Social capital and self-crafting: comparing two case studies of first-in-family males navigating elite Australian universities

ABSTRACT

First-in-family (FIF) males, often from low-socio-economic backgrounds, remain severely underrepresented in Australian higher education. Experiences with social life can be a significant determiner to their success at university as well as their prospects for future employment. This paper explores the experiences of two FIF males as they transition from secondary school to elite courses in prestigious universities. As they navigate these new spaces, we are interested in how these two young men, Lucas and Adam, perceive the accrual of social capital and how this is interrelated with crafting learner identities within the field of university life. In comparing the two case studies, the paper draws on various theories of social capital in an effort to provide nuance regarding how young people access, accrue, and mobilise social capital which may be ever shifting in its composition and power. The paper contributes to the scholarship on upward mobility and social capital through highlighting (1) the strategies adopted for social and academic success, (2) the ways in which social capital must be skilfully operationalised to one’s advantage as well as what this means for the crafting of self, and (3) the differences between accessing and operationalising social capital.

KEYWORDS:

• Social capital
• first-in-family (FIF)
• higher education
• self-crafting
• learner identities
• youth transitions

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Professor Barbara Comber and Pere Ayling for feedback on a previous draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is the primary criterion for entry into most undergraduate-entry university programmes in Australia

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council: [grant number DE170100510].

Notes on contributors

Garth Stahl

Garth Stahl, Ph.D. (@GarthStahl) is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education at the University of South Australia and Research Fellow, Australian Research Council (DECRA). His research interests lie on the nexus of neoliberalism and socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality, and social change. Currently, his research projects and publications encompass theoretical and empirical studies of learner identities, gender and youth, sociology of schooling in a neoliberal age, gendered subjectivities, equity and difference, and educational reform.

Sarah McDonald

Sarah McDonald (@Sarah_McDonald_) is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. Her doctoral research focuses on how the intersection between gender and class interacts with higher education, and how this interaction impacts upon the construction of feminine identities for young women transitioning into university. She is interested in gendered subjectivities, social mobility, social barriers, and inequalities in education.