Emma Taylor is a Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar in the department of Sociology at the LSE, co-supervised by Professor Mike Savage and Professor Rita Astuti. She has a particular interest in the reproduction of inequalities through the education system and her PhD research seeks to investigate the micro-practices of elite formation within an independent boys’ school setting in England. Based on in-depth, long-term ethnographic analysis, the research provides a unique insider’s perspective on the conditions that enable and scaffold the formation of elite dispositions among students. Thus, the work uses innovative qualitative methods, such as peer facilitated research, to address key questions relating to the acquisition of such dispositions and how these may have the potential to be converted into powerful symbolic capital, professional success and the consequent perpetuation of the conditions that enable privilege.

Emma also has fifteen years of experience teaching in secondary schools in the UK where she has developed a specific interest in evidence-based pedagogical practice. As co-convenor of the BERA Practitioner Research Special Interest Group she works with other teachers and academics to create a space where practitioners can present and discuss their work at different conferences and events across the academic year.