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ABSTRACT
The transition from university to the graduate labour market has become increasingly competitive. As university degrees no longer offer a guarantee for success, graduates mobilise other forms of capital to gain a competitive advantage. First-in-family and working-class students are seen to be disadvantaged as they lack access to the types of economic, social and personal capital employers prefer. This article is based on a qualitative longitudinal study of first-in-family, working-class students in Canada. Starting university in 2005 with very high ambitions and goals for substantial mobility, I will show how most gradually revised these goals over the 16 years they have been followed in the study, and how they engaged in a range of strategies to negotiate their potential working-class disadvantages to find career success. They further evoked a broader notion of mobility beyond career achievement, in that they also discussed personal/intellectual growth through education, their ability to develop and accumulate middle-class cultural capital, while not abandoning their working-class roots, and the importance of stability over status.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Ethics
The research on which this paper is based received ethics approval from the Non-Medical Research Ethics Board (NMREB) Western University (Project ID: 118,369).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Wolfgang Lehmann
Wolfgang Lehmann is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Western University. His main research focus is on social class and higher education, as well as school-work transitions. His work has appeared in Sociology of Education, British Journal of Sociology of Education, British Educational Research Journal, Journal of Education and Work, and Work, Employment and Society. He edited Education and Society: Canadian Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2016).