Social class and mobility: student narratives of class location in English higher education

ABSTRACT

This paper explores ways in which university students articulate understandings of their class positions and perceptions of opportunities for social mobility. The promise that participation in higher education (HE) would lead to social mobility for all has been central to the project of widening participation. However, in the twenty-first century, graduate employment opportunities have not kept up with high rates of HE participation, and class divisions have become more visible rather than being reduced. Based on a longitudinal study of undergraduates attending two universities in the city of Bristol, UK at the beginning of the 2010s, this paper uses Anthias’ notion of narratives of location to focus on students’ awareness of social class and their experience of the dynamics of social difference in HE. The narratives demonstrate ways in which taken-for-granted privileged middle-class entitlement is performed and seen to dominate the social space of the university, from which working-class and other fractions of the middle-classes distance themselves. [Anthias, F. (2004) Social stratification and social inequality: Models of intersectionality and identity. In F. Devine, M. Savage, J. Scott, & R. Crompton (Eds.), Rethinking class. Culture, identities and lifestyles (pp. 24–45). London: Palgrave Macmillan].

KEYWORDS:

• Social class
• social mobility
• higher education

Acknowledgements

The work of the PP1 and PP2 research teams forms the basis for the paper: Harriet Bradley (PI), Jessica Abrahams, Ann-Marie Bathmaker, Phoebe Beedell, Laura Bentley, Tony Hoare, Nicola Ingram, Vanda Papafilippou and Richard Waller. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers, whose helpful comments enabled me to revise and refocus the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Attributed to John Prescott, deputy prime minister under New Labour, just before the 1997 election when New Labour came to power in the UK. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/05/we-re-not-all-middle-class-now-owen-jones-class-cameron-s-britain (Retrieved from November 2019). The previous UK Conservative Prime Minister John Major had promised to create a ‘classless society’. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38553797 (Retrieved from November 2019).

2 For further details of participant recruitment, the status and reputation of both universities, as well as the operationalization of social class, see Bathmaker et al. (2016), chapter 2.

Additional information

Funding

The Paired Peers study was funded by the Leverhulme Trust [grant number F/100 182/CC].