Working Class Female Students' Experiences of Higher Education: Identities, Choices and Emotions (Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education) 3030889343, 9783030889340

Citation preview

Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education Identities, Choices and Emotions

Sam Shields

Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education Series Editor Yvette Taylor School of Education University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK

This Series aims to provide a comprehensive space for an increasingly diverse and complex area of interdisciplinary social science research: gender and education. Because the field of women and gender studies is developing rapidly and becoming ‘internationalised’  – as are traditional social science disciplines such as sociology, educational studies, social geography, and so on – there is a greater need for this dynamic, global Series that plots emerging definitions and debates and monitors critical complexities of gender and education. This Series has an explicitly feminist approach and orientation and attends to key theoretical and methodological debates, ensuring a continued conversation and relevance within the well-established, inter-disciplinary field of gender and education. The Series combines renewed and revitalised feminist research methods and theories with emergent and salient public policy issues. These include pre-compulsory and post-compulsory education; ‘early years’ and ‘lifelong’ education; educational (dis)engagements of pupils, students and staff; trajectories and intersectional inequalities including race, class, sexuality, age and disability; policy and practice across educational landscapes; diversity and difference, including institutional (schools, colleges, universities), locational and embodied (in ‘teacher’–‘learner’ positions); varied global activism in and beyond the classroom and the ‘public university’; educational technologies and transitions and the (ir)relevance of (in)formal educational settings; and emergent educational mainstreams and margins. In using a critical approach to gender and education, the Series recognises the importance of probing beyond the boundaries of specific territorial-legislative domains in order to develop a more international, intersectional focus. In addressing varied conceptual and methodological questions, the Series combines an intersectional focus on competing  – and sometimes colliding – strands of educational provisioning and equality and ‘diversity’, and provides insightful reflections on the continuing critical shift of gender and feminism within (and beyond) the academy. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14626

Sam Shields

Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education Identities, Choices and Emotions

Sam Shields School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

ISSN 2524-6445     ISSN 2524-6453 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education ISBN 978-3-030-88934-0    ISBN 978-3-030-88935-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of the study participants who generously gave up their time to share their experiences of education—I hope that your ‘life projects’ bring you much happiness. Thank you to my NU Women’s Writing Group—those Thursday mornings facilitated significant progress with writing this book! Thank you also to ECLS research mentoring in the form of Cristina McKean. I am grateful to Lottie Rhodes for her enthusiasm and constructive feedback. Thank you to Sian Holt for ‘liking Chapter 1.’ I would like to thank Jane McDonnell and Megan Murray for their excellent ‘gatekeeping’. With thanks to Eleanor Christie for suggesting this book and sincere thanks to the Palgrave Macmillan team—particularly Becky Wyde. Finally, thanks to Simon Crabtree for taking an interest in autonomous reflexivity and communicative reflexivity—I hope I can reciprocate with a suitable interest in nanoparticles.

v

Praise for Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education “A fascinating insight into the internal conversations animating working-class women’s varied experiences of pursuing, sustaining and benefitting from higher education. This highly accomplished study, with its robust methodology, excellent grounding in the historical and social context of higher education in the UK, and its incisive analysis of rich body of qualitative data will be of vital interest to scholars of education, sociology and gender alike. Those working in higher education settings will also find much here to illuminate the challenges faced by many of our students and prompt informed consideration of how we might best support our students in navigating them.” —Dr Jane McDonnell, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK “Working-class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education: identities, choices and emotions, by Sam Shields is an interesting, engaging read that explores the identities of working-class women and their experiences with university. Sam’s descriptions of these experiences are empathetic and enlightening, and provide insights into challenges faced by students from working-class families as they decided to attend university, figure out how to apply and finance this decision, and balance their life responsibilities with study. The findings from this work are worthy of consideration by any provider that is seeking to recruit and support ‘wider-­ participating’ students in ways that are most meaningful to those students.” —Dr Megan Kelly Murray, University of Hull, UK

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Women’s University Education: History and Policy 19 3 The Study 31 4 Deciding to Go to University 43 5 Learner Identities 59 6 Balancing Acts 75 7 Stepping Stones 89 8 Conclusion101 Appendix A: Overview of Participants109 Appendix B: Pen-portraits111 Index117

ix

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract  This book explores the identities, choices and emotions of working-class women undergraduates. These experiences are analysed through the Critical Realist concept of ‘internal conversation’ (Archer, Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge University Press, 1995; Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press, 2003). Twenty undergraduates took part in semi-­ structured interviews and included twelve working-class women. The participants were thematically labelled as ‘Horizon-Expanders’, ‘Incremental-Hybrids’, ‘Returners’ and ‘Mobility-Maintainers’. The working-class women showed varying levels of autonomous reflexivity and communicative reflexivity. Autonomous reflexives were characterised by making choices independently and these choices typically involved disjuncture with their natal backgrounds. On the other hand, communicative reflexives were characterised by making decisions in conjunction with significant others. This study suggests that these variations in the working-­ class women’s ‘type’ of internal conversation led to differential choices and experiences in relation to higher education. Keywords  Working-class women • Undergraduate • Educational success

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_1

1

2 

S. SHIELDS

1.1   Introduction This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on working-class women’s1 undergraduate experiences through Margaret Archer’s Critical Realist tool of internal conversation (Archer, 1995, 2003). This book explores the identities, choices and emotions of working-class women undergraduates. This introduction chapter is organised into five sections: first, briefly outlining the study focusing on the choices, emotions and experiences of working-class women undergraduates, second an overview of gender, social class and educational success is outlined, third, the concept of internal conversation is explained (Archer, 1995, 2003), fourth, the thematic labelling of participants is introduced and finally a brief overview of the scope of each chapter in the book is provided. The book proceeds as follows: Chap. 2 provides a historical overview of women’s higher education; Chap. 3 explains the research study; Chaps. 4 and 5 focus on the experiences of working-class women in relation to making sense of their decision to go to university; Chap. 6 considers the lived reality of being an undergraduate and Chap. 7 examines the women’s aspirations as future graduates. Chapter 8 offers a conclusion in relation to how the autonomous and communicative reflexive modes of internal conversation mediated decisions about going to university, university experiences and graduate aspirations in relation to morphogenesis (agency for change and transformation) and morphostasis (agency for stability and reproduction of existing contexts). This qualitative case study of twenty students charted experiences of university through semi-structured interviews. Fourteen students identified as working-class and of that fourteen, twelve were women. Six middle-­ class women were also interviewed. The women studied at three universities geographically located in the north of England (a description of each university can be found in Chap. 3). The women were all pursuing an academic study of Education or undertaking teacher education to qualify as primary school teachers. Teaching is a career that has historically been open to women and a vocation that has been more accepting of those from working-class backgrounds (please see Chap. 2).

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

1.2   Gender, Social Class and Educational Success: An Overview 1.2.1  Working-class Women and Education Studies have highlighted the complexity of how gender and social class intersect for working-class women within educational settings (e.g. Reay, 2003; Skeggs, 1997). Social class is always mediated in terms of gender and ethnicity and understanding these ‘contextualisations’ enables an exploration of differences and similarities (Archer et  al., 2001). Skeggs (1997) has also highlighted how our understandings of ‘woman’ always have a ‘classed’ element. Her study considered the experiences of working-­ class women undertaking ‘caring’ courses in further education and identified the women’s attempts to draw upon ‘respectable types of femininity’, suggesting that there is a pathologisation of white, working-class women in society (Skeggs, 1997). The experiences of mature, working-class women in higher education have identified a focus on undertaking a degree to enable enhanced occupational opportunities to improve the financial stability of their family lives (Reay, 2003). Examples of working-­ class women’s educational success in higher education support arguments suggesting that the gender equality movement has succeeded. Yet, Littler (2018, pp. 67–68) contends that ‘neoliberal, meritocratic post-feminism for example, can work well for you if you are a professional woman with no children’. Significantly, neoliberal, meritocratic conceptions of educational success tend to ignore structural disadvantages of gender or social class. The impact of structural disadvantage on the university experience of working-class higher education students has been explored in a number of seminal works (e.g. Bathmaker et al., 2016; Reay et al., 2005; Reay, 2017). The experiences of working-class undergraduates in ‘elite’ and ‘new’ institutions have been compared, with a focus on the extent to which working-­ class students feel that they ‘belong’ within these institutions (Reay et al., 2010). Working-class students have also been identified as using different criteria to middle-class students when considering which higher education institution they may attend. Working-class students are more likely to consider a ‘local’ institution in relation to their family home (Holton & Finn, 2018) and are more likely to consider a university where they believe that they will ‘fit in’ (typically a less prestigious institution). In this way, Reay et  al. (2005, pp.  112–113) have described working-class students as

4 

S. SHIELDS

‘contingent choosers’. Reay (2017) has also identified the psychic damage that attending an elite institution can have on a student from a working-­ class background. Working-class students in elite institutions tend not to feel that they have the same types of social and cultural capital as their middle-class peers. Middle-class university students are characterised as: ‘“fish in water”: it does not feel the weight of the water, and it takes the world about itself for granted’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p.  127). Alongside not having a sense of belonging in a university context, working-­ class students attending elite institutions often feel a sense of dislocation from their natal context (Reay, 2017). However overall, working-class women are still less likely to go to university than their middle-class counterparts and are less likely to attend an elite university (Thompson, 2019). 1.2.2  Gender The educational successes of the working-class women discussed in this study are arguably individual stories of achievement, not that of a general pattern (Thompson, 2019; Reay, 2017; Jackson & Marsden, 1962). Gender is defined for the purposes of this book as ‘culturally-mediated expectations and roles associated with masculinity and femininity’ (Lips, 2019, p. 2; Oakley, 1972; Francis & Paechter, 2015). A set of ‘feminine’ traits are seen to contribute to educational success for young women; teachers cite girls as conscientious, hard-working and compliant (Jones & Myhill, 2004). The focus on male underachievement since the 1990s has often led to assumptions that all girls have the ‘right’ attitude towards educational success. Baker (2010, p.  13) argues that young women are expected to have aspirations and ambitions commensurate with a ‘post-­ feminist framework of presumed equality and personal choice.’ The ‘successful girl’ embodies the ideal neoliberal, meritocratic student who is hardworking and striving towards qualifications and a career. Al-deen’s (2019) study of young Muslim women in Australia noted that ‘these young women’s desire to pursue higher education was strongly shaped by neoliberal discourses of economic independence and the features of contemporary girlhood such as ‘can do girl’ described by Harris (2004) and McRobbie’s ‘top girl’ (2007, p. 718). This discourse of the ‘successful girl’ is of course regularly challenged, as when socio-economic background is factored in, working-class girls often underperform in the education system (Pinkett & Roberts, 2019). The behaviour of disengaged working-class girls may be less obvious than

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

that of disruptive boys and is less likely to be identified by teachers (Dunne & Gazeley, 2008; Francis, 2006). Socio-economic background is generally a more significant factor than gender in relation to academic attainment. However, for working-class women with an academic attainment level suitable for entry into higher education, gender and social class interact differently to that of their middle-class women undergraduate peers, bringing about different experiences of university. Furthermore, Arnot (2002, p. 219) has problematised the adoption of neoliberal educational discourses by working-class women when they do not have the same economic advantages as their middle-class peers, arguing ‘the language of individualisation becomes a mechanism for legitimating gender divisions and class inequalities.’ Neoliberal, individualistic, meritocratic discourses ignore structural constraints faced by students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Instead, a discourse of ‘hard work’ being able to overcome challenges is perpetuated, with any inability on the part of individuals to overcome these challenges being characterised as a personal failing or of having inadequate aspirations. A popular discourse about working-class underachievement has been that of needing to ‘raise’ aspiration (Cabinet Office, 2011). Educational research has challenged the idea that working-class students have ‘low aspirations’ (Menzies, 2013) and has instead pointed to structural challenges, such as limited financial support (Munro, 2011). Teachers’ lack of confidence in the capabilities of working-class students may also contribute to the development of fragile learner identities (please see Chap. 5) shaped by lower self-esteem in learning capability and/or channelling these students into courses less suitable for higher education. Historically, a grammar school education for working-class children was seen to be the route to social mobility, although Jackson and Marsden (1962) highlighted the disconnect and sense of alienation often experienced by working-­ class grammar school pupils. Furthermore, Bukodi and Goldthorpe (2019) have highlighted how the mass higher education system has challenged the extent to which a university education can be a route to social mobility. Nevertheless, Higher Education policy discourses consider working-class students ‘transforming’ themselves (that is becoming middle-class) as unproblematic, with an implicit suggestion that working-­class cultures are in some way deficient (Loveday, 2014). For working-class students then, intergenerational changes in occupational status through higher education is seen as the route to upward social mobility predicated on the education system functioning meritocratically.

6 

S. SHIELDS

1.2.3  Social Class and the Research Participants Occupational scales are often used as a proxy for social class (e.g. Christie & Burke, 2021), as they provide significant indicators about educational levels and income levels. This study draws upon the ‘five class version’ of the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) system. The women in the study typically described the occupational role of their own mothers (perhaps as a way of making a generational comparison and also a number of the households in the study being headed by women). The study draws upon who was identified as the ‘household reference person’ (ONS, 2021) by the participants in considering social class background. The working-class women described familial occupations of: clerical worker, care worker, factory worker, housewife, cleaner. Based on the five classes version of the NS-SEC, these occupations could be described as: ‘4. Lower supervisory and technical occupations; 5. Semi-routine and routine occupations; non-employed (caring for home and family)’ (ONS, 2021). The working-class women were all the first person in their family to go to university (apart from one woman with an older brother who after graduation was now working in a non-graduate role—having been unable to find a graduate job related to his degree subject). The complexity of understanding and defining social class backgrounds has increasingly considered culture and the subjective interpretation of individuals (Bottero, 2014) in relation to class. Based on the analysis of the participants’ familial occupations, previous experience of higher education and their own markers of self-identification in relation to social class when asked, fourteen participants were characterised as working-class. Six women were characterised as middle-class based on the same five-­ pronged approach to social class categorisation. These women had university educated parents working in professional occupations. The middle-class women described both their parents occupations (all were from nuclear families) as ‘1. Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations. 2. Intermediate occupations’ (ONS, 2021). The mothers’ occupations were reported as, for example: dentist, teacher and nurse. Jackson and Marsden (1962) sought to differentiate strata within social class boundaries and acknowledged minimal differences between social classes, for example upper working-class backgrounds versus a ‘sunken’ middle-­ class background. As Loveday (2014, p. 579) argues ‘class-based cultures are complex and multi-faceted, not uniform tiers in a hierarchy’. However, in this particular study, the working-class women did not have family

1 INTRODUCTION 

7

backgrounds with high levels of educational attainment, nor did their ‘household reference person’ (ONS, 2021) appear to be in a professional occupation requiring higher levels of educational attainment. Two working-­class participants were keen to point out that their parents earnt good salaries, but nevertheless located their natal contexts as working-­ class in relation to cultural values associated with educational attainment. Therefore this study focuses on the lived experiences of social class for the participants in relation to economic security, as well as socio-cultural values. Bourdieu’s (1983; Bourdieu & Accardo, 1999; Bourdieu & Soulié, 1999) work has been ground-breaking for sociology of education researchers analysing how cultural capital, social capital, economic capital and symbolic capital shape the different educational experiences of middle-class and working-class students. 1.2.4  Bourdieu and Social Class Analyses in Education A significant number of studies (e.g. Naidoo, 2004; Webb et al., 2017; Bathmaker, 2015; Turnbull et al., 2019) have developed our understanding of the ways in which social class shapes experiences of education through Bourdieu’s concepts. Habitus is a significant concept with Bourdieu’s work. Habitus can be defined as ‘enduring dispositions’ (Bourdieu, 1990, p.  190). Habitus has been critiqued for being overly social deterministic and not accounting enough for individual agency (e.g. Sayer, 2005). This book then, whilst recognising and appreciating the significance of Bourdieu’s work in understanding the impact of social class on experiences of education; a deliberate decision to depart from Bourdieu’s work has been made. Instead, this book develops a theorisation of working-­ class women’s university experiences through the lens of Margaret Archer’s internal conversation. Margaret Archer’s (2003, p. 16) concept of internal conversation is ‘the process of mediation ‘through’ which agents respond to social forms—fallibly and corrigibly, but, above all, intentionally and differently’. A number of researchers have used a ‘Bourdieu plus’ model (e.g. Forbes & Maxwell, 2018), enabling considerations of further theorisation of agency, through the internal conversation. However, this type of theorisation has been challenging, as Margaret Archer’s earlier works make limited references to Bourdieu’s work (Mutch, 2004), although her most recent studies using internal conversation (2007, 2012) do provide a critique of the concept of habitus.

8 

S. SHIELDS

1.3   Internal Conversation This book analyses working-class women’s experiences of university through the lens of internal conversation. The concept of internal conversation focuses on the meaning-making of participants. Internal conversations are the conversations with the ‘self’ which identify the personal commitments and priorities of the individual. Archer (1995, 2003) describes the ‘life project’ as the ‘modus vivendi’ and suggests that internal conversation facilitates this. The concept of internal conversation is used to explore working-class women undergraduates’ perspectives about studying at university and how they make sense of this as a ‘life project’. Internal conversation considers how individuals reflexively mediate between structure and agency. As individuals are involuntarily placed within society, they are structurally impacted by different sets of enablements and constraints. Therefore internal conversation is an important theoretical tool to understand how individual’s agency is enacted in relation to their involuntary structural positioning within society. 1.3.1  Discernment-Deliberation-Dedication Archer (2003) identifies internal conversation as moving through three phases, describing this as ‘DDD’—‘Discernment  – Deliberation  – Dedication’. The ‘discernment’ phase is the initial phase for considering a new life project and a number of possibilities may be considered at this stage, with a consideration of ‘is it valuable and important to me?’ The ‘deliberation’ phase focuses on one of these possibilities by answering with a ‘yes’ to a project being worth pursuing. At this point of ‘deliberation’ more serious consideration is given to the practicalities of the proposed life project. Finally, the ‘dedication’ phase considers how the life project is being managed on a practical and emotional level—‘is the project going to plan?’, ‘does it still make the individual happy and satisfied?’. As the life project nears completion a new cycle of DDD starts towards a new phase of the life project or a new project. 1.3.2  Emotions Emotions are significant in conceptualising understandings of the internal conversation. Defining ‘emotion’ is fraught with difficulties (please see Barbalet, 2001 for a discussion of these challenges). However, in relation

1 INTRODUCTION 

9

to internal conversation Archer (2000, p. 220) contends that ‘our emotions are commentaries upon our concerns and what they basically tell us is how we are doing in pursuing them in the social environment of which they are a part.’ Furthermore, ‘because of their situational and relational character as imports, our emotionality is regarded as a continuous running commentary (that is something we are never without) and therefore it is only in sudden or urgent contexts that we are aware of a specific emotion’ (Archer, 2000, p. 197). Archer suggests that we use the internal conversation to monitor our levels of satisfaction with our life project and our emotions are a stimulus for this internal commentary. Sayer (2005, pp. 37–38) also supports this contention, arguing: Emotional responses to the inequalities and struggles of the social field and how people negotiate them are to be taken seriously both because they matter to people, and because they generally reveal something about their situation… Unless we take emotion seriously, … we cannot understand why any circumstances should prompt resistance or critical reflection.

Therefore our emotional commentaries are a key aspect of reflexivity and Archer (2003) focuses on four different types of reflexivity within internal conversations: Autonomous, Communicative, Meta-reflexive2 and Fractured.3 The analysis of the participants in this study, indicated that they fitted into two modes of reflexivity—autonomous reflexivity and communicative reflexivity. Theorisation with internal conversation is identified as providing the analytical tools to distinguish between the behaviours and wishes of working-class women. 1.3.3  Autonomous Reflexivity For Archer, autonomous reflexives are those who make their decisions in an independent and self-contained manner and are less concerned about factoring in the impact that these decisions may have on significant others. Autonomous reflexives are likely to focus on life changes that bring about social change—morphogenesis. Archer (2003, p.  212) identified autonomous reflexives as having ‘either sought to distance themselves, or accepted with equanimity that they were distancing themselves, from their initial context of involuntary placement.’ The expected nature of autonomous reflexivity by the families of the middle-class participants is differentiated through describing them in this study as ‘tralatitious’ autonomous

10 

S. SHIELDS

reflexives, as these were not a group who were seeking a ‘socio-economic break’ (Archer, 2003, p.  212), rather they were expected to engage in independence-seeking behaviours to maintain familial social expectations. 1.3.4  Communicative Reflexivity For communicative reflexives the decisions that they make are taken in conjunction with discussion with significant others—‘thought and talk’ (Archer, 2003, p.  167) and they are also much more likely to factor in significant others when considering the impact of life project plans. The decisions that communicative reflexives make are more akin to morphostasis—focusing on the reproduction of existing structures. Archer describes communicative reflexives as having three features in common ‘a remarkably high degree of ‘contextual continuity’, the ‘unproblematic dovetailing’ of their concerns, and a considerable ‘contentment’ with their established practices’ (Archer, 2003, p. 184). The communicative reflexives in this study are differentiated by the constraints that they faced. ‘Committed’ communicative reflexives had more scope (theoretically) to agentially respond to familial and geographical constraints, but actively dovetailed their lives to prioritise familial commitments. ‘Pragmatic’ communicative reflexives had strong familial and geographical ties related to being parents and romantic partners and these priorities had to be paramount when considering how to dovetail university and family.

