Gillian Evans is author of Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain. The book caused a controversy when it was published in 2006 because it brought the ongoing significance of social class to the foreground of debate at a time when the politics of class had become something of a taboo subject in Britain. Continuing to influence debate about the contemporary position of the white working classes in 21st Century Britain, Gillian is a regular contributor to television and radio debate. A familiar face at public sector events, Gillian gives keynote talks exploring the specific reasons for a lack of white working class attainment in education as well drawing out the more general links to contemporary cultural politics in Britain.

Gillian is a social anthropologist at the University of Manchester in the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) where she is Research Council UK Research Fellow. Her specialism is in the anthropology of child development and the anthropology of education and learning. She continues to expand on her interests in the post-industrial landscape of social class in Britain and is currently undertaking a major research project on the regeneration associated with the lead up to London Olympics 2012 in the East End of London.