Getting started

I have started writing up my summaries for the interviews and am doing it through a mixture of writing from my written notes and then listening to the recorded interviews and writing direct quotes that can be used. It is a rather long process and took me about 5 hours yesterday (with some diversions to find yet more articles!) but am now integrating these quotes and comments into the first draft of my essay.
I have been reading some really interesting articles and found one particularly interesting debate about the issue of class in Australia from the Radio National Big Ideas programme titled Australia Forums: Class in Contemporary Australia
It discusses the issue of class in general but does talk about class in regard to education. I liked one quote in particular - very telling I think about the nature of power in Australia...and indeed elsewhere...

"And there’s a lovely moment in one of those, where one of the very rich guys, who are the most influential group in Australia, explains why people like him don’t give very much attention to questions of education. Because however good an education you get, the best it’s going to do for you in terms of economic advantage is get you into a high-paid profession. But even doctors and lawyers are only going to get paid while they are themselves working. But to make any real money, any serious money, and this is what the capitalists themselves are telling us, you have to get other people working for you. And it’s when you get other people working for you that you get accumulation of serious wealth." Bob Connell

Well, must get on...lunch and then more reading and writing. Thank goodness we do not have the excavator noise next door today. I had to retreat to work to get some quiet - on the first day of my holidays!