1.4   Narratives of Women Undergraduates 1.4.1  Horizon-Expanders, Incremental-Hybrids, Returners and Mobility-Maintainers The narratives of the participants were categorised into four groups based on the concept of internal conversation: ‘Horizon-Expanders’ (autonomous reflexives, 5 participants, working-class), ‘Incremental-Hybrids’ (‘committed’ communicative reflexives, 6 participants, working-class), ‘Returners’ (‘pragmatic ‘communicative reflexives’, 3 participants, working-­ class) and ‘Mobility-Maintainers’ (‘tralatitious’ autonomous reflexives, 6 participants, middle-class). A vignette of each individual participant is provided in Appendices A and B.  A brief description of each group of participants is outlined below:

1 INTRODUCTION 

11

The Horizon-Expanders (autonomous reflexives) were academically capable and critical of the aspirations of their families. Equally the families of the Horizon-Expanders were often reported as being bemused by university study and of perceiving it at best as an intellectual eccentricity or worst as a form of snobbery. Four of the five Horizon-Expanders were conscious of previous experiences of financial hardship and were the most concerned about the financial demands of university. The Horizon-­ Expanders had similar aspirations to their middle-class friends in terms of university experience and graduate ambitions. All three of the Horizon-­ Expander women and one male Horizon-Expander attended Civic-Global University. The second male Horizon-Expander attended Modern City University. The Incremental-Hybrids (‘committed’ communicative reflexives) were working-class women aged between 18 years old and 22 years old, who were focusing on balancing and maintaining family relationships with academic study and hoped that academic study would yield longer-term vocational stability through an incremental approach to beginning a graduate career—typically as a primary school teacher. The Incremental-Hybrids had often suffered from academic setbacks in secondary or further education, but were resilient in addressing these to achieve their vocational aspiration of becoming qualified primary school teachers, placing a greater emphasis on their skills and attributes of working with children. A number of the Incremental-Hybrids planned to gradually move from being a teaching assistant, outdoor educator or nursery-nurse to teacher. One Incremental-Hybrid planned to work in an informal learning context supporting children with creative writing. Family was paramount and Incremental-Hybrids planned on only limited geographical mobility to achieve their university and career goals. Four Incremental-Hybrids attended Old College University and two attended Civic-Global University. The Returners (‘pragmatic’ communicative reflexives) were working-­ class mature women students (30 years old and over). In the past they had had a mixture of positive and negative educational experiences—recognising themselves as intellectually capable, but factors such as bullying and disillusionment had meant they had left education after gaining some Further Education. The Returners had reached critical junctures in their lives which had resulted in the decision to return to education with a longer-term goal of improving their own quality of life and that of their families. Two Returners attended Old College University and one attended Modern City University.

12 

S. SHIELDS

The Mobility-Maintainers (‘tralatitious’ autonomous reflexives) were middle-class women aged between 20  years old and 22  years old. The expectation that the Mobility-Maintainers would go to university was strongly reinforced by their families and sixth-forms. The geographical mobility of moving away from home and living independently was expected of the Mobility-Maintainers by their families and was seen as part of the ‘typical’ university experience of independence from the natal context. The hard work and studying undertaken by the Mobility-Maintainers was an expectation that they held of themselves and was a continuation of their past experiences of education. Their families were supportive in offering advice and support to facilitate graduate career paths. Five of the Mobility-Maintainers attended Civic-Global University and one Mobility-­ Maintainer attended Modern City University.

1.5   Structure and Contents of Book Chapter 2: The history of women’s university education is discussed. First, the impact of the ‘London Nine’ on university education for women is explored, before secondly, comparing women’s education at the civic universities to Oxbridge, thirdly, ‘The Pledge’ is discussed, before a consideration of the impact of the Robbins Report and the Open University on women’s education. Finally, more recent educational policy trends are considered up to the present day. Chapter 3: The methodology and research methods of the study are discussed. The chapter begins with a discussion of life story narratives, second the universities and participants are described, third the semi-­ structured interview process is explained and finally the data analysis process is explained. Chapter 4: The chapter considers the working-class women’s internal conversations in the discernment phase. The internal conversations focused on a moral entitlement to a place at university based on academic capabilities for the Horizon-Expanders.4 The Incremental-Hybrids and Returners5 viewed university as a way of fulfilling career aspirations (typically in teaching). For the Horizon-Expanders, Incremental-Hybrids and Returners, the discernment phase of internal conversation when considering if university was a ‘worthwhile’ project was extensive and protracted, when compared to that of the Mobility-Maintainers. The Mobility-­ Maintainers focused on ‘which subject’ and ‘which city’ in their consideration of going to university.

1 INTRODUCTION 

13

Chapter 5: This chapter focuses on the ‘deliberation’ phase of internal conversations about going to university in relation to learner identities. The deliberation phase of internal conversation for the working-class women centred around reflections on the likelihood of being a successful learner within the university context. The findings indicated that characterisations of learner identity are shaped by feelings of capability and belonging. The Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers had ‘strong’ learner identities. The Incremental-Hybrids and Returners had mixed experiences of academic achievement and less consistent experiences of ‘belonging’ in learning environments. All four sub-groups had internalised neoliberal, meritocratic conceptions of individual responsibility and hard work. Chapter 6: This chapter discusses how term-time paid employment and caring responsibilities are ubiquitous amongst working-class women and have a detrimental impact on the time available to devote to studying. The dedication phase of internal conversation focused on this balancing act. The employed working-class students did not typically exhibit the visible studying behaviours of the Mobility-Maintainers. Instead, an ‘ethics of accommodation’, was adopted, in which the reality of enacting the ‘ultimate concern’ of becoming a university graduate was monitored, through engaging in inconspicuous and constricted studying practices. Rather than a lack of commitment to studying; studying was a central preoccupation which was prioritised in an abstract and emotional sense. Chapter 7: This chapter explores the women’s understandings of what social mobility meant to them and significantly how important it was to them as a goal after graduating. This new phase of the life project indicated that internal conversations were characterised by either fulfilling neoliberal ideals or focusing on what would facilitate the greatest sense of personal happiness. This chapter suggests that higher education can be used as a vehicle for upward social mobility by working-class women, but equally, education can be seen as an end in itself, with a greater focus on ‘dovetailing’, so that life project career goals fit with overriding priorities of family and friends. Chapter 8: This concluding chapter considers factors shaping morphogenetic enablements or morphostatic constraints—namely: friendships, teachers, familial support and working-class femininities. The chapter concludes by suggesting that working-class women’s identities, choices and emotions in relation to higher education are not homogenous. Furthermore, ‘post-feminist’ neoliberal discourses of individualised

14 

S. SHIELDS

ambition did not resonate with the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners who prioritised family commitments. For the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners, their internalisation of neoliberal conceptions of hard work and becoming a graduate, led to tangential and bounded expectations of social mobility—morphostasis. However, for the Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers, their autonomous reflexivity aligned more closely with meritocratic, neoliberal discourses for transformative upward social mobility—morphogenesis. This indicates that the ‘neoliberal woman’ (Rottenberg, 2019) has little relevance and meaning to those whose identities and aspirations are tied up with working-class femininities (Evans, 2009). The internal conversation, therefore in this study has shed light on the complexities of how: agents reflexively deliberate upon the social circumstances that they confront. Because they possess personal identity as defined by their individual configuration of concerns, they know what they care about most and what they seek to realise in society. Because they are capable of internally deliberating about themselves in relation to their social circumstances, they are authors of projects that they (fallibly) believe will achieve something of what they want from and in society. (Archer, 2003, p. 130)

Notes 1. For readability of the book, all of the participants are described as women, unless there is a specific gendered comparison/different gendered experience identified in the data analysis with the two working-class male undergraduates. 2. Meta-reflexives tend to evaluate their situations based on their concerns and dissatisfactions with society. Meta-reflexives do not consider the impact of their decisions with regards to upward, downward or lateral mobility and instead focus on addressing their societal concerns (Archer, 2003). Archer’s (2012) study of Sociology undergraduates at a prestigious English University, identified meta-reflexives as a group of young people who were interested in third sector employment and bringing about societal change. 3. Fractured reflexives find that their internal conversation does not guide them as to what to what action to take and they tend to remain impeded or ‘stuck’. Therefore their internal conversation is not helpful in guiding them towards a modus vivendi.

1 INTRODUCTION 

15

4. The term ‘Horizon-Expander’ is used by Alvesson and Sandberg (2021) to explain how researcher’s develop their understanding. 5. The term ‘adult returner’ is used by Gallacher et al. (2002) in relation to subjects returning to further education, likewise the same term is used by Anderson et al. (2014) in relation to subjects embarking on higher education. The term ‘women returner’ is used by Tomlinson et al. (2009) in consideration of their economic contributions to society.

References Al-deen, T. J. (2019). Agency in action: Young Muslim women and negotiating higher education in Australia. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(5), 598–613. Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2021). Pre-understanding: An interpretation-­ enhancer and horizon-expander in research. Organization Studies, 00(0), 1–18. Anderson, A., Johnston, B., & McDonald, A. (2014). Patterns of learning in a sample of adult returners to higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 38(4), 536–552. Archer, A., Hutchings, M., & Leathwood, C. (2001). Engaging with commonality and difference: Theoretical tensions in the analysis of working-class women’s educational discourses. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 11(1), 41–62. Archer, M. S. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2000). Being human the problem of agency. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2007). Making our way through the world. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2012). The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge University Press. Arnot, M. (2002). Reproducing gender? Essays an educational theory and feminist polities. RoutledgeFalmer. Baker, J. (2010). Great expectations and post-feminist accountability: Young women living up to the ‘successful girls’ discourse. Gender and Education, 22(1), 1–15. Barbalet, J. M. (2001). Emotion, social theory, and social structure: A macrosociological approach. Cambridge University Press. Bathmaker, A.-M. (2015). Thinking with Bourdieu: Thinking after Bourdieu. Using ‘field’ to consider in/equalities in the changing field of English higher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(1), 61–80.

16 

S. SHIELDS

Bathmaker, A.-M., Ingram, N., Abrahams, J., Hoare, A., Waller, R., & Bradley, H. (2016). Higher education, social class and social mobility: The degree generation. Palgrave Macmillan. Bottero, W. (2014). Chapter 24—‘Class’ in Britain. In J. Holmwood & J. Scott (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of sociology in Britain (pp. 536–562). Palgrave Macmillan. Bourdieu, P. (1983). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory of research and research in the sociology of education (pp.  241–258). Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990). In other words: essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P., & Accardo, A. (1999). Academic destiny. In P. Bourdieu, et al., The weight of the world social suffering in contemporary society (pp.  514–528). Polity Press. Bourdieu, P., & Soulié, C. (1999). A compromising success. In P. Bourdieu, et al., The weight of the world social suffering in contemporary society (pp. 529–535). Polity Press. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L.  J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Polity Press. Bukodi, E., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (2019). Social mobility and education in Britain research, politics and policy. Cambridge University Press. Cabinet Office. (2011). Opening doors, breaking barriers: A strategy for social mobility. London: Crown Copyright. Available online: http://www.dpm.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files_dpm/resources/opening-­d oors-­ breaking-­barriers.pdf Christie, F., & Burke, C. (2021). Stories of family in working-class graduates’ early careers. British Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 85–104. Dunne, M., & Gazeley, L. (2008). Teachers, social class and underachievement. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(5), 451–463. Evans, S. (2009). In a different place: Working-class girls and higher education. Sociology, 43(2), 340–355. Forbes, J., & Maxwell, C. (2018). Bourdieu plus: Understanding the creation of agentic, aspirational girl subjects in elite schools. In G.  Stahl, D.  Wallace, C. Burke, & S. Threadgold (Eds.), International perspectives on theorizing aspirations: Applying Bourdieu’s tools (pp. 161–174). Bloomsbury Academic. Francis, B. (2006). Heroes or zeroes? The discursive positioning of ‘underachieving boys’ in English neo-liberal education policy. Journal of Education Policy, 21(2), 187–200. Francis, B., & Paechter, C. (2015). The problem of gender categorisation: Addressing dilemmas past and present in gender and education research. Gender and Education, 27(7), 776–790.

1 INTRODUCTION 

17

Gallacher, J., Crossan, B., Field, J., & Merrill, B. (2002). Learning careers and the social space: Exploring the fragile identities of adult returners in the new further education. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 21(6), 493–509. Harris, A. (2004). Future girl: Young women in the twenty first century. Routledge. Holton, M., & Finn, K. (2018). Being-in-motion: The everyday (gendered and classed) embodied mobilities for UK university students who commute. Mobilities, 13(3), 426–440. Jackson, B., & Marsden, D. (1962). Education and the working class. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Jones, S., & Myhill, D. (2004). ‘Troublesome boys’ and ‘compliant girls’: Gender identity and perceptions of achievement and underachievement. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(5), 547–561. Lips, H. M. (2019). Gender the basics (2nd ed.). Routledge. Littler, J. (2018). Against meritocracy: Culture, power and myths of mobility. Routledge. Loveday, V. (2014). Working-class participation, middle-class aspiration? Value, upward mobility and symbolic indebtedness in higher education. The Sociological Review, 63, 570–588. McRobbie, A. (2007). Top girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract. Cultural Studies, 21(4), 718–737. Menzies, L. (2013, January). Educational aspirations: How English schools can work with parents to keep them on track. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Munro, L. (2011). ‘Go Boldly, Dream Large!’: The challenges confronting non-­ traditional students at university. Australian Journal of Education, 55(2), 115–131. Mutch, A. (2004). Constraints on the internal conversation: Margaret Archer and the structural shaping of thought. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 34(4), 429–445. Naidoo, R. (2004). Fields and institutional strategy: Bourdieu on the relationship between higher education, inequality and society. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 457–471. Oakley, A. (1972). Sex, gender and society. Maurice Temple Smith. Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2021). Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/ otherclassifications/thenationalstatisticssocioeconomicclassificationnssecrebasedonsoc2010 Pinkett, M., & Roberts, M. (2019). Boys don’t try? Rethinking masculinity in schools. Routledge. Reay, D. (2003). A risky business? Mature working-class women students and access to higher education correspondence. Gender and Education, 15(3), 301–317.

18 

S. SHIELDS

Reay, D. (2017). Miseducation: Inequality, education and the working-classes. Policy Press. Reay, D., Crozier, G., & Clayton, J. (2010). ‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working-­ class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1), 107–124. Reay, D., David, M. E., & Ball, S. (2005). Degrees of choice social class, race and gender in higher education. Trentham Books. Rottenberg, C. (2019). Women who work: The limits of the neoliberal feminist paradigm. Gender, Work & Organization, 26, 1073–1082. Sayer, A. (2005). The moral significance of class. Cambridge University Press. Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender. SAGE. Thompson, R. (2019). Education, inequality and social class: Expansion and stratification in educational opportunity. Routledge. Tomlinson, J., Olsen, W., & Purdam, K. (2009). Women returners and potential returners: Employment profiles and labour market opportunities—A case study of the United Kingdom. European Sociological Review, 25(3), 349–363. Turnbull, S.  M., Locke, K., Vanholsbeeck, F., & O’Neale, D.  R. J. (2019). Bourdieu, networks, and movements: Using the concepts of habitus, field and capital to understand a network analysis of gender differences in undergraduate physics. PLOS One, 14(9), e0222357. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0222357 Webb, S., Burke, P.  J., Nichols, S., Roberts, S., Stahl, G., Threadgold, S., & Wilkinson, J. (2017). Thinking with and beyond Bourdieu in widening higher education participation. Studies in Continuing Education, 39(2), 138–160.

CHAPTER 2

Women’s University Education: History and Policy

Abstract  This chapter charts 150 years of women’s university education. First, early women pioneers of university education including the ‘London Nine’ and the founding of Girton College are discussed. Second, teaching careers for women upon graduation in the early twentieth century are explored. Third, the women’s single-sex Oxbridge colleges are compared to the co-educational civic universities. Fourth, a discussion of the Robbins Report wanting women to benefit from the expansion of university provision is outlined. Fifth, women undertaking Open University degrees are discussed. Sixth, the social composition of universities as highlighted by the Dearing Report and university provision under the New Labour government are explained. Finally financing university study since 2019 is emphasised due to its relevance to this study of working-class women undergraduates. Keywords  ‘London Nine’ • Oxbridge • Robbins Report • Tuition fees

2.1   Introduction This book focuses on the experiences of working-class women undergraduates, yet access to higher education for both women and those from working-class backgrounds is a relatively recent phenomena. It was not until the expansion of higher education in the 1960s that the numbers of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_2

19

20 

S. SHIELDS

both women and those from working-class backgrounds started to increase. The number of UK women accessing higher education reached parity with men in the 1990s (48% in 1990 and 51% in 1995) (Vincent-­ Lancrin, 2008, p.  267). However, it is middle-class women who have largely benefitted from the expansion of higher education. Those from working-class backgrounds are still less likely to go to university, and those that do go to university tend to be located in less prestigious institutions and have qualitatively different experiences of university to their middle-­ class peers. This chapter charts both access to university for women and also the gradual shift in the social composition of those entering higher education.

2.2   University Provision for Women in the Late Nineteenth Century and before the First World War In 1868 the University of London agreed to allow women to take its exams. Nine women took these exams (six exams had to be passed from a range of subjects: Latin, English Language, Geography, Mathematics, Philosophy and two from—Greek, French, German and Italian) (Carter, 2018). The six women who passed were awarded a ‘Certificate of Proficiency’. In 1879 the University of London agreed to confer university degrees on women. In 1869 Girton College was set up by Emily Davies to offer university education to women, although Cambridge University was the last English university to award degrees to women in 1948. ‘Howarth and Curthroy’s research on 959 women who attended Oxford’s women’s colleges between 1881 and 1913 indicates that 52% of students’ fathers were professional or upper-class, 4% semi-professional, 22% manufacturers or merchants, 3% skilled workers or tradesmen with 19% unknown’ (Gibert, 1994, p. 407). The social background of women at the civic universities appears to be slightly different from that of Oxbridge and London. ‘Of a group of 224 women who attended the universities and university colleges in Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester between 1877–1907, 18% of student’s fathers were professional or upper-­ class, 27% semi-professional, 31% manufacturers or merchants, 16% skilled workers or tradesmen with 8% working-class fathers (Gibert, 1994, p. 407). Women from upper-class and middle-class backgrounds paved the

2  WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: HISTORY AND POLICY 

21

way for higher education for women and many went on to promote educational opportunities for girls, such as Frances Buss.

2.3   Women’s Experiences of University in the Early Twentieth Century Women’s experiences of university in the early twentieth century appear to have been shaped by if they attended a single-sex university college (Oxbridge or London) or if they had attended one of the civic universities (Dyhouse, 2003). The more affluent social composition of women students at Oxbridge or London meant that they lived on-site at the university. The traditional ideas of decorum and femininity in the early twentieth century meant that the women’s colleges at Oxbridge required its students to have a chaperone present when visited by male relatives. Only one in ten students at Oxbridge were women. This is in contrast to the civic universities which had been co-educational in their inception and attracted local students who lived at home. The civic universities had always been intended to cater for the needs of the local economy and consequently had attracted students who were able to commute. Therefore, the loco parentis that concerned the Oxbridge women’s colleges about ‘protecting’ their female students was not initially a concern for the civic institutions. The students at the civic universities would mainly meet in the lecture theatre and the library. The female students had separate common rooms (mainly spaces for putting their belongings and eating their lunch). There is evidence (Gibert, 1994, p. 421) to suggest that the students campaigned for a ‘joint common room’ prior to World War One, and although they were not successful, there is no evidence of specific rules separating male and female students out. The students at the civic universities set up a separate Student Union for men and women, but they co-hosted many events together. Significantly, in terms of the number of student offices, such as President of the Student Union, women held 50% of the offices, at a time when they only made up about one third of the undergraduate population. This suggests that attitudes towards women at the civic universities were very different from that of the hostility women faced at Oxbridge during the early twentieth century. However, the proportion of women in the undergraduate population peaked at the end of the 1920s until reaching about 40% in the early 1980s (Dyhouse, 1997).

22 

S. SHIELDS

2.4   Teaching Careers for Women in the Early to Mid-Twentieth Century Teaching was the most common career for women graduating before 1914 (Dyhouse, 1997, p.  208). However, the image of the ‘spinster teacher’ was derided, and upper-class families feared that allowing young women access to higher education would result in them becoming ‘unmarriageable bluestockings’ (Thane, 2004, p. 212). Nevertheless, for young women teaching was an accessible route into higher education and a career. The Board of Education in 1910 offered students four years of tuition fees and a maintenance loan if they ‘pledged’ to teach (the ‘Pledge’ route into higher education remained in place until about 1950). This award enabled students to complete a BA degree or BSc degree before undertaking a year of teacher training. Women who undertook the ‘pledge’ agreed to teach for five years after completing their teacher training. The limited number of local education authority grants and bursaries available to women made this an attractive option for those that had planned to teach anyway. It also offered a narrow path to higher education for women whose families could not financially support them. Between 1923–1924, just under 50% (1977) Board of Education grants went to women (Dyhouse, 1997). A study of women who had studied at Girton College had identified the most women had moved into teaching or secretarial work (Dyhouse, 1997). The wider shift in societal attitudes in the early twentieth century with the Suffrage Movement campaigning for women’s right to vote (1918 for some women and 1928 for all men and women) perhaps helps to explain the proportion of women at university during the late 1920s. Additionally, many in the Suffrage Movement were also campaigning for women’s education. The ‘marriage bar’ compelling women to leave their jobs when married (single women and widows were allowed to undertake paid employment) was prevalent during the inter-war period with many women graduates acting as secretaries to their husbands or volunteering in the community. However, the labour shortages during World War Two meant that the ‘marriage bar’ was removed. Marriage in itself also became less of a ‘guarantee’ of being provided for financially. The impact of two World Wars on the male population, meant that women in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s did not have the same expectations of getting married. Furthermore, middle-class parents did not necessarily have the financial

2  WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: HISTORY AND POLICY 

23

resources to support their daughters if they did not marry and therefore going to university became increasingly acceptable for women.

