Frank J. Kelly
Frank J. Kelly Imperial College London
Hilary Graham
Hilary Graham University of York
Madeleine Arnot
Madeleine Arnot University of Cambridge
Carol Vincent
Carol Vincent University College London
Alison Fuller
Alison Fuller University College London
Phillip Brown
Phillip Brown Cardiff University
Dylan Wiliam
Dylan Wiliam University College London
Harvey Goldstein
Harvey Goldstein University of Bristol

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