Working the Borderlands: working-class students constructing hybrid identities and asserting their place in higher education

Abstract

Through the case-study experiences of 24 White and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) working-class students from three very different universities, we aim to illuminate the often hidden struggle for recognition and respect for classed, ‘raced’ and gendered ways of being in the university. We discuss how the students perceive their identities in relation to their universities and their peers, and whether they feel the need to adapt and change their classed/’racialised’ identities in order to survive and progress or whether they resist any pressures and expectations to do so. We explore the tension between ‘assimilation and belonging’ and ‘betrayal and exclusion’ for White and BAME working-class students and consider the intersectional implications. We draw on the concept of hybridity to show the fluidity and fusions of transitioning and developing identities. The article also seeks to contribute further to the illumination of habitus as generative, through a process of hybridity.

Keywords:

• Identity
• social class
• ‘race’
• higher education
• hybridity
• intersectionality
• habitus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Research Excellence Framework is a government device for assessing research quality in the university sector as a basis for the allocation of research funding. The Teaching Excellence Framework is a government device for assessing teaching quality in the university sector and thus a means of ranking universities.

2. Post-1992 university refers to universities and colleges of higher education that were given university status following the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. These are also sometimes referred to as ‘Modern’ or ‘New’ universities. A pre-1992 university refers to a university established prior to this date.

By elite university we mean an ancient and highly selective, or ‘Russell Group’ university.

3. The term ‘widening participation’ has been adopted in the United Kingdom by central government since the Dearing Report 1997. It has featured in policy initiatives aimed at addressing under-representation of working-class and BAME groups in higher education.

4. The Economic and Social Research Council is a national funding body for academic research and postgraduate study (www.esrc.gov.ac.uk).

5. By this term we mean that Kylie did not have the disposition or experience of using Standard English and this constrained her ability to hide her own accent and dialect.

6. Received Pronunciation is a term that refers to an accent of Standard English which tends to be associated with the accent of English spoken in Southern England and denoting classed privilege.