2.5   The Robbins Report and the Expansion of Higher Education The Robbins Report (1963) however recognized in the early 1960s that only a limited number of women were still receiving first degrees. The Robbins Report was based on the principle of higher education for any individual who had the ability to study at this level and who wished to benefit and was keen for women to benefit from higher education. Three inter-related issues appeared to be impacting on women going to university: first, less women were staying on at school to complete A Levels than men and second, the occupations women were entering did not require a degree. However, third, the late 1950s had seen a significant rise in the number of young people with A Levels overall, and this greater demand for university places meant that not all eligible students could be offered a place (Chitty, 2009, p. 197). The Robbins Report indicated that women would increasingly work in occupations that would require graduates. Additionally, the Robbins Report suggested that new degree courses in languages, as well as teacher training would attract women. Women, alongside those from disadvantaged backgrounds were seen to be amongst those who were part of the ‘untapped’ ability that were not accessing higher education. Seven ‘new’ universities were opened in the 1960s and it became apparent that they did not have any difficulties in filling their places. The ‘new’ universities in the 1960s (Lancaster, York, Sussex, Warwick, Essex, Kent, East Anglia) began to enjoy almost equal parity of male and female students, for example at the University of York in the 1960s, 43.4% of their undergraduates were women (Dyhouse, 2006, p.  102). This meant that as of the 1970s there was increasingly a push for co-residence at Oxbridge. In 1971 Girton college applied for ‘enabling powers’ to admit men. The Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1975. In 1970 the age of majority was changed from 21 to 18. This meant that universities were no longer in loco parentis and therefore rules about gender segregation at universities were relaxed. Thomas (2002, p. 279) articulates that one of the reasons cited for the student protests of the late 1960s was ‘the new influx of working-class students was bringing down

24 

S. SHIELDS

the tone of university life.’ However, since the early 1960s most students had benefitted from financial assistance in going to university and therefore the dependency on parents that had characterised the experiences of previous generations was no longer the norm, and the need for deference to older generations was not required in the same way. The expansion of higher education in the late 1960s onwards started to benefit working-class women (although these should be read as individual stories of success rather than an overarching trend to a significant change in the social composition of universities). For many of these working-class women entering higher education this was a discombobulating experience as they no longer felt that they belonged at home or at university: …I felt split, fragmented, cut off from the suburban semi, where I couldn’t tell my mother what was happening. Where nobody knew what academic work was (and where it would have been better to announce that I was going to produce a baby, not a thesis). I felt in the old place as in the new, that if I opened my mouth it would be to say the wrong thing. Yet, I desired so much, so very much to produce utterances which, if said in one context, would not lead to rejection in the other. (Walkerdine, 1985, p. 64)

In Walkerdine’s reflection on university it was apparent that whilst university was increasingly becoming a possibility for women, it could also lead to uncomfortable disjunctors with the natal context, for example with the lives of their own mothers. Equally, for women without the cultural capital of past familial experiences of higher education, they were not necessarily cognisant with the privileged backgrounds of many of their undergraduate peers. However, working-class girls who had received a grammar school education and stayed at school to take their A Levels did now have the opportunity to go to university and benefit from the expansion of university provision advocated by the Robbins Report. Although, it should also be noted that the number of grammar school places for girls was much lower than that of boys. The 1944 Education Act had meant that all children were to receive secondary education up until the age of 15. For the working-­class children who were ‘lucky enough’ to pass the 11+ and have their parents find the money for the school uniform there was a slightly greater chance of going to university, if their parents also then allowed them to stay at school to study A Levels. It was felt that requesting parental contributions to support university study would act as a disincentive as

2  WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: HISTORY AND POLICY 

25

families adjusted to the idea of girls benefitting from higher education, as well as those from backgrounds unfamiliar with higher education. The 1962 Education Act was based on the same principles of opportunity and access for those that could benefit as that of the 1944 Education Act. Furthermore, Deem (1981) highlights that by the late 1960s, the idea of women’s role being primarily focused on the home was being challenged, meaning that opportunities for a career became increasingly feasible. Deem (1981) argues that most opportunities for women in education have been achieved in periods of full employment and have been underpinned by social democratic ideals.

2.6   The Open University The Open University admitted its first students in 1971. It offered distance learning degrees for those that had work and family commitments and who had not had the opportunity of a traditional university education. ‘The Open University students were some of the first generation of women (Woodley & McIntosh, 1975) many of whom had left school before the Robbins Report was published, to be able to take advantage of this expansion’ (Kirkup et  al., 2015, p.  431). It is argued (Heron, 1985; Kirkup et al., 2015) that feminism became a less middle-class outlook in the late 1970s and 1980s as more working-class women were able to benefit from higher education, often in the form of part-time courses or through the Open University which gave working-class women access to ideas related to gender and feminist theory. Although, Kirkup et al. (2015) comment that many working-class women experienced a sense of puzzlement from their families. Kirkup et al. (2015, p. 435) cite: ‘Laura aged 32, tells her mother she has started an Open University degree and her mother’s response was: ‘what the bloody hell are you doing that for?’ Plummer (2000) argues that opportunities for working-class women via the Open University were perhaps overstated as it was still disproportionately those from a middle class background that benefitted from any expansion in higher education.

2.7   Dearing Report The number of students going to university increased dramatically from the 1960s to 2000. One in sixteen young people went to university in the early 1960s (400,000) compared to one in three by 2000 (2,000,000)

26 

S. SHIELDS

(Blanden & Machin, 2004, p. 230). Although young people from wealthier backgrounds have always benefitted to a greater extent from higher education, the expansion of higher education has increased the relative gap between students from ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ backgrounds. The percentage of young people attending university with parents from professional backgrounds in 1991/1992 was 55% and had increased relatively to 72% in 1998/1999. Over the same period of time young people with unskilled parents attending went from 6% to 13% (Blanden & Machin, 2004 citing Glennerster, 2001). Ron Dearing’s 1997 (NCIHE, 1997, p. 102, section 7.7) inquiry into higher education commented: Participation rates amongst students from the Registrar General’s socio-­ economic groups IV and V rose steeply during the late 1980s and early 1990s across the UK. But the ratio of participation between socio-economic groups did not change significantly. The share of participation in higher education by those from professional and managerial groups (groups I and II) is much higher than their share in the economically active population. The share by those from the three other socio-economic groups is lower than their share in the economically active population.

Dearing (1997) identified women’s participation as being demographically representative. However, in terms of degree subject women were identified as under-represented in technology and engineering and over-­ represented in arts, humanities and the natural sciences. The New Labour government in 1997 chose to adopt the Dearing Report’s principle of students contributing towards their higher education, but the government chose not to follow their recommendations with regards to retaining some form of maintenance grant. The 1998 Higher Education Act removed the maintenance grants available to students and replaced this entirely with student loans (student loans to cover part of living costs had been available since the 1990s). Many working-class students came from strongly debt-averse backgrounds and there was a strong resistance from working-class families in supporting borrowing money as families did not fully understand the nature of the repayment process. In addition to replacing grants with loans, a £1000 upfront tuition fee payment for those with parents earning more than £35,000 was introduced. For those with parents earning between 23,000 and 35,000 they would pay a proportion of the maximum £1000. 30% of students had parents earning less than 23,000 and they were exempt from paying tuition fees.

2  WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: HISTORY AND POLICY 

27

2.8   The Higher Education Act (2004) By 2004 the number of young people from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds had not increased in relative terms and maintenance grants were re-introduced. For students with parents earning less than £10,000 they were entitled to £1040 in 2004. When tuition fees of £3000 were introduced for all students in 2006/2007, the maintenance grants for the poorest students increased to £2700. A tuition fee loan was made available to all students, with means-tested maintenance grants made available alongside student loans.

2.9   Browne Review (2010) The Browne Review in 2010 (DfBIS, 2020) recommended lifting the cap on tuition fees. The government decided to raise fees in 2012, but to cap this at £9000. Maintenance grants were phased out and were no longer available after 2016. Although tuition fees could increase with inflation, there has been a temporary freeze of £9250 as of 2017. Maintenance loans (student loans) are means-tested, meaning that the poorest students are likely to leave university with the most debt. Universities are expected to use part of their tuition fees to offer bursaries to their poorest students.

2.10   Education Funding in 2020 The study reported in this book has been conducted against a backdrop of student tuition fees of £9250 and differing levels of maintenance loan in England. In 2019 there was a maximum loan of £8944 available for students who are living away from home, outside of London with a parental income of £25,000 or less. There was a minimum loan of £4168 for students who are living away from home, outside of London with a parental income of just over £62,000 (gov.uk, 2020).

2.11   Conclusion In conclusion, when writing about the education of women, social class is key in the way that it connects with expectations in relation to both gender and social standing. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was middle-class women that certainly initially benefitted the most from the expansion of higher education (although that it is not to dismiss the challenges they

28 

S. SHIELDS

often faced as women in a largely male dominated environment at Oxbridge and London). Later, the expansion of higher education (1960s onwards) started to benefit working-class women (although these should be read as individual stories of success rather than an overarching trend to a significant change in the social composition of universities). For many of these working-class women entering higher education it was a discombobulating experience as they no longer belonged at home or at university. Reay et al. (2010) note more recently how the institutional habitus of different universities may still mean that students either feel that they do belong or that they do not belong. This concern about belonging can mean that students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds with the required grades for selective institutions may choose not to apply/attend these institutions (Sutton Trust, 2014). Overall, the wider changes to access to higher education and careers for women should be understood against the broader socio-cultural-historical context of the time.

References Blanden, J., & Machin, S. (2004). Educational inequality and the expansion of UK Higher Education. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 51(2), 230–249. Carter, P. (2018, January 28). The first women at university: Remembering “the London Nine”. Times Higher Education Blog. Chitty, C. (2009). Education policy in Britain (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. Deem, R. (1981). State policy and ideology in the education of women, 1944–1980. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2(2), 131–143. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DfBIS). (2020). An independent review of higher education funding and student finance/Browne Report. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from www.independent.gov.uk/browne-­report Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2003). The future of higher education. Norwich: HMSO. Dyhouse, C. (1997). Signing the pledge? Women’s investment in university education and teacher training before 1939. History of Education, 26(2), 207–223. Dyhouse, C. (2003). Troubled identities: Gender and status in the history of the mixed college in English universities since 1945. Women’s History Review, 12(2), 169–194. Dyhouse, C. (2006). Students: A gendered history. Routledge. Gibert, J. S. (1994). Women students and student life at England’s civic universities before the First World War. History of Education, 23(4), 405–422. Glennerster, H. (2001). United Kingdom education 1997–2001. Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion CASE Paper 50.

2  WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: HISTORY AND POLICY 

29

Gov.uk. (2020). Retrieved December 30, 2020, from www.gov.uk/ studentfinance Heron, L. (Ed.). (1985). Truth, dare or promise girls growing up in the fifties. London: Virago. Kirkup, G., Whitelegg, L., & Rowbotham, I. (2015). The role of Women’s/ Gender Studies in the changing lives of British women. Gender and Education, 27(4), 430–444. NCIHE (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education). (1997). Higher education in the learning society (the Dearing Report). London: HMSO. Plummer, G. (2000). Failing working-class girls. Trentham Books. Reay, D., Crozier, G., & Clayton, J. (2010). ‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working-­ class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1), 107–124. Sutton Trust. (2014). Higher Education access: Evidence of effectiveness of university access strategies and approaches, May 2014, Sutton Trust. Thane, P. (2004). Chapter 10: The careers of female graduates of Cambridge University, 1920s–1970s. In D. Mitch, J. Brown, & M. H. D. van Leeuwen (Eds.), Origins of the modern career (pp. 207–224). Ashgate. Thomas, N. (2002). Challenging myths of the 1960s: The case of student protest in Britain. Twentieth Century British History, 13(3), 277–297. Vincent-Lancrin, S. (2008). Chapter 10. The reversal of gender inequalities in higher education: An on-going trend. In Higher education to 2030, vol. 1: Demography (pp. 265–298). OECD. Walkerdine, V. (1985). Dreams from an ordinary childhood. In L. Heron (Ed.), Truth, dare or promise girls growing up in the fifties. Virago. Woodley, A., & McIntosh, N. (1975). Excellence, equality and the open university. Survey Research Department Paper No. 110. Milton Keynes, UK: Institute of Educational Technology, Open University.

CHAPTER 3

The Study

Abstract  The study explored working-class women’s identities, choices and emotions in relation to higher education through the concept of internal conversation. First, an overview of the participants and universities is provided. Second, the life story approach taken to the research is discussed. Third, the semi-structured interview process is explained. Fourth, feminist interviewing principles and rapport are explored. Fifth, ethical issues are identified and addressed. Finally, the thematic data analysis (Braun & Clarke, Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101, 2006), and the use of Archer’s (Structure, agency and internal conversation. Cambridge University Press, 2003) inner emotional dialogue to support this theorisation is summarised. Keywords  Life story • Semi-structured interviews • Feminist interviewing principles • Rapport • Thematic data analysis

3.1   Introduction This exploratory, qualitative study focused on the identities, choices and emotions of working-class women undergraduates and is theorised through Margaret Archer’s (2003) concept of internal conversation. Voluntary purposive sampling (Denscombe, 2017) was undertaken through emails requesting volunteers to discuss their experiences of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_3

31

32 

S. SHIELDS

university, with a particular interest in those who self-identified themselves as working-class and/or a woman. The participants were from three different universities in the North of England. In total, twelve women undergraduates who identified as working-class were interviewed. In order to make sense of the extent to which these experiences were related to their socio-economic background and/or gender (albeit on a small scale and in a tentative manner), I also interviewed six middle-class women undergraduates and two working-class men participants. Whilst this book clearly identifies itself as being about ‘working-class women’, I felt that there may be some experiences that were common to all women in the study regardless of social class. I felt alternatively that there may be some experiences that were common to both male and female working-class students or of course perhaps an experience that was common to all participants by the very nature of them being students. This study never intended to be specifically about ‘white’ working-class women, but participants from other ethnic backgrounds did not choose to be interviewed (apart from one male international student). The North of England is less ethnically diverse, than for example the Midlands or parts of the South of England. This may have contributed to the lack of ethnic diversity in the sample, particularly as many of the women had stayed in the locality to attend university. The lack of ethnic diversity amongst the women in the study is a significant limitation, but it can give an indicator of ‘white working-class women’s’ experiences of university. The interviews were semi-structured in nature and drew upon the principles of life story research with a sense of the participants’ past and current educational experiences, as well as their future plans.

3.2   The Universities The participants were from three different universities in the north-east of England: University 1—Modern City University—is a large Post-1992 institution in a popular city for students with more than one university. The university has an inclusive approach to admissions and therefore takes students with both A Levels and alternative qualifications. The Education department is based in a large, new building, a ten or fifteen minute walk from the city centre. There is also student accommodation nearby. The ­institution takes a large proportion of local students (or students that

3  THE STUDY 

33

commute in), as well as having students from further afield living away from home. University 2—Old College University—is a campus based institution. There are Halls of Residence about three miles from the campus, as well as much newer accommodation very close to the campus. The campus is interesting architecturally with a mixture of building from the early twentieth century, Brutalist buildings of the 1960s, as well as contemporary buildings. The city centre is a fifteen—twenty minute bus journey from the campus. Old College University has strong links with the local community and attracts many local students. It also attracts students from further afield with a direct train to/from London. The entry requirements are often not dissimilar to those of Post-1992 institutions, but depends very much on the subject. University 3—Civic-Global University—is a campus-based institution, but with the city on its doorstep. The city itself has a reputation for being a great place to socialise in the evening and many students are attracted to the city because of this, alongside it being a relatively small city and having a reputation for friendliness. The university has relatively high entry requirements, typical of the prestigious set of institutions to which it belongs. The university does attract many students from further afield, but also attracts local students who are able to obtain the grades required. The university also takes a significant proportion of international students who are attracted by its prestigious reputation. The university also runs a scheme to attract local students from areas of low higher education participation to which it can offer a more contextualised entry offer. The three universities that the participants were from had different compositions of students from different socio-economic backgrounds. A participant from Modern City University told me that the lecturers had said ‘this is a working-class university’. The Old College University participants were from the Primary Teaching (BA Hons with QTS) degree and whilst some participants were from variations of precariat to upwardly mobile working-class backgrounds, there was also a sense from participants that it was a middle-class profession. 71% of teachers identify as middle-class according to Pinkett and Roberts (2019, p. 27), with many of the undergraduate trainee teachers at Old College university coming from middle-class backgrounds. Civic-Global university does attract a number of local students who would generally be identified as being from

34 

S. SHIELDS

‘widening-participation’ backgrounds, however, the majority of students come from middle-class backgrounds and sometimes upper-class backgrounds with a number of students being educated privately before coming to university. The ‘type’ of university in relation to the participants’ ‘closeness’ or ‘distance’ to the dominant socio-economic background of their peers may have shaped their experiences as undergraduates.

3.3   Life Story Research Life story research places an emphasis on the narrative devices that participants use to make sense of events and experiences in their lives (Linde, 1993). Feminists have seen life story research as being an important way of accessing women’s experiences (often historically neglected), additionally it facilitates a focus on gender as a category of analysis. Furthermore, it allows for women to shape the focus of the research through discussing what it is that is important to them (Sangster, 1994). Whilst this study has used a life story approach through asking participants to reflect on the relationship between their past and current experiences of education, I am mindful that these stories are not to be read as a straightforward account of a set of factual events. As Sangster states (1994, p. 5 citing Passerini, 1989) ‘When people talk about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a little, exaggerate, become confused, get things wrong’. James (2016, p. 82) goes on to say that oral history texts should be read as having ‘fidelity to meaning’, rather than ‘strict accuracy associated with information.’

3.4   Semi-structured Interviews A semi-structured interview has a set of interview questions, but allows for deviation in relation to points that the participant wishes to raise because they are significant to them or indeed further probing from the interviewer in terms of asking for clarification or examples of the point that the participant is making. Semi-structured interviews are a popular research tool within qualitative research because of their flexibility (Mann, 2016; Curtis et al., 2014). My preference was for face to face interviews, but three interviews were conducted over the telephone (One Old College and two Modern City) and one Old College interview was conducted over Skype. The remaining Modern City and Old College interviews were conducted in a cafe or quiet seating space. The Civic-Global interviews were conducted on the

3  THE STUDY 

35

comfortable chairs in my office. However the last tranche of interviews (two Old College and five Civic-Global) were conducted over Zoom at the height of the UK lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The familiarity of the participants with Zoom technology facilitated natural and detailed interviews. However, the pandemic itself may have shaped responses and perspectives—particularly in relation to future plans after graduation. The students that I interviewed from my own institution had all finished university at the time of the interviews as, I felt that it was important to only approach students after they had submitted their final assignments to avoid any concerns about the nature of interviews being exploitative or the students feeling under pressure to participate.

3.5   Feminist Interviewing Principles and Rapport As a piece of research concerned with the experiences of women, the key principles of a feminist methodology were adopted (Weiner, 1994; Bloom & Sawin, 2009). ‘The ideal of feminist research was that feminists would produce research for women, by women, to answer questions women have about their own lives’ (Harding, 1987 cited in Bloom & Sawin, 2009, p. 338). The emphasis in this study has been on understanding women’s experiences. Like many researchers who argue that their work is underpinned by a feminist research methodology, the way in which the data is collected is significant. Feminist interviewing principles are underpinned by the value of minimising power imbalances between the interviewer and interviewee; a reciprocal sharing of experiences and trust. The seminal work of Ann Oakley (1992) and Janet Finch (1984) has been instrumental in thinking about the importance of rapport in the interview process, particularly challenging the ‘masculine’ interviewing paradigm and its focus on objectivity. Oakley’s (1992) work on pregnancy and childbirth, challenged the appropriateness of an interviewer stating ‘I’m just here to ask the questions’, as the women she interviewed asked her candid and concerned questions about their pregnancies and childbirth. Likewise, Janet Finch (1984) who shared her own status as the wife of a vicar with her interviewees (who were also the wives of vicars) enabled them to feel comfortable and confident about sharing their experiences with her. Although it is unrealistic and naïve to expect that simply ‘gender-matching’ is enough to facilitate rapport. In relation to my work on socio-economic background and higher education experience, I too have tried to share my experiences

36 

S. SHIELDS

with participants as part of the rapport building process. Additionally, from an ethical perspective it felt wrong to ask participants to share personal experiences, which potentially may elicit feelings of embarrassment or shame without being prepared to ‘own’ these experiences myself. Thwaites (2017) has argued that ‘rapport needs to be examined critically by feminists to see what part it plays in their process and the final dataset they produce with their participants’ (Thwaites, 2017, p. 2). Therefore, I have adopted Thwaites’ (2017) first suggestion of discussing the nature of rapport building in the interviews I conducted honestly as part of the write-up of the study. 3.5.1  One-off Rapport in some ways can be easier with participants that you already know. I think this form of recruitment to the study had been relatively successful at Civic-Global University, as these were voluntary participants who had submitted all of their final year assignments and as they were about to graduate or had graduated there was no ‘assessment power’ that I still held over them. For my participants who I had taught previously, but mainly had built up a relationship with them as their undergraduate dissertation supervisor, I had a more natural relationship and some of these interviews were the longest and most in-depth ones I completed for the study. This reduced the challenge that Thwaites (2017, p. 3) identifies in relation to ‘…in the one off interview rapport must be established quickly. This creates its own possibilities and tensions: rapport can be harder to create in such a short meeting, but it can also be more easily “faked” for the good of the research.’ The element of rapport I found most challenging was sharing my own experiences of higher education, but for two different reasons. For the participants I knew I sometimes felt more ‘awkward’ about sharing my own experiences of higher education as I felt quite vulnerable to their opinions and perceptions of me. However, much of this I suspect was about my own reticent and introverted personality! Thwaites (2017) makes an important point that the sharing of information can close down as many conversations as it opens. The second reason I found the mutual sharing of experiences challenging was when I knew or suspected that the participant was likely to identify as being middle-class. The ‘ubiquitous university experience’, that I had anticipated being within my grasp was scuppered with the removal of all maintenance grants as part of the 1998

3  THE STUDY 

37

Higher Education Act. I did not want my own lack of a ‘typical’ university experience to make the participants feel awkward and unable to recount their own personal situation. Therefore, the reciprocal sharing of information felt difficult when I knew my perceived impoverished experience of university could make the participants feel uncomfortable about their relative, situational privilege in these specific circumstances. 3.5.2  Disingenuous Rapport? The complex nature of rapport and how we ourselves choose to share or privilege particular information to elicit the information that we are looking for is emphasised by Thwaites (2017). Nevertheless this conscious attempt to be selective in the information that I privileged about myself was undoubtedly a calculating approach to the use of rapport building and feels like it goes against the feminist principles that it is designed to support. However we are urged to be mindful of the fact that part of the professional persona of an interviewer may encourage the use of surface acting. Drawing on Hochschild’s (2012) seminal work on emotional labour, Thwaites (2017) contends that we may be surface acting when we are interviewing participants and we may choose to be deliberately disingenuous by implying that we ‘have no experience of what is being discussed’ (Thwaites, 2017, p. 4). Thwaites (2017) discusses the challenge of developing rapport, particularly if the views of the participants are controversial or offensive. I was lucky to be interviewing a set of participants who held liberal and tolerant viewpoints and so I was less likely to come across views which were perhaps offensive. However, that is not to say that I did not engage in surface acting. I decided to ‘not react’ to the comment made by the male interview participant who referred to me as a ‘girl’ (as a woman probably twenty years older than him). Instead I chose to gloss over this to enable the interview to proceed smoothly. I hold with the view that ‘gender-matching’ in itself is an over simplistic way of thinking about feminist interviewing principles and felt that the principles discussed earlier about minimising power imbalances, mutual reciprocity and trust all apply.

38 

S. SHIELDS

3.6   Ethics The study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the institution at which the researcher worked. The ethical guidelines of both the British Educational Research Association (2018) and British Sociological Association (2017) were drawn upon. Gatekeepers were used to access participants: I drew upon my contacts at other institutions. Whilst colleagues at three institutions did respond positively to forwarding the email, I did not receive any responses from potential participants so I am unsure as to if participants were not forthcoming or that the email had been ‘lost’, particularly as two of the colleagues had confirmed that they would forward on the email to another colleague to send out. The two gatekeepers who were effective, were individuals that I had known a long time and had good friendships with, having worked with them both previously as colleagues, as well as collaborating with them on pieces of writing and research. I addressed issues of anonymity and confidentiality through the use of pseudonyms for both the participants and the institutions at which they were studying. To ensure informed consent, I explained the nature of the study to the participants in the email request I sent out to participants and also provided an information sheet for participants, alongside the consent form. I encouraged participants to contact me for further details before committing to the study and in one case after receiving further information a potential participant decided not to participate. Participants were free to leave the study at any time. The transcripts were sent back to participants for member-checking. Three participants confirmed that they were happy with their transcript. One additional participant went through the transcript rigorously to check for any inaccuracies. Other participants did not respond further to this email. I tried to mitigate any potential psychological distress through offering participants the opportunity to read the interview questions prior to the interview and explaining that if there were any questions they did not wish me to address during the interview, I would be happy to omit these. Whilst a power imbalance was unavoidable, I did as much as I could to address this through the adoption of feminist research principles. The data was stored electronically in folders that only I had access to through a password protected desktop and password protected laptop.

3  THE STUDY 

39

3.7   Data Analysis The interview data was analysed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006), whilst also theorising the data through Margaret Archer’s (2003) concept of the internal conversation. Archer (2003) herself directly asked participants to identify and to discuss their internal conversations, acknowledging the ‘double hermeneutic’ (2003, p.  154) and that it was an ‘interpretation of interpreting subjects’ (ibid). In this study, the theorisation of the interview data through ‘internal conversation’ has been undertaken retrospectively by the researcher and of course still has all of the challenges of the double hermeneutic. As Archer (2003, p.  155) comments ‘the investigator, who is necessarily an interpreter, is likely to err in his or her third person construal of anyone’s private meanings.’ Furthermore Archer (2003, p. 156) contends that ‘all research touching upon our ‘attitudes’, ‘beliefs’, ‘outlooks’ or ‘intentions’ taps into syntheses of our mental activities; to explore the ‘internal conversation’ does not entail qualitatively different difficulties.’ The study, then has used internal conversation as a theoretical tool to interpret the experiences of the participants. With the important caveat identified by Archer (2000, p. 237) ‘the expectation is not that subjects themselves will see their internal conversation in terms of a debate about objective worth for this would be illegitimately to impose the world upon our knowledge about it and deliberations towards it.’ The concern of course with data analysis is that the writer can use the experiences of the participants to convey their own experiences. I addressed this challenge through asking a researcher who was independent from the study to also ‘audit’ the transcripts (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). I provided the researcher/auditor who had familiarity with higher education literature on widening participation with the twenty transcripts, alongside a draft manuscript. The ‘transcript review’ (Rhodes, 2021) identified commonality in key themes in relation to: geographical immobility due to familial commitments, a desire to work with children/teach, organisational skills of student parents and the pressures from middle-class sixth-­ forms for the young women to apply to university. Rhodes (2021) also identified the additional explanatory label on the type of reflexivity as important for addressing ambiguity in labelling the participants, for example: ‘tralatitious autonomous reflexive’ and ‘pragmatic communicative reflexive’. Overall, the Audit Trail confirmed alignment between the auditor and auditee in the data analysis process.

40 

S. SHIELDS

3.8   Conclusion In conclusion, this study has been mindful of feminist interviewing principles. The use of semi-structured interviews exploring women’s decision-­ making around going to university, their lived experiences of university and their graduate aspirations have been theoretically analysed through Margaret Archer’s (2003) concept of internal conversation through her DDD cycle of Discernment-Deliberation-Dedication (please also see Chap. 1). As a small-scale qualitative study, it has all of the limitations associated with concerns about generalisability and transferability. However, it focuses on a different group of women compared to Archer’s (2012) study. Archer’s (2012) study focused on the modes of reflexivity (as indicated by types of internal conversation) of Sociology undergraduates at an elite English university and acknowledged that a disproportionate number of her participants were from advantaged socio-economic backgrounds, possessing high A Level grades, with a number of participants having also been privately educated. A large proportion of Archer’s undergraduate participants were women, but a chi-square test indicated that this was not statistically significant in terms of the participants’ ‘type’ of reflexivity. Additionally, this study builds upon a retrospective analysis of working-class women undergraduates experiences at one Post-1992 university in the West Midlands through Archer’s (2003) concept of internal conversation (Shields, 2021). It is hoped that this study is able to further contribute to understandings of the agentic internal conversations of working-class women undergraduates as they reflexively mediate their involuntary placement within society.

References Archer, M.  S. (2000). Being human the problem of agency. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2003). Structure, agency and internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2012). The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge University Press. Bloom, R., & Sawin, P. (2009). Ethical responsibility in feminist research: Challenging ourselves to do activist research with women in poverty. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(3), 333–351. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.

3  THE STUDY 

41

British Educational Research Association (BERA). (2018). Ethical guidelines for educational research (4th ed., pp. 1–41). British Sociological Association (BSA). (2017). Statement of ethical practice (pp. 1–10). Curtis, W., Murphy, M., & Shields, S. (2014). Research and education. Routledge. Denscombe, M. (2017). The good research guide for small-scale social research projects (6th ed.). Open University Press. Finch, J. (1984). “It’s great to have someone to talk to”: The ethics and politics of interviewing women. In C.  Bell & H.  Roberts (Eds.), Social researching: Politics, problems, practice (pp. 70–87). Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hochschild, A. (2012). The managed heart commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press. James, D. (2016). ‘Listening in the cold’: The practice of oral history in an Argentine working-class community. In R. Perks & A. Thomson (Eds.), The oral history reader (3rd ed., pp. 73–92). Routledge. Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. SAGE. Linde, C. (1993). Life stories: The creation of coherence. Oxford University Press. Mann, S. (2016). The research interview reflective practice and reflexivity in research processes. Palgrave Macmillan. Oakley, A. (1992). Chapter 2: Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms. In H. Roberts (Ed.), Doing feminist research (pp. 30–61). Routledge. Passerini, L. (1989). Women’s personal narratives: Myths, experiences and emotions. In The Personal Narratives Group (Ed.), Interpreting women’s lives feminised theory and personal narratives (pp. 189–203). Indiana University Press. Pinkett, M., & Roberts, M. (2019). Boys don’t try? Rethinking masculinity in schools. Routledge. Rhodes, L. (2021, July 19). Transcript review to Sam Shields. Sangster, J. (1994). Telling our stories: Feminist debates and the use of oral history. Women’s History Review, 3(1), 5–28. Shields, S. (2021). Curiosity and careers: Working-class females’ experiences of university. International Studies in the Sociology of Education (in press). https:// doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2021.1959378. Thwaites, R. (2017). (Re) examining the feminist interview: Rapport, gender “matching,” and emotional labour. Frontiers in Sociology, 2, 1–18. Weiner, G. (1994). Feminisms in education: An introduction. Open University Press.

CHAPTER 4

Deciding to Go to University

Abstract  Going to university is often characterised as a rite of passage to adulthood which also offers future career and financial benefits to the graduate. However, in this study the findings indicated that for working-­ class women, a strong justification for going to university was needed. The discernment phase of internal conversation considers ‘aspirations, reproaches and challenges’ (Archer, Being human the problem of agency. Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 235), as individuals weigh-up the risk factors of life projects with potential future rewards. These internal conversations centred on a moral entitlement to a place at university based on academic capabilities or to fulfil their career aspirations through teacher training. For Horizon-Expanders, Incremental-Hybrids and Returners, the discernment phase of internal conversation when considering if university was a ‘worthwhile’ project was more extensive and protracted, than for the Mobility-Maintainers. Keywords  Discernment • ‘Worthwhile’ project • Risk • Moral entitlement

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_4

43

44 

S. SHIELDS

4.1   Introduction Deciding to go to university is almost a ‘non-decision’ for those who have a familial habitus of higher education experience (Bathmaker et al., 2016). For young people with university educated parents, there is a familial expectation of young people entering graduate-level occupations. In addition, parental knowledge of higher education can support young people in ‘playing the game’ (Bathmaker et  al., 2013; Thomson, 2005). Consequently, middle-class students can draw upon cultural capital to navigate university life and social capital in preparation for being a future graduate. Yet, for working-class young people where familial support is offered this tends to be emotional encouragement with a focus on trusting the individual in knowing what is best for their own personal happiness. For other working-class young people, there is familial resistance to higher education with pressure to leave education for full-time employment and this requires significant contextual discontinuity for these individuals to pursue a modus vivendi of higher education. This chapter, first explores the discernment phase of internal conversation. The ‘discernment’ phase is the initial phase for considering a new life project and a number of possibilities may be considered at this stage, with a consideration of ‘is it important and valuable to me’? (Archer, 2003). The discernment phase for the Horizon-Expanders was in relation to their academic worthiness to pursue higher education alongside how to financially achieve their aspiration of the ‘ubiquitous student experience’ (Holton & Finn, 2018, p. 426). Holton and Finn (2018) argue that the ‘ubiquitous ‘student experience’ is associated with the geographical mobility of middle-class students, enabling them to leave their natal contexts and live with student peers typically in a different part of the country to their family homes. Second, the discernment phase of internal conversation of the Incremental-Hybrids which focused on contextual continuity is discussed, as they pondered how to ‘dovetail’ their vocational goals with maintaining the largest amount of contextual continuity possible with their current lives. Third, the contextual discontinuity of the Returners is explored as they deliberate on bringing about change to their lives, whilst maintaining stability within their familial contexts. Finally, the Mobility-­ Maintainers are discussed as their ‘tralatitious’ autonomous reflexivity can be understood as bringing about contextual discontinuity in their own lives to fulfil their families’ aspirations and expectations.

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

45

4.2   Horizon-Expanders The Horizon-Expanders (please also see Chap. 1) were autonomous reflexives, that is they made decisions independently and used their own internal prioritisation system to enable a focus on their ultimate concern—in this case becoming a graduate, but also experiencing the ‘ubiquitous’ student experience: ‘Autonomous reflexives’ are people who would subscribe to the view that ‘no one can know my mind as well as I do myself.’ Only they can know exactly what they value, only they can design the life practices which embody such goals and then monitor them to establish whether or not these are ones which they are able to live. (Archer, 2003, p. 210)

The Horizon-Expanders had similar aspirations to their middle-class friends in terms of university experience and graduate ambitions. All three of the Horizon-Expander women and one male Horizon-Expander attended Civic-global University. The second male Horizon-Expander attended Modern City University. 4.2.1  Academically Worthy The Horizon-Expanders were ‘agents for change’ (morphogenesis) and were identifying how to bring about social mobility through ‘contextual discontinuity’ in their lives via higher education. The Horizon-Expanders were characterised by deliberating upon their intelligence and how to manage the financial implications of university study in considering the life project of ‘going to university’. The internal conversations of the Horizon-­ Expanders focused upon the moral justification of their entitlement to a place at university based upon their academic capability. This sense of ‘cleverness’ acted as a moral signifier that they were entitled to a place at university. I’d loved learning and I’d never wanted it to kind of stop me going because I’d always been a very determined sort of person. I’d goals that I’d always had and I never ever wanted to not go to university because of finance because I always think why can’t I go, if someone else can? I never wanted it to stop me from going. (Lucy, Civic-global university, Horizon-Expander)

46 

S. SHIELDS

Because I was intelligent, even in primary school I was always at gifted and talented summer schools and stuff and whatever. I was aware of what I could do. I think more I just had to deal with a lot of childhood problems that I had. So that all faced me at once. Then when I overcame that and realised that I could put that energy into my academic work, I really shone through. (Beth, Civic-global university, Horizon-Expander) I was like one of the high-flyers and always had been from primary and High school I’d never really been that pressurised into it, but I was always billed as one of the school’s poster boys… I was initially in the like Top 5% in the area which was like which was obviously great. (Matt, Civic-global University, Horizon-Expander)

Intelligence and academic ability were used as a justification for going to university. Christie et  al. (2008, p.  576) found that ‘these defensive comments were often accompanied by a statement about the individual student’s entitlement to be at university despite (or perhaps because of) their sense of class dislocation.’ For the Horizon-Expanders the justification of going to university was their academic capability, therefore much of the discernment phase internal conversation considering going to university was not about if they should go to university, but rather how they were going to manage this financially, as they wanted to have the same type of university experience as their middle-class friends, that is moving away from home and living independently of their natal contexts. As autonomous reflexives, the Horizon-Expanders were faced with a project that meant a: shift away from their original and involuntary social placements, [requiring] they confront constraints and enablements which are socially irreducible … but how good are they at monitoring their circumstances—at circumventing constraints and at harnessing enablements? (Archer, 2003, p. 214)

Archer (2003, 2007, 2012) contends that all projects are fallible and therefore the discernment phase of internal conversation for the Horizon-­ Expanders considering the financial implications of embarking on the ubiquitous student experience may be different from the lived reality of this as identified in the dedication phase of internal conversation (as discussed in Chap. 6—Balancing Acts).

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

47

4.2.2  Money Worries The Horizon-Expanders were the most likely group to cite financial concerns as the main focus of deciding to go to university. This group of students were likely to aspire to a more ‘typical’ (middle-class) university experience of living away from home, with Holton and Finn (2018, p.  426) commenting that residential relocation is “valorized’ … above local mobility performances’. Therefore, the financial prospect of having enough money to live away from home was a major preoccupation in considering how they could bring about their life project of going to university. Furthermore, Archer (2003, p.  244) comments that autonomous reflexives are ‘more exposed to societal enablements and constraints because they have activated them by virtue of the transformatory projects’ that they have decided to pursue. It was like I want to move out and do that whole thing, mainly because all my friends were and it would have been weird being at home. (Florence, Civic-­ global University, Horizon-Expander) All I knew was it was expensive to go and I think I’ve always associated it with this upper echelon of society… Mum and Dad never went and anyone on that side of the family never went to university [Mum’s side of family] so I think I always told myself that I wasn’t going to go, but when I got to college they were a bit better at giving you advice on what to do financially and I went to the sixth-form [college] that my Mum worked at the school, so I think it was easier for her as well because she could kind of talk to the person who was kind of most informed and who was on the Transition Team. So me and her were kind of able to speak to her and say you know ‘can my child go? Is she going to be able to afford it? What can we get?’ And I think at that point [I said] ‘no I want to do it regardless of what’s happened’ because I’d kind of realised I’d had these hardships at school with education, but I’d always been quite studious. (Lucy, Civic-global University, Horizon-Expander)

Therefore the aspirations of the Horizon-Expanders went beyond becoming a graduate, instead the life project was also about having a university experience that involved living independently of their natal contexts and participating in wider aspects of university life. It was evident that these internal conversations were focusing on trying to bring about ‘contextual discontinuity’ to their lives, and as autonomous reflexives, the focus was on them as individuals acting as agents of change. In contrast, as

48 

S. SHIELDS

‘committed’ communicative reflexives, the Incremental-Hybrids had a much stronger emphasis on achieving ‘contextual continuity’ with their current lives.

4.3   Incremental-Hybrids The Incremental-Hybrids (please also see Chap. 1) were ‘committed’ communicative reflexives, that is they made decisions through a ‘thought and talk’ approach with trusted interlocuters and any new projects would factor in significant others—with friends and family often remaining the ultimate concern. Archer (2012, p. 16) suggests that ‘those who grew up in a close, harmonious and geo-locally stable family—thus experiencing ‘contextual continuity’—showed a strong tendency to be practitioners of communicative reflexivity.’ 4.3.1  Vocational Pathway The Incremental-Hybrids were ‘committed’ communicative reflexives, as whilst they were keen to achieve vocational goals, they emphasised achieving this with the largest amount of contextual continuity possible with their current life situations. For the Incremental-Hybrids their internal conversational phase of discernment focused on teacher training and the challenge of achieving these goals. For this group of working-class women, there was a strong vocational pathway that was leading them to decide to go to university, with a clear emphasis on the career that their degree would qualify them for—primary school teacher (one Incremental-Hybrid planned to have a career focusing on supporting children with Creative Writing within an informal education/charity based role). Lehmann (2009) noted that vocational pathways were seen as less of a ‘risk’ for working-class students deciding to go to university. Evans (2009, p. 346) contends ‘this wish to pursue a degree-level education with more predictable economic rewards led many of the girls to choose vocational subjects for study at university.’ Clark et al. (2015) also noted how disadvantaged students attempted to ‘offset risk’, through studying vocational subjects. I used to work in a nursery for six years and being a teacher’s always something that I’ve wanted to do but I felt I may as well wait until I’m a little bit older so I can go straight into teaching. Because being a 21-year-old teacher I think’s

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

49

a bit daunting whereas now when I graduate I’ll be 25. (Tess, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) An apprenticeship came up in nursery teaching and this is where I kind of found my passion. So then I wanted to do the next level up really. And then I went to university [foundation degree] and I’m still studying four years later. (Camilla, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) I’ve always been the kind of person who wanted to be a teacher. I’ve always played teacher, at school, at home. I was always the teacher. And that just developed throughout my life basically. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) I loved working with kids from quite a young age, having grown up with so many siblings it just made me want to do it. And especially some work experiences, especially in Year 10. I really enjoyed it. And it made me want to support younger children. (Lily, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid)

For the Incremental-Hybrids, there was a strong emphasis on university being the path to achieve becoming a qualified primary school teacher. The focus for the Incremental-Hybrids was much less about the academic aspects of a degree or experiencing a university social life, but instead it was a reflection of enjoying working with children and having previous successful experiences of working with children. The Incremental-Hybrid who planned to work as an Outdoor Educator before embarking on a PGCE had been involved in Outdoor Education since her early teens. The Incremental-Hybrid who planned to work in an informal learning context supporting children with Creative Writing, had volunteered extensively within this field. Overall, the Incremental-Hybrids were drawing upon previous work experience to develop slightly new roles or to continue with existing roles in a paid capacity. 4.3.2  Staying at Home and Saving Money The Incremental-Hybrids had much less of a focus on the ‘ubiquitous student experience’ (Holton & Finn, 2018, p. 426) and saw the option to remain living at home with their parents as a positive financial decision. Finn (2014) identified that the social and emotional role young women play in their family lives as being highly significant, with young women being givers of care and support, not just recipients. The

50 

S. SHIELDS

Incremental-Hybrids had sought encouragement and confirmation from their families about their decision to embark on higher education and there was a much greater sense of doing this within the boundaries of their family environment and current friendships, in comparison to the Horizon-­ Expanders. For the Incremental-Hybrids staying locally to study was significant in their wish to maintain contextual continuity. Holton and Finn (2018, p. 428) highlight that ‘embodied encounters of gender, generation and social class position intersect with everyday mobilities’, furthermore staying local should not be seen as being ‘immobile’, rather mobility choices should be seen as being on a continuum of ‘relative mobilities” (Holton & Finn, 2018, p.  429). Evans’ (2009, p.  347) study findings argued ‘the wish to remain at home while at university was part of a cluster of attitudes which suggests that the ‘private project’ of late modernity is not one which is shared by working-class girls.’ Furthermore, Evans (2009) contends familial cultural obligations and expectations shape the aspirations of working-class girls in relation to university, for example choosing to attend a local university. I didn’t really feel comfortable going to a new city. I live relatively close to this university, a five or ten minute walk. Really beneficial for me to stay at home. That way I don’t have to pay for accommodation which also helps a lot. Plus a lot of my friends from college—I made some more friends towards the end of college, they were coming up to this uni and I wanted to stay with them. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) I wanted to stay living with my mum and be near my friends. (Jo, Civic-­ Global University, Incremental-Hybrid) I live nearby so it saves on all of those costs of living away and all of the people that don’t live very cleanly at all. So I ended up staying at home and in the local city to my hometown. (Felicity, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

The Incremental-Hybrids focus in the discernment phase of internal conversation in considering going to university was about achieving a longer-­term vocational career goal and being able to fulfil this aspiration whilst maintaining as much contextual continuity as possible. Familial support and encouragement for going to university to achieve this vocational aspiration was also significant and therefore aspects of justification through academic capability or having a ‘typical’ university experience were not

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

51

paramount to the thought processes of the Incremental-Hybrids. The Returners were also much less focused on a ‘typical’ university experience, but much of their internal conversation was focusing on bringing about change in response to a critical life juncture.

4.4   The Returners The Returners (please also see Chap. 1) were ‘pragmatic’ communicative reflexives, that is they made decisions through a ‘thought and talk’ approach with trusted interlocuters like the Incremental-Hybrids. However, they are described within this book as ‘pragmatic communicative reflexives’, in that their familial and relationship commitments created geographical constraints. Archer (2003, 2007, 2012) contends that subjects have one dominant mode of reflexivity. Nevertheless, descriptions from the Returners, such as working abroad or doing their best to create contextual discontinuity from their natal contexts through educational opportunities when they were younger, suggest that a different set of circumstances (enablements and constraints) in their lives may have made autonomous reflexivity their dominant mode of internal conversation to mediate their involuntary placement within society. As Archer (2003, p. 222) highlights: “I can only take people as I find them’, at a given point in their lives, so the trajectory traced is only indicative and not predicative.’ 4.4.1  Better Career Opportunities The Returners were considering how a return to previously abandoned academic study would facilitate improved career opportunities which would in turn, help to address their dissatisfaction with their current employment status and/or changes in their personal circumstances. The Returners could be characterised as ‘pragmatic’ communicative reflexives in the sense that conversations with friends and family had supported and encouraged their thoughts about entering higher education, yet like the autonomous reflexivity of the Horizon Expanders, the Returners wanted to bring about change in their lives, but this was mediated by it needing to ‘dovetail’ with their current lives which centred around their families. I always knew that I wanted a family and to settle down and that was really hard to find somebody who was going to follow me or then what do I do. So I was

52 

S. SHIELDS

in ‘South Seaside Town’ at the time and just decided at the time I wasn’t happy anymore so I went home to ‘Yorkshire Seaside Town’ and just took a low level job again from my Mum. And decided to focus on me and decide what I really wanted to do. I kind of took a year to think, but primary teaching, working with children especially had always been part of the mix I just didn’t know when I wanted to do it and then I started an Access to Higher Education course and uni followed from that. (Freya, Old College University, Returner) But I always worked. I was in low paid jobs. I was in bar work and cleaning. I had a cleaning business, well I was just cleaning people’s homes really. It let me work around my daughter, but I was not really doing much with my life. It felt like my mind was getting tired so I had to do something more. So I applied to university and I got in which I’m really pleased about. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner)

The Returners all considered returning to previously abandoned study, after critical life junctures where they reflected on where they were currently and the paths that they had planned to take and how these had been diverted through various other life decisions that they had made. This was in contrast to the seeming smoothness and linearity of the paths that the Mobility-Maintainers wanted to take, but were also expected to take by their families and schools.

4.5   Mobility-Maintainers The Mobility-Maintainers (please also see Chap. 1) were ‘tralatitious autonomous reflexives’, in that their familial contexts expected them to engage in some natal discontinuity, through beginning independent lives as university students. Archer (2003) contends that small-scale exploratory studies make it difficult to identify if contextual discontinuity is necessary for autonomous reflexivity. However, her own study identified: ‘there is no doubt that the emergence of ‘autonomous reflexivity’ subjectively led every member of this sub-group to embrace enterprises which distanced them from their objective contexts of involuntary placement— regardless of the social class to which these pertained’ (Archer, 2003, p. 235).

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

53

4.5.1  Choosing University Cities and Choosing Degree Subjects A striking feature of the Mobility-Maintainers accounts of deciding to go to university was the relative seamlessness in which this transition happened when compared to the three working-class groups of women. The Mobility-Maintainers did not have any sense of doubt about going to university and very little internal conversation was evident in relation to deciding to go to university, it was seen as an automatic next step to which they were entitled to and qualified to take, and all of their friends were applying to university too. Archer et al. (2007) describes university as a ‘non-choice’ for middle-class students. The Mobility-Maintainers did however query that their sixth-forms were not giving out huge amounts of information about alternative routes and they felt sorry for any fellow students at sixth-form, that did not particularly want to go to university. However, beyond a gentle disquiet that maybe university was not what all sixth-form students might want as a next step, their own internal conversations did not focus on if they were going to go to university, but rather which university would they go to and which subject they would study. I looked round a few. I knew I wanted it to a be a northern university, just closer to home and everything [2 and a half hours away]. And it was just that thing where when you’re there, you know it’s the right one. I really liked the city. I liked how it was a campus within a city. Because ‘North West Campus University’ was my other top option and that’s just a campus. So I thought this would be more of a holistic experience in terms of being able to go to the city, good transport and everything. That was my main reason for ‘Civic-Global University City’. And you just hear about it. It sounds like a really fun city as well. (Hattie, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) Because to be honest when we were in school it was just like pick a place and go. It wasn’t like learning about the city and why you wanted to go to uni. It was just like pick a random city and go to uni there. (Kerry, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) I thought it would be ideal because it’s close enough to home that it’s really easy to go home if I ever have to, but it’s also far enough away that it’s actually the uni experience. (Amelia, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) But I think, yes, we were all driven towards doing a UCAS application. I think we just all went along with it without much thought. Really it’s the process because when you think everybody’s doing the same thing you just think, oh well

54 

S. SHIELDS

if everyone’s going to university I have to go to university too. (Nicola, Civic-­ Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) I went to all the open days and then ended up liking ‘Civic-Global University City’ the most. I liked the city the most. It’s also very far from where I live so that was a big incentive, really. (Tabitha, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer)

This ‘no doubt’ approach to going to university which was evident in the Mobility-Maintainers women’s explanations of going to university, was not evident in the working-class participants’ accounts who appeared to have a much greater internal conversation about deciding to go to university. The focus on ‘choice’ for middle-class students when considering university possibilities has been identified in a range of studies (e.g. Bathmaker et  al., 2016; Reay et  al., 2005). The discernment phase of internal conversation for the Mobility-Maintainers focused on ‘which university?’ and ‘which subject?’ The Mobility-Maintainers all had familial backgrounds cognisant with higher education. Furthermore, the Mobility-­ Maintainers did not have disrupted educational histories, therefore they were not impacted by geographical constraints related to parenting or wider familial commitments. Overall, for the Mobility-Maintainers there was very little internal conversation at the discernment stage in deciding to go to university, instead the discernment phase of internal conversation was about how to address the range of choices that were available to them.

4.6   Discussion The working-class women appeared to have a much more protracted discernment phase of internal conversation considering if they should go to university compared to the Mobility-Maintainers. For the working-class women to consider the prospect of going to university, they were ultimately considering on some level a disjuncture with their natal contextual continuity in terms of both their potential level of education and future career opportunities. Therefore, with the possibility of being the ‘first in their family’ to go to university this had to be considered as a fallible project without familial expertise to draw upon. The Horizon-Expanders drew upon their past academic performance as the justification for considering university as a worthwhile project which was likely to be successful. The Incremental-Hybrids drew upon their vocational aspirations at the

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

55

discernment phase of the modus vivendi. For the Returners, a combination of their past academic capability and vocational aspirations were considered as a result of critical life junctures. 4.6.1  Geographical Mobility The working-class women having given credence to the possibility of university being a worthwhile project, they then considered how this could be brought about. All five Horizon-Expanders were emotionally invested in experiencing university in the same way as their middle-class counterparts (and four went on to enact this project). The Horizon-Expanders considered moving away from home as a significant part of the university experience. Archer’s (2012) longitudinal qualitative study of the modes of reflexivity of Sociology undergraduates at a prestigious English university concluded ‘the great break that going away to university involves…also entails a major and often irreparable caesura with the ‘solidary’, geo-local family’ (Archer, 2012, p. 329). However, at the discernment phase of deciding to go to university, the financial aspects of facilitating this ‘moving away’ to university was the major preoccupation of the Horizon-Expanders as they recognised the economic constraints of their circumstances. For the autonomous reflexives, the structural challenges of how to manage the financial aspects of independent living were paramount in their thinking and represented early individualist thinking about embarking on contextual discontinuity as part of their modus vivendi. Contrastingly, the Incremental-Hybrids were committed to maintaining contextual continuity by staying in their locality and therefore only considered attending local institutions. The majority of Incremental-­ Hybrids (five out of six) theoretically had the flexibility to move away from their geographic area if they wished to. One out of the six Incremental-­ Hybrids did move away to university (but at the last minute with angst about how her mother would cope with her younger siblings and within a short commuting distance of her family). For the Incremental-Hybrids the discernment phase focused on how they could accommodate university attendance whilst maintaining contextual continuity. The Incremental-­ Hybrids were able to side-step the economic constraints highlighted by the Horizon-Expanders as they did not generally plan to engage in a university experience which would have a significant financial impact. The Returners were tied to their geographic location by familial factors (as

56 

S. SHIELDS

parents or romantic partners) and can therefore be viewed as making a set of pragmatic decisions as communicative reflexives. As Archer (2012) comments of the communicative reflexives in her study of Sociology undergraduates: ‘their motivation comes from their proximate social relations rather than the ‘pull’ of the blue yonder’ (2012, p. 133). For the communicative reflexives considerations of how the university project would be dovetailed to meet familial priorities were central.

4.7   Conclusion In conclusion, the discernment phase of internal conversation considering going to university was different for each of the four sub-groups. The Horizon-Expanders started from a position of considering going to university because their academic attainment gave them a moral entitlement to a university place. Furthermore, they felt that this entitlement extended to the ‘ubiquitous student experience’ (Holton & Finn, 2018, p. 426), and therefore their pre-occupation was with how they could financially bring about this ‘middle-class’ university experience. For the Incremental-­ Hybrids, the focus had been on achieving a vocational career goal, but achieving this with as much contextual continuity as possible with their familial contexts. Family support for the life project of going to university was essential to this group of women. For the Returners reaching a critical life juncture had prompted a focus on returning to a previously held academic project. The Returners were ‘pragmatic’ communicative reflexives’, as their dovetailing with their familial contexts was a pragmatic necessity, but there was a clear intention of a shift towards the university life project as bringing about occupational social mobility.

References Archer, L., Hollingworth, S., & Halsall, A. (2007). ‘University’s not for me—I’m a Nike person’: Urban, working-class young people’s negotiations of ‘style’, identity and educational engagement. Sociology, 41(2), 219–237. Archer, M. S. (2000). Being human the problem of agency. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2007). Making our way through the world. Cambridge University Press.

4  DECIDING TO GO TO UNIVERSITY 

57

Archer, M.  S. (2012). The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge University Press. Bathmaker, A.-M., Ingram, N., Abrahams, J., Hoare, A., Waller, R., & Bradley, H. (2016). Higher education, social class and social mobility: The degree generation. Palgrave Macmillan. Bathmaker, A.-M., Ingram, N., & Waller, R. (2013). Higher education, social class and the mobilisation of capitals: Recognising and playing the game. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(5–6), 723–743. Christie, H., Tett, L., Cree, V. E., Hounsell, J., & McCune, V. (2008). ‘A real rollercoaster of confidence and emotions’: Learning to be a university student. Studies in Higher Education, 33(5), 567–581. Clark, S., Mountford-Zimdars, A., & Francis, B. (2015). Risk, choice and social disadvantage: Young people’s decision-making in a marketised higher education system. Sociological Research Online, 20(3). Evans, S. (2009). In a different place: Working-class girls and higher education. Sociology, 43(2), 340–355. Finn, K. (2014). ‘I just never thought he’d be that way’: Young women, higher education and the shifting emotional dimensions of home. Families, Relationships and Societies, 3(1), 35–50. Holton, M., & Finn, K. (2018). Being-in-motion: The everyday (gendered and classed) embodied mobilities for UK university students who commute. Mobilities, 13(3), 426–440. Lehmann, W. (2009). University as vocational education: Working-class students’ expectations for university. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(2), 137–149. Reay, D., David, M. E., & Ball, S. (2005). Degrees of choice social class, race and gender in higher education. Trentham Books. Thomson, P. (2005). Bringing Bourdieu to policy sociology: Codification, misrecognition and exchange value in the UK context. Journal of Education Policy, 20(6), 741–758.

CHAPTER 5

Learner Identities

Abstract  The move towards a massified higher education system has seen a burgeoning interest in the diversity of learner identities within undergraduate populations. Working-class students are typically more likely to be labelled as having ‘fragile’ learner identities (e.g. Brine & Waller, Working-class women on an Access course: Risk, opportunity and (re) constructing identities. Gender and Education, 16(1), 97–113, 2004). The deliberation phase of internal conversation for the working-class women centred around reflections of the likelihood of being a successful learner within the university context. The findings showed that Horizon-­ Expanders had the same strong learner identities as Mobility-Maintainers, facilitated by a sense of belonging and entitlement to be part of an academic context. The Returners had not historically experienced a sense of belonging in a learning environment. The Incremental-Hybrids had experienced academic adversity. However, all participants had internalised meritocratic conceptions of hard work. Keywords  Belonging • Capability • Motivational resilience • Buoyancy • Individual responsibility

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_5

59

60 

S. SHIELDS

5.1   Introduction The women having now discerned the life project of ‘going to university’ (please see Chap. 4), now reflected upon how likely they were to cope with academic study in the ‘deliberation’ phase of internal conversation. The deliberation phase of internal conversation is the second phase of the internal conversation process in Archer’s (2003) Discernment-Dedication-­ Deliberation cycle to identify a life project or modus vivendi. In the ‘deliberation’ phase of internal conversation the subject gives serious consideration to a potential project and having decided that it is worth pursuing, the subject begins to engage seriously with the potential implications of this undertaking (of course recognising that all projects are based upon the fallible knowledge of the subject). In this deliberation phase, the women evaluated their chances of being a successful learner within a university context based upon their past experiences of learning. ‘Learner identity’ can be broadly characterised as the extent to which an individual sees themselves as a learner, but significantly Weil (1986, p. 227) suggests that: the conscious and unconscious operation of structural barriers and the formal and informal practices of teachers can perpetuate patterns of disadvantage and inequality of opportunity and outcome.

Skinner et al. (2014, p. 334) elaborate further, adding: Students’ histories of experiences with school, including their interactions with parents, teachers, and peers who support or undermine their needs, cumulatively shape their academic identities, or their personal convictions about whether they truly belong in school (relatedness), have what it takes to succeed (competence), and genuinely endorse the goals and values of schooling (autonomy).

Therefore, in this chapter the past experiences of learning and the ways in which this shaped the ‘learner identities’ of the participants is considered, in particular in relation to belonging in an academic environment and having a sense of capability and success as a learner. These reflections on previous experiences of learning were a significant part of the deliberation phase of internal conversation. Widening participation students are more at risk of not completing university degrees. A range of factors have been identified in their weaker retention rates including motivation,

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

61

academic performance, integration and personal issues (Nevill & Rhodes, 2004; Piepenburg & Beckmann, 2021). Concomitantly, the higher education literature has identified working-class students as typically more likely to be labelled as having ‘fragile’ learner identities (Brine & Waller, 2004; Reay et al., 2010; Crozier & Reay, 2011). On the other hand, middle-class students with prior familial experience of higher education are generally considered to have ‘strong’ learner identities, supported by the ‘right’ social and cultural capital (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). The chapter first discusses the sense of belonging and capability enjoyed by the Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers who ‘loved’ school. Second, the chapter explores the sense of disconnection from schooling contexts that the Returners had historically experienced. Third, the positive impact of studious friends for the Horizon-Expanders is explored. Fourth, the Horizon-Expanders and Incremental-Hybrids internalisation of meritocratic beliefs about responsibility for academic success are identified. Finally, the smooth trajectory to university study for the Mobility-­ Maintainers is discussed.

5.2   Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers 5.2.1  ‘Loved’ School The Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers often expressed a strong ‘love’ or enjoyment of school and this sense of belonging in an academic environment was reinforced by having studious friends and good relationships with teachers. Absolutely loved it. Didn’t want to leave. I literally loved every day. Loads of people hated it, moaned. But I loved the days more that I didn’t have frees because I just loved being in the class. Yeah, I didn’t want to leave sixth form even more than school. (Hattie, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) I absolutely loved that school and I think they were quite inclusive in terms of if you weren’t well off and on free school meals. (Lucy, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

The quotes above demonstrate a strong enjoyment and sense of belonging to the school environment. Positive emotions associated with learning,

62 

S. SHIELDS

such as an enjoyment of learning and pride in achievements, are both linked to intrinsic motivation (Pekrun & Perry, 2014). Therefore these emotions are significant to the learning process. However, there were some provisos to this sense of academic capability for some of the Mobility-­ Maintainers in terms of the pressure they felt to excel at school: I went to an all girls’ school so I was surrounded by all girls that wanted to work hard and understood the importance of school and things. And, yes, all of them went to university as well. (Nicola, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) Because I was quite a high achiever at school … But then equally that’s the only, you were only really valued, I think, well I certainly only felt valued by certain teachers if I did well…. I had some nice teachers while I was there but I’d say overwhelmingly they actually didn’t really care that much about our wellbeing. (Tabitha, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) I found A-Levels really tough in terms of, because obviously at GCSEs I was always, kind of clever in the sense that even though I worked hard, I was not naturally clever, but actually I think it’s just I found there was a big increase in the workload in A-Levels. But I had really good and supportive teachers and they were really good in terms of helping you progress to uni. (Amelia, Civic-­ Global University, Mobility-Maintainer)

The Incremental-Hybrids and Returners reflected some positive emotions related to schooling, but typically in relation to specific aspects of schools only and were more likely to qualify their responses with caveats.

5.3   Incremental-Hybrids, Returners and Memories of School The Incremental-Hybrids generally had positive experiences of school, particularly in relation to specific subjects or friendships. I enjoyed school. I wasn’t popular but I wasn’t unpopular. I had good grades but they weren’t the best. Sort of average. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) I enjoyed like academic stuff when it was something that interested me. (Jo, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

63

The Returners appeared to offer the most caveats in relation to the extent to which they enjoyed school: And I remember being at school and I would worry. All I remember of being at primary was worrying that would I’d be able to do things and would I get it right? And I just really didn’t like it, and I remember thinking when I’m a teacher nobody in my class is going to feel like that. I’m going to make sure everybody’s okay and all that. (Antonia, Old College University, Returner) I did and I didn’t. I did because I got very good grades I was always getting very high marks. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner) I enjoyed certain aspects of school. I have a creative and elective personality so I really enjoyed Art and English. I enjoyed taking things to pieces and putting your own interpretation on and making it your own. I enjoyed History… I was always in the Highest Set. (Freya, Old College University, Returner)

These caveats about the extent to which the Returners found their earlier experiences of education as positive are perhaps to be expected as they had re-engaged with learning as mature students. Their learner identities were built upon previous academic success, but this had often been marred by negative experiences related to bullying or indifferent teachers: I used to get picked on quite a bit in school for being clever. My friends wanted me to bunk off school and things like that you know and I didn’t want to do that you know so I used to get, well I was torn between two worlds really in a way. I used to get picked on for being clever so I used to hide that in a way. I was clever and it was quite difficult. Then I went to college. I did my A levels and I did pretty well in them, but I guess I just started going off the rails really. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner)

She went on to highlight a sense of being let down by her teachers: Certainly the school I went to, people could see that you were struggling and that I wasn’t myself, but the teachers they could see, but they didn’t do anything about it. They left me to it really. And I kind of feel angry in a way I should have had some kind of help from school, but they just didn’t do anything. So I kind of feel bitter about that really. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner)

64 

S. SHIELDS

However, Antonia, acknowledged she was different from her school friend in relation to wanting to engage in education: I didn’t dislike secondary school but nor did I have a massive passion for it. It’s quite funny actually, one of my friends she lives in Leeds now, she left our school and went straight to university in Leeds, so she’s lived in Leeds over ten years now. And she’s a secondary school teacher and we laugh at how different we are. So growing up when I was 16 I just couldn’t wait to leave school whereas she wanted to stay on at school. (Antonia, Old College University, Returner)

For both Antonia and Freya there was a sense that they had outgrown education by the time they had reached sixteen years old and they had been ready to embark on their adult lives: I’d always worked alongside school, I’d worked since I was about 13 [years of old] kind of in cafes and hotels kind of thing so I was used to earning my own money and the kinds of freedoms that that gave me in terms of you know I felt like I could do what I wanted kind of thing. I just felt that at that time school wasn’t really right for me so I went abroad. When I came back I tried again with my A levels and I completed the first year, but I just felt totally disengaged with education. I just didn’t want to be there anymore. (Freya, Old College University, Returner) I was going to get married. And I always remember silly things like I said when I’m 30 all I want to do is order a Chinese takeaway with my husband and my three children. (Antonia, Old College University, Returner)

The school friendships of the three Returners were all described differently. Antonia had a friend who was keen to continue her education, but this was not a strong enough ‘pull’ to encourage her to do the same. Freya described schools friendships as ‘up and down’. Lauren faced hostility from her ‘friends’ for being academic. The overarching pattern indicated from this sub-group was that in different ways their friendships did not reinforce positive learner identities. In contrast to the Returners who sought to escape from the perceived constraints of education, the Horizon-­ Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers appeared to have had a much more positive relationship with learning and they were keen to continue with their education.

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

65

5.4   Horizon-Expanders, Mobility-Maintainers and Studious Friends The Horizon-Expanders had friendships groups which reinforced their sense of a positive learner identity. The Mobility-Maintainers and Horizon-­ Expanders had friendship groups who were academically-minded, capable, studious and assumed that they would be going to university. I felt like it was quite a competitive environment. And it was just created by the way that they, maybe, if you had tests or mock exams or whatever, you knew what everybody got. (Tabitha, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) The majority of people that went to my sixth form did go on to university. (Nicola, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer)

For the Horizon-Expanders, the idea of going to university was normalised through their friendship group. They were all very like academically charged. And I’ve always, I’ve been into my books but I wasn’t very good at the exams. Then being in that environment made me apply to unis. I feel like if I’d have been in a different friendship group I maybe would have gone down a different route. It’s weird to think about. Because you are just put in a form in Year 7 and that’s kind of the people you stick with. (Florence, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander) And I think that’s so important [studious friends], especially being from an area like mine where being particularly intelligent or academic is so frowned upon. Because you’re in that generational cycle where you just go to school until you’re 16, you get a job in a factory, and that helps you basically get by for the rest of your life. So, to really have friends that saw beyond that was extremely important. (Beth, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander) I remember when I said to my Mum I want to go to university because I was doing quite well at school, despite obviously having problems with resources because I could never afford to have the revision guides and the biggest thing as well was there was no place to study at home and I think that was a big one for me, whereas other kids, my friends, sort of had Study’s or they had library areas or they had their own room with a desk in…. (Lucy, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

66 

S. SHIELDS

Studious friends, therefore appeared to operate in an important way for Horizon-Expanders in that the expectation amongst their friendship group was that it was the ‘norm’ to go to university. Lucy indicates that her friendship group came from a more affluent background than herself, this suggests that schools that take students from a range of socio-­economic strata are hopefully more likely to have a positive impact on challenging structural barriers for ‘bright, working-class’ pupils.

5.5   Horizon-Expanders, Mobility-Maintainers and Good Relationships with Teachers For students that are highly engaged academically, it is perhaps not surprising that the Mobility-Maintainers and Horizon-Expanders also reported good relationships with their teachers. Again this was likely to have been particularly important for Horizon-Expanders as an additional source of confidence in their decision to attend university. There was me and around ten students and we all studied the same subjects even through A-Level we were all in the same classes and just constantly would get commented on. Like the school would say there’s no one like you, there’s been no one like you. And I’m still in contact with those teachers because they really enjoyed our year. (Beth, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

The reinforcing of a strong learner identities through good relationships with teachers was probably particularly significant for Horizon-­ Expanders as the comments about familial attitudes towards education appeared to be less positive for some of this group (please see Chap. 7 for a discussion of this). Teacher-student relationship are significant in fostering positive emotions associated with learning through teachers being caring and encouraging (Oades-Sese et al., 2014).

5.6   Horizon-Expanders, Sixth-forms and Meritocratic ‘Failure’ However, the academic promise that the Horizon-Expanders had shown with their strong learner identities appeared to be hampered by the structural practices of their sixth-forms (and engaging in paid employment during further education—please see Chap. 6 for a discussion of this). Three out of the five Horizon-Expanders went through Clearing1 to obtain their

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

67

place at university. It was apparent that structural constraints had a negative impact on the transition to higher education for Horizon-Expanders: And then when it came to deciding I put ‘North East Post-1992 University’ down and ‘North Yorkshire Plate Glass University’ I think. And then I didn’t get in to either of them so I got here through Clearing. (Florence, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander) So I was in Clearing which was sort of like the big giant killing the sixth form… I suppose that meant when I was in Clearing that I was sort of trying to sift through the options going it alone. (Matt, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander) Yeah I think the reason was because when I was at A Level I didn’t do as well as I thought I would with the Psychology A level so, but Education was something I was always interested in as well. (Lucy, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

The Horizon-Expanders all held themselves personally accountable for academic attainment, having internalised meritocratic beliefs about hard work being the route to educational success (Owens & de St Croix, 2020). The fact that two of the Horizon-Expanders (Lucy and Florence) had undertaken extensive paid employment during their A Levels (please see Chap. 6) was acknowledged, but did not diminish the sense of personal responsibility for good levels of academic attainment. Additionally, the ‘constraint’ faced when sixth-forms had not enabled suitable A Level subjects due to a timetable-blocking model of ‘choice’ (e.g. Matt) again did not override the sense of personal failure and shame they felt, having previously always excelled academically. Therefore any disappointment with their A Level grades and the subsequent stress of gaining a university place through Clearing was conceptualised as a personal responsibility for perceived failure. Yet, for the Incremental-Hybrids, they had more extensive histories of academic challenge and had adjusted their expectations to anticipating more circuitous routes to university access.

68 

S. SHIELDS

5.7   Incremental-Hybrids, Academic Challenges and Pride Unsurprisingly, the participants who had struggled most academically were the ones with the most circuitous routes into university. Five out of six Incremental-Hybrids had faced academic set-backs. For the Incremental-Hybrids, the academic challenges had happened at an earlier stage of education (than the Horizon-Expanders), for example from GCSE to A Level (or alternative qualifications), with students often spending three years in Further Education or undertaking an Access Course. I developed anxiety towards my exams which affected my grades. I did get a few lower than what I expected. I was put in a separate room and obviously with the panic attacks I just wasn’t concentrating as much. I feel like that did take a toll on what I did at college as well. Because I didn’t go straight in to what I wanted to do. I originally wanted to do psychology, all the sociology-based courses but because my grades took an impact from the anxiety. I had to do a bridge year. (Ella, Incremental-Hybrid, Old College University) So I ended up doing A Levels straight from school, deciding it wasn’t quite for me. So I had a year out, got a car, got settled. Then I went back to ‘North-East College’, did an Access Course, not really with the goal of going to ‘Civic-global University’ but going to a university, doing a maths degree or maths teaching or something along those lines. (Felicity, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

The Incremental-Hybrids took more indirect qualification routes in an attempt to achieve their longer-term goals. For these participants the vocational focus of the course that they were planning to study (teaching/leading to teaching or working with children in informal learning contexts) was their biggest focus and they emphasised their practical experience in these areas: So I know all about that and I knew how to make learning creative and fun for children, as well. (Tess, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) The outdoor education has kind of been a relaxing time. So that’s been coming out of solid education, writing and learning, and just going and having some fun. Because that’s what outdoor education really is to me. I know the background of what you should put in and what will help them excel in schools. But

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

69

for me it’s so natural that it’s just something fun in between studies and work. And getting paid to be there which is always good. (Felicity, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

The academic adversity they faced, was balanced with their strong sense of practical capability in their chosen fields. The Incremental-Hybrids learner identities were characterised by a sense of motivational resilience (Skinner & Pitzer, 2012) and they addressed academic adversity through autonomy strategies and ‘buoyancy’ (Martin & Marsh, 2008). ‘When students are highly engaged, they are not only less affected by these stressful episodes, but they also have access to more constructive coping strategies (such as strategizing or help-seeking), leading to increased persistence and re-engagement with difficult academic material.’ (Skinner et  al., 2014, p. 335). Their vocational experience gave them the confidence to address academic challenges to reach their goals. The extent of their achievement in overcoming academic adversity is commensurate with the level of pride they felt about going to university. Pride was emphasised much more strongly for the Incremental-Hybrids who were less likely to have middle-class friends. The Incremental-Hybrids did not have the same sense of automatic entitlement to a place at university inculcated into them through their peers like the Horizon-Expanders, or the same level of confidence in their academic capability. My Dad’s over the moon with it because I’m the first person on his side of the family to go to university. My Grandma is absolutely amazed by it. She didn’t expect it. She was taken away by it one time when I said Grandma “I’m going to university.” She was just so happy. One of those proud moments I’ll always remember. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid)

Pride was a key emotion also for the Returners when they finally knew that they were going to go to university, especially as they had experienced a protracted entrance to university. They are all really pleased that I’ve gone back to study. And they are supportive when I need childcare and stuff yeah they are pretty good. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner)

This pride in part may have been because there were points on the journey into higher education when the internal conversations of

70 

S. SHIELDS

working-class participants were challenged by the possibility that university may not be part of their future after all. This seemed to be in direct contrast to the way that the transition to university for the middle-class participants was seamless. The pride that working-class women exhibited, especially by Incremental-Hybrids and Returners was much more muted amongst the Mobility-Maintainers, perhaps as for many of them there was the automatic expectation that they would go to university and this had never seriously been in question.

5.8   Mobility-Maintainers and Smooth Routes into Higher Education The sixth-form provision experienced by Mobility-Maintainers appeared to be designed to ensure a smooth route into higher education: The school, they tried to give a science to everyone. Like obviously they are good. That was the one thing they blanketed across. Everyone try and do a science. So I picked biology because it was the one I was best at. And then they just made you feel like you needed it and I didn’t need it. Like I could have done sociology and I’d have way preferred that. But it did lower your offers in uni. (Hattie, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer)

For the Mobility-Maintainers the sixth-form provision appeared to give students very clear guidance about A Level subject choice, underpinned by confidence in the academic capabilities of these students, and this guidance was part of ensuring the linear path that these students would take to gaining a place at university. The sixth-forms attended by the Mobility-­ Maintainers appeared to be much more instrumental in the university application process, which may have mitigated for potential problems (such as going through Clearing) when A Level results were announced: I think because my school, well my sixth-form prides itself on everyone getting into their top university, they don’t really let, they are really careful who they let apply to the Russell Groups. Does that make sense? So if they don’t think you can get into to them they’ll steer you towards the metropolitans and the polytechnics and things like that because then you, that is still in their statistics of you getting into your top choices. (Chloe, Modern City University, Mobility-Maintainer)

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

71

Of the Mobility-Maintainers all six participants attended their first choice institution, although two participants changed their degree course after their first year within the same institution.

5.9   Discussion Agentially, the participants deliberated upon their past academic achievement as an indicator that going to university was a realistic life project. Archer (2012, p. 105) contends that ‘to have a concern is a challenge to make a commitment, providing circumstances are propitious. If they are, an active commitment is a willing assent by a subject that what moves her to care is of real and (is believed to be) of enduring importance to her. In short, that concern is part of that subject’s personal identity.’ A sense of academic competence was significant for shaping a positive learner identity (Skinner et al., 2014, p. 333). Schools can be places where self-esteem is reinforced (or not) through the opportunity to demonstrate attributes of being successful (or unsuccessful). The Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers had strong academic learner identities, with enduring levels of confidence in their academic capabilities, having experienced high levels of ‘capability’ and ‘belonging’ in their school environment. Furthermore, the Horizon-­ Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers identified with a strong level of ‘relatedness’—‘whether school (or specific teachers and peers) can serve as a secure base, a place where one feels at home, embodied by people who are dependable sources of support in times of trouble’ (Skinner et  al., 2014, p. 333). Therefore for these two sub-sets of women their positive past experiences of schooling had shaped their learner identities and formed a significant part of their personal identities more broadly. Conversely, the Incremental-Hybrids tended to highlight their personal identities in relation to their practical experience of working with children and the enjoyment that they derived from working with children (as discussed in Chap. 4). Archer explains (2012, p. 103) ‘our personal identities derive from our ultimate concerns, from what we care about most, together with our concerns, which cannot be discarded but are accommodated to our prime commitment’. As learners, the Incremental-Hybrids had historically demonstrated ‘motivational resilience’ and ‘buoyancy’ in relation to engaging with academic study, whereas their experience of ‘capability’ in educational contexts had been much more variable and tenuous than that of the Horizon-Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers.

72 

S. SHIELDS

The Returners were much less likely to have experienced a sense of ‘belonging’ within their schooling experiences and this had largely facilitated their leaving education. The Returners did not perceive ‘belonging’ to be a significant aspect of university life for them personally, as they already had well-established lives with family and friends. The Returners (as communicative reflexives) were not intending to exert significant energy to avail themselves of any new university friendships. Archer (2012, p. 22) argues ‘those who vest their ultimate concerns within their natal context also seek to project this context forward in time … undoubtedly, that gives them a generic interest in social reproduction.’

5.10   Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter suggests that differences in learner identity shaped individual goal setting in relation to the women’s expectations of university. The deliberation phase of internal conversation focused on academic identities or caring identities with attributes suitable for working with children. The findings from this study indicate that although characterisations of learner identity were shaped by feelings of capability and belonging, the internalisation of meritocratic conceptions of individual responsibility and hard work played a significant part in shaping the learner identity of working-class students. Socially mixed schools appeared to be particularly important in supporting Horizon-Expander aspirations and expectations about attending university. For Horizon-Expander students with friends that were expected/intended to go to university had a significant impact on them assuming this educational trajectory for themselves. For Incremental-Hybrids without this peer ‘pressure’, family support in encouraging university attendance for a vocational purpose was paramount.

Note 1. Clearing is a UK process whereby if students ‘miss’ their A Level grades for a university place, they can apply to other institutions with spare places to obtain their place at university. Clearing is typically characterised as a stressful experience typically coupled with coping with the disappointment of lower than anticipated exam results (Baxter & Hatt, 2000).

5  LEARNER IDENTITIES 

73

References Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M.  S. (2012). The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge University Press. Baxter, A., & Hatt, S. (2000). “Everything Must Go!” Clearing and first-year performance. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 24(1), 5–14. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Polity Press. Brine, J., & Waller, R. (2004). Working-class women on an Access course: Risk, opportunity and (re)constructing identities. Gender and Education, 16(1), 97–113. Crozier, G., & Reay, D. (2011). Capital accumulation: Working-class students learning how to learn in HE. Teaching in Higher Education, 16(2), 145–155. Martin, A. J., & Marsh, H. W. (2008). Academic buoyancy: Towards an understanding of students’ everyday academic resilience. Journal of School Psychology, 46(1), 53–83. Nevill, A., & Rhodes, C. (2004). Academic and social integration in higher education: A survey of satisfaction and dissatisfaction within a first-year education studies cohort at a new university. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 28(2), 179–193. Oades-Sese, G. V., Matthews, T. A., & Lewis, M. (2014). Chapter 13: Shame and pride and their effects on student achievement. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-­ Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 246–264). Routledge. Owens, J., & de St Croix, T. (2020). Engines of social mobility? Navigating meritocratic education discourse in an unequal society. British Journal of Educational Studies, 68(4), 403–424. Pekrun, R., & Perry, R. P. (2014). Chapter 7: Control-value theory of achievement emotions. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 120–141). Routledge. Piepenburg, J. G., & Beckmann, J. (2021). The relevance of social and academic integration for students’ dropout decisions. Evidence from a factorial survey in Germany. European Journal of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/21568235.2021.1930089 Reay, D., Crozier, G., & Clayton, J. (2010). ‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working-­ class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1), 107–124. Skinner, E., Pitzer, J., & Brule, H. (2014). Chapter 17: The role of emotion in in engagement, coping and the development of motivational resilience. In

74 

S. SHIELDS

R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 331–347). Routledge. Skinner, E. A., & Pitzer, J. (2012). Developmental dynamics of engagement, coping, and everyday resilience. In S. L. Christenson, A. L. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp.  21–44). Springer Science. Weil, S. W. (1986). Non-traditional learners within traditional higher education institutions: Discovery and disappointment. Studies in Higher Education, 11(3), 219–235.

CHAPTER 6

Balancing Acts

Abstract  Term-time paid employment and caring responsibilities are ubiquitous amongst working-class undergraduates and have a detrimental impact on the time available to devote to studying. The dedication phase of internal conversation focused on this balancing act. The employed working-class students did not exhibit the visible studying behaviours of the Mobility-Maintainers. Instead, an ‘ethics of accommodation’ was adopted, in which inconspicuous studying was a strategic approach to prioritising performative achievement, against the constraints of living expense pressures/familial commitments. Rather than a lack of commitment to studying, it was a central preoccupation in order to achieve the ‘life project’, but this needs to be understood as an ‘abstract’, rather than as a ‘practical’ prioritisation. Keywords  Ethics of accommodation • Abstract prioritisation • Visible studying • Organisational skills

6.1   Introduction The working-class women were required to balance financial and/or familial commitments with studying. The dedication phase of internal conversation focused on this balancing act, in which the reality of enacting © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_6

75

76 

S. SHIELDS

the life project was monitored. Unlike the earlier phases of internal conversation which had identified different motivations and considerations about the life project of going to university, there was remarkable homogeneity in this internal conversational phase of dedication which mediated between the financial pressures of earning enough money and/or caring responsibilities and committing enough time to study. The studying undertaken by many of the working-class women was often inconspicuous—being squeezed into evenings, late at night or very early in the morning. Those women with caring responsibilities in particular, also emphasised the high levels of organisational skill that they needed to ensure that they were able to study, whilst meeting their familial commitments. Moreau and Leathwood (2006) emphasise that domestic unpaid labour, such as childcare should also be part of the discussion about the commitments and responsibilities of working-class students at university. Of the nine working-class students in paid employment, interviews suggested that eight of these students were working a minimum of 15 hours per week. Three key themes emerged in these internal conversations in the ‘dedication’ phase: tiredness, organisational skills and ‘squeezing-­in’ study. The personal costs for working-class students, such as limited time to socialise at university was also acknowledged. The Mobility-Maintainers in contrast blocked paid employment into university holiday periods and engaged in ‘visible’ studying practices, such as using the university library in the daytime. For the Mobility-Maintainers internal conversations focused on their commitment and prioritisation of studying and moral discourses of budgeting to explain not undertaking paid employment in term-time. The five working-class students not in paid employment also engaged in visible studying practices. Of the working-­class participants not in paid employment: two emphasised that they needed to find some term-time paid employment, one was financially supported by her partner, one was a single parent with four children and one had a serious health condition. The chapter first explores the preoccupation with living expenses for the working-class women who had not remained in their natal contexts. Second, the participants consideration of the impact of paid employment on the capacity to both study and to socialise is discussed. Third, the organisational skills developed by the working-class women in an attempt to balance studying with their wider commitments.

6  BALANCING ACTS 

77

6.2   Earning to Live The interview quotes suggest that some of the working-class students were in paid employment to earn enough to live independently. The quotes below suggest that the financial assistance via student loans available to the working-class students was not sufficient to manage their living expenses easily for those who were not living within their natal contexts: First year was hard. I don’t have any shame in saying that, because ‘Civic-­ Global University City’, although it’s one of the most. It’s the most amazing university in the world. Their first-year accommodation is just not, it’s unaffordable. It’s luxurious, it’s beautiful. I think they are working on making it more affordable, they’ve opened a couple of new ones that are more affordable but I lived in probably the most expensive one with a very small loan… Particularly with student loans, unless you’re literally on the lowest income or the highest, there’s a very big gap in the middle that really, really struggles. And when you’re in that gap, unfortunately, you’ve got nothing else to do but put your all into working. (Beth, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander) Sometimes I haven’t actually had the money to go into university. I mean like my bills are like £900 a month and I get just under £3000 a year from student loans. So I’ve had to work alongside my degree to afford to live…so I did nights in a Care Home, just cleaning and kitchen work in the Care Home as well as night shifts. But I was going in to uni from my night shift doing my course and going to my placement after the night shift. (Camilla, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) Especially in first year because my student accommodation was like £130 a week and that was my whole loan. It gives you like £10 a week to live on. Thank God for the overdraft (interviewee laughs)… When you’re buying bread with 1p coins you know you’ve hit a low point (interviewee and interviewer laugh). When your card’s being rejected for bananas, that’s when you need to go home, give my mum a call (interviewee and interviewer laugh). (Florence, Civic-­ Global University, Horizon-Expander)

The length and detail of the quotes above, suggests that in enacting the life project of going to university, the internal conversational phase of dedication constantly monitored this financial pressure against academic success. Archer (2003) contends that our life projects are fallible and are susceptible to constraints (and enablements) based on our involuntary placement within society. The quotes below indicate that two

78 

S. SHIELDS

Horizon-­Expanders were aware of the pressure to balance paid employment with studying ahead of starting at university, but they had not completely realised the full extent to which they would find this challenging: I had a part time job in college and it took up all of my time and I feel like I didn’t put enough time into my A Levels… I think that if I’d have been told when I was in college how much I was going to struggle for money, it wouldn’t have stopped me from going but it would have been a big thing that affected me. Because it has been really tough… So struggling with money would definitely have been something that—because I didn’t think it would be that bad. Because you think when you’re applying for your student loan for the first time and you’re getting like two and a half grand and it’s like oh my god I’ve never had that much money logistically. (Florence, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander) Well I worked since I was 16, so I was working when I was doing A Level and I got a job, it was just at *Large Supermarket Chain* so I was just doing retail, but I worked there whilst I was doing my A Levels and I worked there 30 hours a week and I did my A Levels, so obviously at that age it was quite a lot to go in with, but I enjoyed it because it was nice to earn your own money as well because I’d always seen so many problems with money, but it was nice to earn my own and my Mum charged me rent when I was doing A Level, so I gave her some money for rent. (Lucy, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

Interestingly, for Florence and Lucy, they took a different approach to paid employment during term time at university to other working-class students. They had both benefitted from university scholarships because of their family income which had helped reduce the pressure to engage in paid employment. Perhaps, more significantly, having experienced the pressures of studying during their A Levels, they adopted approaches to managing financially at university, which they perceived to be more sustainable in terms of having enough time to study. Florence focused heavily on paid employment during holiday periods. Because I don’t think I could have done—I feel like there’s the social life, the learning life and then the part-time job and you can’t balance all three. I feel like I have to give something up. (Florence, Civic-global University, Horizon-Expander)

6  BALANCING ACTS 

79

Lucy focused on working for an employer that could give her the flexibility she needed around assessment periods, having experienced inflexibility with her previous employer. Florence and Lucy were perhaps the most conscious of the reality of the constraints paid employment created in relation to not having sufficient time to study. 6.2.1  Not Enough Time to Study Students went on to reflect on the tensions paid employment caused by not having sufficient time to study: And then I’m really tired. And also I want to do well in my academic study… And my first year grades—actually I didn’t do really bad I got four of my assignments got a first. I got a 65 and a 68. Overall I got 69 for the first year. (Quon, Modern City University, Horizon-Expander) So I was working 50, 60 hours a week and going to university on my break. I was using my hour break at work to come to lectures and then go back to work. So that was hard. To get the grade that I did in first year I was so proud of myself. (Beth, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

Whilst experiencing significant challenges with balancing the need to undertake paid employment whilst committing to their ultimate concern of being a university graduate, it was apparent that the Horizon-Expanders as autonomous reflexives were continually self-monitoring their capability to achieve the level of performative achievement that they were aiming for. As autonomous reflexives, the Horizon-Expanders were seeking to ‘establish a modus vivendi at the nexus between their voluntarily defined priorities and the socially determined characteristics of the contexts that they now confront’ (Archer, 2003, p. 244). For those who had remained within their natal contexts whilst studying, there was still a tension between having enough money to live and having sufficient time for studying: I’m really bad at saying no. So I’ve possibly worked more than what I should have done in the shop. So I should have said no to more shifts and done more university work, I think that would have been more beneficial… the work itself isn’t great for mental health but the money that comes from it allows me to do what I want to do with my spare time which is great. Something that you need to be able to balance is being able to have time for you and being able to do

80 

S. SHIELDS

things you want to do as well as learning. (Felicity, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid) And I do spend a lot of my time there over the weekend which hinders my studying. And I don’t get a lot of personal time either. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental Hybrid)

Alongside tiredness and the mental health pressures of trying to do well academically within a limited timeframe to study, there was an acknowledgement that whilst paid employment provided much needed money for wider aspects of living, it was likely to have a detrimental impact on the social aspects of university. 6.2.2  Not Enough Time to Socialise The impact of paid employment and studying, meant that leisure time socialising was the easiest aspect of lives to reduce. Archer (2003) contends that autonomous reflexives are likely to adopt an ‘ethics of accommodation’ approach in which performative achievement is prioritised. Unlike the communicative reflexives (Incremental-Hybrids and Returners) who dovetailed their concerns to their ultimate concern of family and friends, the autonomous reflexives (Horizon-Expanders) had taken a more abstract moral approach to her subordinate concerns, ‘because internal-­ personal concerns were effectively subordinated, though treated with fairness, they did not impede the pursuit of the ultimate concern of work’ (Archer, 2003, p. 243). Second year and third year I definitely learned to balance more because obviously you’re living with your friends so you get to see them. (Beth, Civic-global University, Horizon-Expander)

The two working-class men in the study did not have parental responsibilities, but engaged in significant amounts of paid employment during term time. Quon, who was on a full scholarship from his home country, worked a significant number of hours each week to send money home to his Mother and youngest brother: Yeah so I don’t make loads of friends here. I don’t have time to do social activities. The timetable doesn’t permit it. Most of the activities are at night so I can’t

6  BALANCING ACTS 

81

really join. I’m only free Thursdays. They don’t have activities I’m interested in on Thursdays. (Quon, Modern City University, Horizon-Expander)

Matt, after the significant disappointment of his A Level results, did not feel that he deserved the type of university experience which would involve significant amounts of socialising or incur debt as he was on a ‘redemption mission’: They had all moved out and had the university the social life, while I didn’t really ever want to or to end up making any friends on the course, it wasn’t what I was intending to do. I didn’t have time to get involved in the Societies and things like that. (Matt, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

For the women with parental responsibilities, socialising at university was a challenge. Archer (2003) suggests that for communicative reflexives there is a careful dovetailing of concerns which means that the needs of family and friends are always put first and the life project is adapted to ensure that family and friends can be prioritised. The parental responsibilities of the women with children had a significant impact on their experience of university, compared to those women without children. As both the men in this study did not have children, it is difficult to ascertain to what extent this is an issue related to women or in fact is not gender specific, but instead is part of the lived reality of any parent who is studying. Tuesday I tend to stay later and work whilst she is at Nursery and then at other times it’s been once she’s in bed and study and work on my assignments then. But it’s quite time consuming, you don’t get a lot of time for yourself. I would say I spend the majority of my time studying or catching up on studying… I think when you’ve got a family it’s a lot harder to stay, it’s a lot harder to juggle everything. For me, I felt quite on the outside like there were all these 18 and 19 year olds and they were all cliques or they just knew each other from college and they had really similar interests and I was like kind of on the outside because I was older, and had a family and was a bit more mature so for me I did find it really hard fitting in and finding friends per se and I would say it wasn’t really until the second year that I actually started to make any friends at all, but of course that is because for me I had all these responsibilities. (Camilla, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) You do burn out. And I think it’s just that sense of being really strict with yourself as well, to say actually, you know what I’ve done everything on my to-do list

82 

S. SHIELDS

for today… I’m not going to start on tomorrow’s to-do list. Yes, I think that’s really important and I don’t know whether it’s just about being a woman, as well. I don’t know if women do just take more on. I don’t know. …And I think as well, taking that guilt factor away. I used to say to my friend I’m either a wonderful mum and a mediocre student or I’m a wonderful student and a mediocre mum. And I couldn’t deal with that mediocre mum part… Well, do you know what, it’s okay not to be perfect all the time. And if it means having a frozen tea [ready-prepared convenience food cooked directly from the freezer] one night, so be it. No one’s going to die, are they, if they eat a frozen Kiev? (Antonia, Old-College University, Returner)

For the working-class women who had established lives outside of university, a university social life was not necessarily paramount to their expectations of a university experience. For communicative reflexives, as much continuity as possible within their social contexts is paramount and not having sufficient time to see family members and ‘home’ friends was distressing for these students: Yeah. I used to find it really hard at first. The transition. I used to see my friends every week and where I worked I had friends so even though I was at work I was still seeing people. When I started university I left work entirely just to focus and I found it quite hard not seeing anyone in that it was quite a hard struggle for me. Also in that I used to go and see my Grandma routinely every Thursday and not being able to do that. That really kind of hurt I suppose. But they all understood. They all understand. They know it is for a better reason. They know that I am not just I haven’t fallen off the edge of the country. And you know they know there is a purpose behind it. The commute is like the routine to go and the sneaky roads to go to get past things. And I just factored things in—so doing shopping on the way in or on the way back so you are not taking time out of things. And then ‘Oliver’ which is my partner. ‘Oliver’ and I we always have Sunday together so Sunday 9-5 at least is nothing we take the dogs out or we go out and do something so it is like our chance to have some time off. (Freya, Old College University, Returner)

The work-ethic of all three sub-groups was apparent, with a focus on being organised and trying to find suitable times and spaces to study. For those women in paid employment, inconspicuous studying was the norm as studying was fitted around working/caring. This often meant studying early in the morning or late into the night. For the women with children they typically studied around their children in evenings too and on occasion drew upon their own parents to look after their children briefly.

6  BALANCING ACTS 

83

6.3   Organised, but Inconspicuous Studying For the working-class participants, there was often a sense of being organised, but also managing the studying workload in a strategic manner, for example the students would complete the set reading and start assignments early enough so as not to have to rush at the end. For me, because I am a Mum as well, the biggest thing is that you have to be organised. Not leaving work until the last minute so if the teacher likes gives you work in class or like you’ve got reading to do for the next week do it at the earliest opportunity because you know then that it is ready and done and you are not leaving it until the last minute that way you are not thinking oh I’m stressed or I am bogged under or things like that. So for me it is just a case of doing things as soon as they are given to you. And coming in and working in advance so like if I had an essay assignment due in in March, I would like start it in January like do the reading for it first and make notes and things. So for me it is just like being organised. (Camilla, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) I’m quite happy getting up at 4 or 5 o clock if I need to. I just feel going to sleep and getting up early is much more productive for me. But I understand that that is not the same for others. But yeah being in that routine of being in bed by 10 [pm] and getting up earlier if I need to rather than straining on tired eyes at a night time definitely works better. (Freya, Old College University, Returner) Potentially I would come from uni to work for like eight hours and then from 11 o clock at night to 2 or 3 o clock in the morning study and then go to sleep and then wake up again at 7 or 8 o clock the next morning… I think for me that was quite a challenge erm again would I have been able to do it if I didn’t have this sort of like redemption mission probably not, but I suppose in my head it always struck me that work needed to be done because I needed the qualification to do what I wanted to do. I think that probably carried us through it. (Matt, Civic-Global University, Horizon-Expander)

The working-class students described ways in which they managed their studying in a sustainable manner for them personally. Archer (2003) contends that a key aspect of enacting the life project is ensuring it is sustainable as well as satisfying. Although the working-class women valued studying, its prioritisation could be understood as an abstract prioritisation, rather than in a practical sense. The involuntary societal placement of the working-class women meant that the reality was studying was much more likely to be completed after familial and financial commitments,

84 

S. SHIELDS

however, ‘the ethic of accommodation—delineated what was due to the self and what was due from the self to other people’ (Archer, 2003, p. 236). Just got to be good with time management really. Free periods at uni I just do my studying. Once she goes to bed I do a lot of it. The days when I work I can’t really do anything then. I’ve just got to prioritise really what I need to do. I manage okay though. I’ve never got anything in late and I get all my reading done so yeah I do alright. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner) So by the time they go to bed at 10, 11 is the time I come alive, writing essays and looking up journals type of thing. It’s always been a night time thing. But they’ve always said if you’ve got university work to do we’ll help pick up other bits around the house that you would normally do. (Felicity, Civic-global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

Therefore, there was a significant emphasis on the idea of being ‘organised’, with the acceptance that there would be very little personal time. Working-class students appeared to fit study into their lives in a surreptitious way in relation to balancing this with paid employment and/or familial commitments.

6.4   Visible Studying and Mobility-Maintainers This was in contrast to the Mobility-Maintainers who discussed spending their days in the library. The Mobility-Maintainers emphasised the financial budgeting that they were required to do at university and also the ways in which they contributed alongside their parents to the financial aspects of living away from their natal contexts to explain not being in paid employment during term-time and to indicate that they were not financially reliant on their families. Middle-class students tend to have a more linear trajectory to university and are also much less likely to be a mature student, and not have the familial commitments of an older individual. Nevertheless, the less immediate financial pressures that they faced meant that they were able to engage in visible studying practices. What I did at uni a lot more than what I did at college was, I did all of my work in the library. So, say, I’d go to the ‘Doris’ [informal name of university library] between nine and ten in the morning and then I’d just stay there until whenever I got stuff done, which I found better. Because then when I was at

6  BALANCING ACTS 

85

home I didn’t have to do any work at home, which I liked because I liked the separation of it so I didn’t have to… And if I do work at home it would very much be. You know the night before an essay where you’re doing the last-minute read through to check everything. So preferred that in the sense that it kept it separate and then it meant that I could just chill with my housemates when I got home and we’d watch a film or just sit and talk to each other. (Amelia, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer) And I knew in my head I wanted to try and get a good grade. So it does help that they were obviously a lot more settled in doing work. When we would go out it wouldn’t be like ridiculous, like all the time. The girls on our course because I made friends with them as well though I wasn’t living with them, I could pick and choose—because they’d be out like nearly everyday (interviewer laughs)—so I could pick and choose when I went out with them. But also have the more balanced people studying and getting on with things. So that helped a lot with the whole balance. (Kerry, Civic-Global University, Mobility-Maintainer)

The Mobility-Maintainers were more likely to study in the daytime—as this was in fact their ‘job’, and then enjoy leisure time in the evenings. The Mobility-Maintainers indicated much more visible engagement with learning, choosing to spend time in the library studying. The working-class women who were not in paid employment and did not have caring responsibilities, were also engaging in more visible studying behaviours: I do like a lot of reading and planning for the essays. I do like read up and then I go and meet with the lecturer to make sure I’m on the right track and then I get down with the essay and get on with presentations. Things like that…. I do a lot [of studying] in the library, there is a lot of little rooms. (Lily, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) I think it is a mixture depending on what else needs to be done. I might go into uni for the whole day because it is easier to concentrate, but that is because there is kettle and food and TV which is very distracting [laughter]… So sometimes I will choose to sit in [at home] or sometimes like the lectures are an hour I’ll like on a Thursday I have 9–11 and 2–4 so I have that three hour gap that I can fill with something. (Freya, Old College University, Returner)

This indicates that reducing the day to day financial pressures on working-­class students would have a significant impact in addressing the time pressures that these students face in relation to studying.

86 

S. SHIELDS

6.5   Discussion 6.5.1  Visible Studying The Mobility-Maintainers described their academic life outside of lectures and seminars as centred on studying in the university library typically in the daytime. The occasional evening studying in the library tended to have a ‘social’ element with friends studying at the same time. The Mobility-­ Maintainers did not generally participate in paid employment during term-time, although they often engaged in volunteering activities which would help towards career goals. Five working-class women also reported ‘visible’ studying practices akin to the Mobility-Maintainers indicating that they studied in the daytime and/or in the university library. Notably, these working-class women did not have children and also had financial support whilst at university (two Horizon-Expanders and two Incremental-­ Hybrid qualified for university scholarships based on the incomes of their single-parent mothers and one Returner had financial support from her partner). The two Horizon-Expanders with greater financial stability, also engaged in socialising with their university peers in studying and non-­ studying contexts, like the Mobility-Maintainers and embodied this ‘middle-­class’ visible engagement with studying practises. My participants too had ‘the intense preoccupation with academic success that other researchers describe in relation to middle-class, female, secondary school pupils’ (Walkerdine et al., 2000 cited in Reay, 2001, p. 158). Although this hard working identity has also been characterised as working-class: Mac an Ghaill (1994, p. 62) argued that his ‘Academic Achievers’ had ‘an academic identity that was informed by a strong working-class ethic.’ 6.5.2  ‘Ethics of Accommodation’ For the remaining nine working-class participants, there was a sense of pressure in terms of wanting to devote time to studying, but needing to be at a place of paid employment or engaging in caring for children. For these nine working-class students there was an abstract belief in prioritising university through an ‘ethics of accommodation’ (Archer, 2003). For these participants, although they were limited in the extent to which they could spend time studying because of paid employment and/or family responsibilities they were emotionally and theoretically prioritising

6  BALANCING ACTS 

87

studying. The full-time nature of some of the employment had a significant impact on the ability of participants to study, for example due to working night-shifts and having lectures the next day. For these participants, much of their studying was unseen or ‘invisible’, being completed late at night and ‘squeezed in’. The need for time to prioritise studying was a constant source of tension which also involved sacrificing other aspects of their lives. For example, the six working-class participants who were a similar age to their course mates recognised their ‘ethics of accommodation’ involved relinquishing the opportunity of any significant university social life. For the Returners, there was not the same sense of loss in the limitations they put upon engagement with wider aspects of university such as, university friendships as these had never been part of their ‘university life project’. 6.5.3  Different Approaches to ‘Dovetailing’ The working-class participants with paid employment and/or caring commitments achieved this dovetailing of concerns through an ‘ethics of accommodation’ or an ‘ethics of fairness’ (Archer, 2003), but the way in which this is understood by Horizon-Expanders (autonomous reflexives), Incremental-Hybrids (communicative reflexives) and Returners (‘pragmatic’ communicative reflexives) is different. Communicative reflexives have an ultimate concern of ‘family and friends’ and therefore a reduction in aspiration is adopted to meet the ‘perceived’ needs of family and friends (please see Archer, 2003, p. 213 for a detailed explanation). On the other hand, for the autonomous reflexives academic study was the priority, and therefore they placed an ‘order’ to which they would address their concerns, with family and friends ‘subordinated’ to the needs of studying (Archer, 2003).

6.6   Conclusion In conclusion, the reality of paid work and family commitments as university students, highlights the fallible nature of life projects (Archer, 2003). It also indicates that the structural constraints faced by many of the working-class students, regardless of their dominant modes of internal conversation as either autonomous or communicative reflexives. At this end stage of the internal conversation cycle of ‘dedication’, it is also apparent that a number of students were glad that the ‘fallibility’ of their project in terms

88 

S. SHIELDS

of financial pressure and familial commitments were not completely acknowledged, as this may have resulted in the abandonment of this project in the early phase of ‘discernment’.

References Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994). The making of men masculinities, sexualities and schooling. Open University Press. Moreau, M.-P., & Leathwood, C. (2006). Balancing paid work and studies: Working (-class) students in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 31(1), 23–42. Reay, D. (2001). ‘Spice Girls’, ‘Nice Girls’, ‘Girlies’, and ‘Tomboys’: Gender discourses, girls’ cultures and femininities in the primary classroom. Gender and Education, 13(2), 153–166. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H., & Melody, J. (2000). Class, attainment and sexuality in late twentieth-century Britain. In C. Zmroczek & P. Mahony (Eds.), Women and social class: International feminist perspectives. UCL Press.

CHAPTER 7

Stepping Stones

Abstract  Higher Education is posited as a route to upward social mobility. However, the women in this study had different understandings of what social mobility meant to them and significantly, how important it was to them. This new phase of the life project indicated that internal conversations were characterised by either fulfilling neoliberal ideals or facilitating the greatest sense of personal happiness. The life-projects of the Horizon-Expanders focused on intergenerational mobility, but for the Incremental-Hybrids the focus was on intragenerational mobility. The Incremental-Hybrids and Returners emphasised ‘dovetailing’, with their overriding commitment to family. For the Returners, there was a sense of confidence in moving to a new social-class position based on a change in occupation, whilst remaining in their existing familial contexts. Keywords  Social class • Social mobility • Happiness • Neoliberalism

7.1   Introduction The extent to which education is the route to social mobility has been debated. Historically, a grammar school education for working-class children was seen to be the route to social mobility, although Jackson and Marsden (1962) highlight the disconnect and sense of alienation often experienced by the working-class grammar school pupils. Furthermore, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_7

89

90 

S. SHIELDS

Bukodi and Goldthorpe (2019) have highlighted how the mass higher education system has challenged the extent to which a university education can be a route to social mobility. The higher education system is stratified (Thompson, 2019) and it is apparent that working-class students and female students can end up disproportionately in lower ranking institutions studying less prestigious courses (female mature students are also disproportionately located here). However, the extent to which university students value social mobility, suggests that it is not structural factors alone that shape mobility goals. The analysis of the plans of the working-­ class women indicated that the their perspectives on perceiving university as a stepping stone for social mobility was shaped by their longer-term life project. Each sub-group had broadly similar occupational ideals with each group containing those that would become fully qualified primary school teachers. However, the routes to this were slightly different with Horizon-­ Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers all planning to take a PGCE (as an extra year of studying), rather than qualifying via a BA with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) (a quicker three year route). Postgraduate Taught courses (Masters’ degrees) were being undertaken by the Horizon-­ Expanders and Mobility-Maintainers groups. One Returner also had plans to undertake a Masters degree, followed by a PhD.  The Incremental-­ Hybrids and Returners in the main were qualifying as teachers. The Incremental-Hybrids were planning on taking a slower more gradual route upon graduation, such as working as a teaching assistant before considering stepping up to a role as a teacher. The Returners were keen to enter a graduate occupation and believed this would facilitate upward occupational mobility within their current familial contexts. Shields (2021) has noted that for some working-class women undergraduates there is a focus on ‘agency for change’ whilst trying to maintain ‘agency for stability’.

7.2   Horizon-Expanders and Familial Pressures to Undertake Non-graduate Employment The Horizon-Expanders reported familial pressures to enter employment as soon as possible upon graduating and reported that their families did not have any expectations of this being graduate-level employment. The notion of a graduate career seemed less clear to families who were unsure of the benefits of higher education. The Horizon-Expanders

7  STEPPING STONES 

91

acknowledged themselves as being seen as anomalies in their natal contexts, and also highlighted familial attitudes towards education, such as ‘education as a distinct fail’ and ‘tackling a lot of negative energy [about postgraduate study]’. The Horizon-Expanders saw university as a stepping stone away from their natal contexts and the values that their families espoused: If you are talking about cultural values and interests and political views it is a working-class family and the ancestral lineage has always been working-class, but I’m sort of the black sheep in the sense of it’s the first line of the family to have money so my Mam and Dad have ended up with very well paid jobs so I suppose salary wise it is a very middle-class if not better off household, but if you peel that layer off it’s still the council estate vibes going on, but we just happen to be fairly well off which I suppose puts you in quite a strange position because I was the middle-class child, but there wasn’t middle-class values used towards Education, it was very much my Dad always keen on us going out and getting a job. He said he always saw education as a distinct fail whereas an employer would see the talent that was there. (Matt, Civic-Global university, Horizon-Expander) ….when I approached them with the idea that I wanted to do a Master’s, I’m still tackling a lot of negative energy towards that. Because it’s, well you’ve struggled with money, why would you want to do that for another year? Just go and get a job, work here, don’t move out of this town. (Beth, Civic-Global university, Horizon-Expander)

For some of these students it was evident that a tension remained with their families, as families appeared to perceive university as a temporary ‘whim’ that the participants were engaging in. The familial pressure appeared to be on getting ‘any job’ as a priority, rather than a longer-term view of a graduate career. The Horizon-Expanders resisted this family pressure to gain low-skilled/low-paid employment upon graduating: My mum’s always pushing me to get a job, she just wants to fling me in to any job. (Florence, Civic-Global university, Horizon-Expander)

The Horizon-Expanders were also open to geographical mobility as part of their desire to achieve upward social mobility:

92 

S. SHIELDS

Trying to. I drive, I’ve got a car, so commuting isn’t a problem. And yeah probably try. But I really don’t want to stay, I don’t want to end up in ‘Redcar and Cleveland Town’. No offence to ‘Redcar and Cleveland Town’. So I’d rather have a school up here so I can get experience up here. So if the opportunity does arise and it’s not in like ‘Maritime Heritage Town’, it’s up here… Yeah. I have always wanted to move to London, teach in London. I looked at this after I applied for my PGCE, there’s a course in London where you can do a PGCE and also specialise in children’s literature. Thought that would be really interesting, looked at that too late though. But I wanted to stay up here, live at home and save up so the year after I’m not like ‘well I’m qualified but I can’t do anything with it now, I’ve got to live at home’. So I’m going to try and save up. (Florence, Civic-Global university, Horizon-Expander) A lot of my family have been in the same places for a lot of their whole life and I’m just not like that at all, I’m just one of those people where I like change and I like to see things. (Lucy, Civic-Global university, Horizon-Expander)

The Horizon-Expanders all planned to undertake a PGCE or a Masters qualification, which was congruent with the plans of the Mobility-­ Maintainers. The Horizon-Expanders internal conversation resonated with that of the neoliberal subject believing that they were responsible for their own fate and in particular, that they saw their work ethic and rejection of familial cultural capital as the way in which to escape their backgrounds and benefit from upward social mobility. However, rather than escape, the Mobility-Maintainers reported a very different familial response to that of the Horizon-Expanders, with a much greater focus on familial support to reduce any concerns about potential downward social mobility.

7.3   Mobility-Maintainers and Familial Support for Graduate Success The middle-class families were openly supportive of ensuring that success could be developed through the decisions taken in relation to career next steps: Well my original plan was psychology and it seemed to fit well because my original plan was an educational psychologist. So I thought I’ll do the degree in education and I’m going on to do my [Masters] degree in psychology next year at ‘Northern New University’. Got my offer so I just have to submit it when I get my results like finalise it. I’m doing the conversion one. I think that’s really

7  STEPPING STONES 

93

perfect like that it’s at a similar level to people who’ve done the degree so I’ve not got to catch up so much. I’m quite lucky that it’s only at ‘Northern New University’ as well… Yeah. My mum wouldn’t have—I had to do a BPS one. Because she’s got a friend who’s a psychologist and she said it is important if you want to go into- well if I wanted to go into clinical psychology I would have had to had the accreditation. (Hattie, Civic-global University, Mobility-Maintainer) It’s the school direct one. It’s in ‘Southern Harbour City’ so I’m going to live with my Nan, the one who is the teaching one. So that will help me a lot because she’ll be able to help me with the whole planning side of thing I’m hoping (interviewee laughs). (Kerry, Civic-global University, Mobility-Maintainer)

The Mobility-Maintainers experienced familial support in checking that their next steps were the ‘right’ ones to ensure that they were on the correct path to their chosen careers. Bukodi and Goldthorpe (2019, p. 205) highlights how families from more privileged backgrounds draw upon their social, economic and cultural resources to support their children: …some limit exists to the extent to which relative mobility chances can be equalised, primarily on the account of the capacity of more advantaged families to use their superior resources, economic, but also social and cultural, in order to maintain their children’s competitive edge—their greater chances of success in the educational system and in turn the labour.

Furthermore, there was a general expectation from families that geographical mobility might be needed in order to achieve these life projects. Again, what is striking about these quotes in the linearity of the Mobility-­ Maintainers experiences and the expectations of their families in the women embarking on graduate careers. There was a clear recognition from middle-class families that additional qualifications and training are likely to be needed upon completing undergraduate study. This was in contrast to the Incremental-Hybrids who had undertaken vocational courses, allowing for a speedier and more direct entry into employment.

94 

S. SHIELDS

7.4   Incremental-Hybrids and Cautious Careers The Incremental-Hybrids were generally more likely to be in a more immediate position to enter graduate employment as qualified Primary School teachers (four out of six Incremental-Hybrids). However, they were much more cautious in their approach to starting in a graduate role: I’m thinking of starting out just doing teaching assistants than I’m thinking I can get into it afterwards. I quite like Science, a Science based [role]. (Lily, Incremental-Hybrid, Old College university) Well I could do SCITT [School Centred Initial Teacher Training] which is in a school or I could possibly do Teaching Assistant for a while until I get my QTS. But it is quite hard to get a Level 6 Teaching Assistant job because they are cutting the funding because they don’t need to pay as high they can pay for Level 3s. So in terms of job prospects after university I am still figuring it with the University. (Camilla, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid)

The Incremental-Hybrids saw their graduate employment trajectory as a longer term, slower process that they would gradually build up to as they developed more confidence, experience or further qualifications. Yeah I’m off there in four days [Outdoor Education centre] to start there full time probably for the next three or four years. And I’ll do bits of study alongside that. So I’ll do my A Level maths again and relearn that. And then start looking at possibly placements or possibly good ways to merge the Outside Ed side of things into traditional education. And then I’ll do a PGCE and then possibly move into there, possibly not. Possibly going to a forest school, depending on how far up they come within the next few years… I’ll probably have a look at over the next few years. (Felicity, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

Therefore, for the Incremental-Hybrids there was less narrative evidence of any immediate attempts to engage with any significant opportunities for occupational upward mobility. 7.4.1  Prioritising Happiness In addition to a more gradual process for moving into graduate employment, for the Incremental-Hybrids this was also strongly framed in relation to their main priority of their families. The Incremental-Hybrids saw

7  STEPPING STONES 

95

occupational opportunities as needing to be dovetailed to their existing social contexts. Also for the Incremental-Hybrids it appeared that in many cases that their families were supportive and encouraging meaning that in many ways there was an ‘easier’ fit between their ambitions and the values of their families, with a hybrid model of some improved career prospects with plans to remain close to family (Shields, 2021). This ‘dovetailing of concerns’, meant that for the Incremental-Hybrids, any occupational changes needed to fit into their lives through being local: I’m hoping to stay local. I really do hope to stay local because I’m very family-­ orientated. I really would hate to move away from my family. But I’m not too bothered if I work an hour away. Somewhere I can travel to. I don’t really want to move away. I want to stay at home. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) But I decided to go to Old College just because I’m from ‘Old College Town’, which means I can stay with my Dad, he would live on his own if I wasn’t here. So that’s why I stayed at Old College as well. (Tess, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid)

The gradual approach to graduate careers and the focus on dovetailing this to familial priorities, is further exemplified by the lack of relevance upward social mobility appeared to have for the life projects of the Incremental-Hybrids: My Mum never really worked after she had us basically. So we struggled a bit financially which is difficult but it’s always been working-class. I do feel like now that my Dad is working—he’s still an engineer but he’s working up the rankings at his new job so his salary is increasing every time he moves up. So I do feel like eventually we would work ourselves up to the middle but I don’t see that happening any time soon… I was going to say our English lecturer he said straight away be prepared to be middle-class because it’s a middle-class job. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not (interviewee laughs). But he did say something like that right at the beginning. (Ella, Old College University, Incremental-Hybrid) Social class isn’t something I ever really associated with myself. I know I’m in society. I know I’m not homeless or struggling in any way shape or form, and I’m not throwing money around at anything and everything because I don’t have the money to do that. I don’t see it as an element of my life that’s important. As long as I can manage personally with both mental health, physical

96 

S. SHIELDS

health, food and doing things I enjoy, then I don’t really compare myself to anybody else and where I should be and where I am. (Felicity, Civic-Global University, Incremental-Hybrid)

Therefore the Incremental-Hybrids, as long as they are achieving their own goals and ambitions, there is less focus and attention on how this might compare to others. Significantly, Archer (2003, p. 202) contends: ‘“Society” places no obstacles in the way of those wishing to found a family and maintain a friendship network, especially when this is coupled with a commitment to providing for them, without any aspiration “towards social advancement.”’ Carol Fuller (2018) contends that the ‘pull’ of family ‘ties’ is very strong for working-class women. Fuller (2018) noted that these ‘ties’ limited engagement with university life (for example through living at home or returning home very frequently). The Returners, in contrast, had a stronger view of their social class positioning and how this may change in the future as a graduate.

7.5   The Returners and Confident Upward Social Mobility The Returners relied on familial support for childcare or partners for financial support. Therefore, the lack of freedom to easily move beyond their societal contexts meant that any internal conversation about geographic mobility had been quickly dismissed. The Returners saw university as providing an occupational and financial change which would offer a partial transformation in the quality of their lives within their existing social contexts, with a focus on changes in cultural values. Upward social mobility was important for this group of working-class women and they believed it was possible to achieve this whilst remaining in their current social contexts: Freya: Well. I would just say as a family we are a working-class family. My Mum works in a hotel. My Dad has been a driver quite similarly [to Sam’s Dad], so I would say that we are a working-class family in that sense. However, my partner would want to say that we are more middle-class like prim and proper and you know we do things. But you know I suppose we do things to get a career and to a feeling that we are have moved from one to the other if that makes sense? Sam: Yes

7  STEPPING STONES 

97

Freya: Whether we are recognised as that or not. I have a stable teaching career and my partner has a sales business so we are moving ourselves up in that sense. (Freya, Old College University, Returner) With my own daughter I take her to museums and I take her to art galleries. I like having Classic FM on because it is proper music, it is nice, but none of my other friends do and I think they think I’m a bit eccentric because I listen to Classic FM and stuff. (Lauren, Modern City University, Returner)

These quotes also indicated that upward mobility was also understood as having a set of values that may distinguish the participants in some way from their natal social contexts, such as ‘prim and proper’, ‘we do things’ and ‘Classic FM’. This understanding of upward social mobility is significant because it identifies cultural practices as differentiating the women from their natal social contexts.

7.6   Discussion The discernment stage of identifying the ‘next step’ of the modus vivendi demonstrates how internal conversation is used to mediate structural and cultural factors differently by the four sub-groups. There were career similarities amongst all four groups (which may of course be related to the similarities in the degree courses undertaken by the participants), with the Mobility-Maintainers having the most varied career plans. However, the internal conversations which each group engaged in, appeared to have mediated the discernment phase of career steps after graduating in distinct ways. For example, these findings indicated that university did not necessarily create a linear trajectory for upward social mobility for all working-­ class women. Furthermore, working-class women may conceptualise social mobility in relation to changes in cultural values. Skeggs (1997) study of working-class women undertaking caring courses, also emphasised their understandings of ‘respectability’. 7.6.1  Happiness The findings suggested that for the Incremental-Hybrids ‘happiness’ and ‘being comfortable’ were far greater priorities than any sense of seeing university as a gateway to upward social mobility. This finding is supported by Hoskins and Barker (2017, p. 57) in relation to their study: ‘the data

98 

S. SHIELDS

suggests that these aspirations for personal happiness may be an obstacle to social mobility. Indeed, in all of these accounts social reproduction is inferred.’ Intergenerational mobility is concerned with the extent an individual has moved up or down the social class spectrum, often defined by occupational role, in relation to generations of a family. The findings also demonstrate that it was not always desirable to engage in opportunities for upward social mobility if these required geographical mobility, particularly for communicative reflexives, who experienced ‘an intense concentration upon and interaction with family and friends, whose effect was to insulate them against external stimuli or opportunities’ (Archer, 2003, p.  208). This is important as it emphasizes that whilst successive governments may have envisaged becoming a graduate as a way of facilitating social mobility for working-class students, this in fact is not the intention or aspiration of all working-class entrants. Furthermore, it is problematic to understand higher education as facilitating social mobility as some form of ‘remedy’ to some type of deficit in working-class cultures.

7.7   Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has provided an overview of career aspirations for the four groups and has explored how these aspirations were shaped by or against familial expectations. The differences in life projects in relation intragenerational mobility versus intergenerational mobility perhaps helps us to understand criticism levelled at those individuals who do not ‘appear’ to have made huge leaps in terms of social mobility as graduates, for example the Incremental-Hybrids. However, crucially, to be able to maintain a sense of familiarity and comfort was the priority, as they attempted to be employed in roles that were a ‘step up’ from what they had been doing, rather than a dramatic leap into the graduate employment market. For those that were Horizon-Expanders they were determined to escape the type of life offered by their natal contexts as they became graduates.

References Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Bukodi, E., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (2019). Social mobility and education in Britain research, politics and policy. Cambridge University Press.

7  STEPPING STONES 

99

Fuller, C. (2018). The existential self: Challenging and renegotiating gender identity through higher education in England. Gender and Education, 30(1), 92–104. Hoskins, K., & Barker, B. (2017). Aspirations and young people’s constructions of their futures: Investigating social mobility and social reproduction. British Journal of Educational Studies, 65(1), 45–67. Jackson, B., & Marsden, D. (1962). Education and the working class. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Shields, S. (2021). Curiosity and careers: Working-class women’s experiences of university. International Studies in the Sociology of Education (forthcoming). https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2021.1959378. Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender. SAGE. Thompson, R. (2019). Education, inequality and social class expansion and stratification in educational opportunity. Routledge.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion

Abstract  Archer’s (Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press, 2003) concept of internal conversation enables an exploration of how working-class women agentically operate within the societal structures that they are involuntarily located. Pertinently, the working-class women had different sets of enablements and constraints contributing to differences in identities, choices and emotions which overall facilitated morphogenesis or morphostasis in relation to the ‘modus vivendi’ of higher education. This chapter proceeds with first a discussion of morphogenetic enablement or morphostatic constraint in relation to friendships, secondly teachers, thirdly family support, fourthly working-­ class femininities and finally primary teaching careers. Overall, it is suggested that neoliberal ‘post-feminist’ discourses are not meaningful for many working-class women and the prioritisation of family and locality are not concomitant with individualised ambitions of upward social mobility. Keywords  Morphogenesis • Morphostasis • Modus vivendi • Enablement • Constraint

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_8

101

102 

S. SHIELDS

8.1   Introduction This study has identified that there is not a homogenous experience for working-class women’s experiences of higher education or their identities, choices and emotions through the ‘modus vivendi’ of higher education. This concluding chapter draws together key themes that have emerged through the preceding chapters in relation to the different impact of friends, teachers, family support, working-class femininities and primary teaching careers had on the four sub-groups: Horizon-Expanders, Incremental-Hybrids, Returners and Mobility-Maintainers. The conclusion discusses how the subjects reflexively mediated their involuntary placement within society through the internal conversation (Archer, 2003).

8.2   Friendships—Morphogenetic Enablement or Morphostatic Constraint? Socially mixed schools appeared to be particularly important in supporting working-class women’s aspirations and expectations around attending university. The Horizon-Expanders had middle-class school friends that were expected/intended to go to university—this had a significant impact on this group to assimilate these educational trajectories for themselves. The significance of these friendships is perhaps further reiterated when considering the often at best ambivalent attitude of the Horizon-­ Expanders’ families about the benefits of higher education. Conversely, for the Returners, a less positive sense of ‘belonging’ in a learning environment through relationships with teachers and/or friends had a deleterious impact on academic success. This was not about ‘low aspiration’ but a set of constraints which confounded educational opportunities.

8.3   Teachers—Morphogenetic Enablement or Morphostatic Constraint? Positive relationships with teachers which reinforced strong learner identities was also a significant mechanism for the aspirations of the Horizon-­ Expanders. In addition, although the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners often had some positive memories of school, warm relationships with teachers in school were not often identified. For the women who did not have the ‘advantage’ of a middle-class educationally aspirational friendship

8 CONCLUSION 

103

group and reinforcement of a strong learner identity by teachers, families were a significant point of emotional support.

8.4   Family Support—Morphogenetic Enablement or Morphostatic Constraint? Family support in encouraging and facilitating university attendance was paramount for the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners. Both the Incremental-hybrids and Returners cited family support being essential in both a practical sense (somewhere to live and/or childcare support), but also in terms of emotional support, for example the level of familial pride that was reported about the educational success of being accepted at university). However, whilst families were supportive and encouraging there was active collaboration in maintaining this support by the Incremental-­ Hybrids and Returners through attending local universities, commensurate with broader familial priorities. Therefore, family support was bounded and is an important site for understanding how aspirations are played out as both an enablement and a constraint. Archer’s (2012) study of ‘Jill’ is also resonant of the communicative reflexivity of the Incremental-­ Hybrids. ‘Jill’ is the only undergraduate who remains living at home during her undergraduate years at an elite university. She retains a close relationship with her parents and existing ‘home’ friends. Archer (2012, p. 155) quotes Jill as saying ‘I probably didn’t get that much out of the whole social scene of uni but I think coming to university—it was always for the degree, so I can go on to the sorts of work that I’d like to go on to.’ However, for the Horizon-Expanders there was a resistance and negativity from family members towards higher education, but this group did not appear to have let this act as a constraint on their decision to go to university, perhaps reinforcing the significance of middle-class friendships at socially mixed schools and supportive teachers. Also, the Horizon-­ Expanders were positioned differently to the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners in terms of family commitments. The Horizon-Expanders typically had different family set-ups as: only children, one of two siblings or second youngest child and the working-class femininity of caregiving (Skeggs, 1997) to family members was not evident for the Horizon-­ Expanders. The Mobility-Maintainers and Horizon-Expanders were more closely aligned with neoliberal post-feminism as the two sub-groups where care was generally given to them, rather than being responsible for ‘doing

104 

S. SHIELDS

the caring’. These two groups had the most freedom to undertake social and geographical mobility. Therefore the ways in which familial values intersect for working-class women is complex and higher education does not facilitate upward social mobility in a predictable manner for all working-­class women.

8.5   Working-class Femininities—Morphogenetic Enablement or Morphostatic Constraint? A working-class femininity of caregiving to family members was evident for the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners. There was a sense of strong familial responsibility embedded within their identities, with examples of feeling emotionally torn between university commitments and family commitments. This indicates that for the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners, they had an alternative value system (Skeggs, 1997; Evans, 2009) with the focus on family being impervious to neoliberal discourses. ‘For young women the abandonment of the altruistic, connected self is often difficult’ (Evans, 2009, p.  347). The meaning-making of these working-class women did not reflect the sense of competitive ambition and individualism often requiring geographical mobility and a recalibration of the prioritisation of family and friends as so often demanded by neoliberal approaches to career. For many of the working-class women, the strength of familial bonds and locality ties meant that educational or career aspirations would never supersede these priorities and commitments. Archer (2003) highlights the active effort it takes for communicative reflexives to dovetail their aspirations to their family and friends. The communicative reflexivity of the Incremental-Hybrids and Returners meant the prioritisation of family and friends first, and career plans were actively dovetailed and curtailed to meet these top priorities. This communicative reflexivity resulted largely in morphostasis. For many of the working-class women in this study, caring femininities were integral to their identities. Furthermore, it appears erroneous to suggest that we are living in a post-feminist society, when our understandings of caring and family commitments suggest that neoliberal educational discourses lack relevance for the lives of many working-class women. Future widening participation initiatives need to consider the cultural expectations of families for working-class women students. Initiatives, such as buddying schemes that offer working-class women students

8 CONCLUSION 

105

support in managing the emotional ‘pull’ of home could be developed. However, the narratives of women themselves, suggested they would be much keener for initiatives to be developed that enabled them to manage the balance between ‘home’ and ‘university’ more easily, such as streamlined timetabling of taught sessions and suitable spaces to study on-­campus on the days that they had taught sessions. Additionally, for the women with children taught sessions that fitted easily into the school-day to reduce the pressure on relying on extended family to care for their children would also have been beneficial and reduced the burden of ‘emotional guilt’.

8.6   Primary Teaching—Morphogenetic Enablement or Morphostatic Constraint? Primary teaching was often seen by the women in the study as an extension and professionalisation of a caring role which working-class women already had experience of: ‘caring understood as mothering’ (Vogt, 2002, p. 251). Primary teaching can be seen as a feminised occupation (Skelton, 2012) with statistically women being the predominant gender teaching in primary schools. Additionally, this was often seen by the women in the study as an extension and professionalisation of a caring role which working-­class women already had experience of (Vogt, 2002). Archer (2003) explains how communicative reflexives side-step structural constraints through working closely within their involuntary placement within society. Arguably, for many of the working-class women in this study, they already faced significant structural barriers without creating any more. Therefore a ‘female-friendly’ career meeting wider life aspirations around caring and working with children appeared to offer the potential for the enablement of relative occupational and financial security, whilst not having to challenge many of the constraints they faced in relation to geographical mobility and familial responsibilities. Not all of the Incremental-Hybrids qualifying planned to apply immediately for jobs as teachers, with a number focusing on Teaching Assistant roles suggesting that the leap in occupational status was seen as a gradual incremental step-­ forward. Neoliberal discourses are problematic when behaviour is not driven by an individualised set of motivations and ambitions. For the Horizon-Expanders, who had already confronted many structural constraints through their autonomous reflexivity, they appeared

106 

S. SHIELDS

willing to continue to undertake challenging their involuntary placement within society, through further agentic behaviour focusing often on postgraduate qualifications with less ‘safe’ vocational outcomes, but potentially more marked upward social mobility. As autonomous reflexives, they were engaged in morphogenesis and engaging (perhaps fallibly) in transformative life projects. For the Mobility-Maintainers, perhaps what was most striking were the expectations of their natal families of their educational success and also the support that was provided in supporting occupational success upon graduation. The Mobility-Maintainers and to some extent then the Horizon-Expanders were most closely aligned with the ‘post-feminist’ society, with the most potential to be women with professional careers and no children (Littler, 2018).

8.7   Conclusion In conclusion, the small number of working-class women Horizon-­ Expanders in this study suggests that neoliberal discourses are not relevant or meaningful to many working-class women. However, it also indicates that the experiences of working-class women are not homogeneous and that they experience different enablements and constraints in relation to their involuntary placement within society. More research into how educational and familial experiences shape autonomous reflexivity and communicative reflexivity is needed to understand how working-class women’s identities, choices and emotions shape experiences of higher education. The internal conversation, therefore in this study has shed light on the complexities of how: agents reflexively deliberate upon the social circumstances that they confront. Because they possess personal identity as defined by their individual configuration of concerns, they know what they care about most and what they seek to realise in society. (Archer, 2003, p. 130)

The impact of education as the modus vivendi of working-class women is perhaps most powerfully summarised by Beth: I do think from my own experience that education is at the genuine forefront of changing the way the world is. (Beth, Civic-Global university, Horizon-Expander)

8 CONCLUSION 

107

References Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S. (2012). The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge University Press. Evans, S. (2009). In a different place: Working-class girls and higher education. Sociology, 43(2), 340–355. Littler, J. (2018). Against meritocracy: Culture, power and myths of mobility. Routledge. Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender. SAGE. Skelton, C. (2012). Men teachers and the “feminised” primary school: A review of the literature. Educational Review, 64(1), 1–19. Vogt, F. (2002). A caring teacher: Explorations into primary school teachers’ professional identity and ethic of care. Gender and Education, 14(3), 251–264.



Appendix A: Overview of Participants

Name

Category

Internal conversational style

Gender Social University Degree class back subject ground

Beth

Horizon-­ Expander

Autonomous Reflexive

Horizon-­ Expander Florence Horizon-­ Expander Matt Horizon-­ Expander

Quon

Horizon-­ Expander

Tess

Incremental-­ ‘Committed’ Female WorkingHybrid Communicative class Reflexive Incremental-­ ‘Committed’ Female WorkingHybrid Communicative class Reflexive

Lucy

Felicity

Residence

Graduate plans

Female Working- Civic-­ class Global

Education University BA

Autonomous Reflexive Autonomous Reflexive Autonomous Reflexive

Female Workingclass Female Workingclass Male Workingclass

Education BA Education BA Education BA

MA International Development Education MSc Psychology Primary PGCE

Autonomous Reflexive

Male

Civic-­ Global Civic-­ Global Civic-­ Global

Working- Modern class City Old College Civic-­ Global

University University Family home

Family home

History (Secondary) PGCE (SCITT) Masters/ Educational Administration Primary Teacher

Family home

Outdoor Educator

Education University BA Primary Teaching (QTS) Education BA

(continued)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7

109

110 

Appendix A: Overview of Participants

(continued) Name

Category

Lily

Incremental-­ ‘Committed’ Hybrid Communicative Reflexive Incremental-­ ‘Committed’ Hybrid Communicative Reflexive Incremental-­ ‘Committed’ Hybrid Communicative Reflexive Incremental-­ ‘Committed’ Hybrid Communicative Reflexive

Ella

Camilla

Jo

Lauren

Returner

Freya

Returner

Antonia

Returner

Nicola

Mobility-­ Maintainer

Tabitha

Mobility-­ Maintainer

Hattie

Mobility-­ Maintainer

Kerry

Mobility-­ Maintainer

Chloe

Mobility-­ Maintainer

Amelia

Mobility-­ Maintainer

Internal conversational style

‘Pragmatic’ Communicative Reflexive ‘Pragmatic’ Communicative Reflexive ‘Pragmatic’ Communicative Reflexive ‘Tralatitious’ Autonomous Reflexive ‘Tralatitious’ Autonomous Reflexive ‘Tralatitious’ Autonomous Reflexive ‘Tralatitious’ Autonomous Reflexive ‘Tralatitious’ Autonomous Reflexive ‘Tralatitious’ Autonomous Reflexive

Gender Social University Degree class back subject ground

Residence

Graduate plans

Female Working- Old class College

University

Teaching Assistant

Family home

Primary Teacher

Female Working- Old class College Female Working- Old class College Female Working- Civic-­ class Global

Female Working- Modern class City Female Working- Old class College

Primary Teaching (QTS) Primary Teaching (QTS) Primary Teaching Studies Education BA

Own home Teaching Assistant Family home

MA Sociology; Children’s Creative Writing facilitator Education Own home Masters and BA PhD

Female Middleclass

Civic-­ Global

Primary Own home Primary Teaching Teacher (QTS) Primary Own home Primary Teaching Teacher (QTS) Education University Human BA Resources

Female Middleclass

Civic-­ Global

Education University BA

Female Middleclass

Civic-­ Global

Education University BA

Pupil pastoral support worker (Social Work longer term) MSc Psychology

Female Middleclass

Civic-­ Global

Education University BA

Primary PGCE (SCITT)

Female Middleclass

Modern City

Education University BA

Primary PGCE

Female Middleclass

Civic-­ Global

Education University BA

Primary PGCE

Female Working- Old class College



Appendix B: Pen-portraits

Horizon-Expanders Beth (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—MA International Development Education)—first person in family to go to university, lives ‘away’ at university, home is approximately one hour away, anti-education values in family and broader community, but benefitted from small group of academic friends and supportive teachers. An increasing sense of ‘fracture’ between home life and future educational and occupational possibilities. Lucy (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—MSc Psychology (conversion course)—only child and first person in family to go to university, lives ‘away’ at university, home is approximately one hour away, mother supportive of finding out about the financial implications of university, a sense that Lucy is benefitting from opportunities unavailable to her mother previously, studious friends, an increasing sense of ‘fracture’ between home life and future occupational possibilities over her time as an undergraduate. Florence (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—Primary PGCE)—first person in family to go to university, lives ‘away’ at university, home is approximately one hour away, mother supportive in providing practical help of food supplies in cash emergencies and finding her daughter employment over the summer period, studious friends, a sense of ‘desire’

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7

111

112 

APPENDIX B: PEN-PORTRAITS

to move away from local home town upon graduation and/or after qualifying as a primary school teacher. Matt (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—History Secondary PGCE via SCITT (School Centred Initial Teacher Training)— first person in family to go to university, lives at home and commutes to the institution. Originally had planned to live away from home at an institution at a distance, but the cost-benefit of analysis of this after disappointing A Level grades meant this was re-evaluated. Emotional support from mother; father is not supportive of higher education. Matt describes himself in terms of being seen as an oddity within the family context. Studious friends. Critical of cultural and educational values of family context. Quon (Modern City University, Education BA, next step—possibly a Masters degree)—first person on family to go to university, awarded a rare and coveted scholarship to study in the UK, with the choice of two institutions. Family financially very precarious, especially now his parents are divorced. Father not supportive of education and older brothers all now working in low-skilled, precarious employment. Quon works 30 hours a week to send money back to his home country to support his mother and younger brother.

Incremental-Hybrids Tess (Old College University, Primary BA with QTS, next step—primary teacher) Worked as a qualified nursery-nurse for the past six years and now has made the step to qualify as a primary school teacher, which had always been part of the plan when she was ‘older’. She lives at home with her Dad so that there is someone to ‘look after him’. Her parents are divorced and her younger sister has moved away to go to university. The university is in her local home town. Felicity (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—outdoor educator) Undertook an Access to HE course before being offered a place on the Education BA at Civic-Global, living at home was practical and avoided the ‘squalor’ of university accommodation. Felicity had experience of outdoor education from her early teens and was taking a full-time position in this role upon graduating. Her longer term plan was to re-do her Maths A Level and undertake a primary PGCE.

  APPENDIX B: PEN-PORTRAITS 

113

Lily (Old College University, Primary BA with QTS, next step—teaching assistant) Lily had visited Old College University during her time at secondary school and had ‘always wanted to go [to Old College]’. However, she was offered a place in the September as the course started and was emotionally torn about taking-up the place as she had younger siblings including a new baby and her mother was a single parent. However, she qualified for sufficient financial support to live away from home. She was thinking about working as a teaching assistant for a period of time before working as a primary school teacher. Ella (Old College University, Primary BA with QTS, next step—primary teacher) Ella had had a challenging time in further education, but had managed to gain the requisite requirements for entry onto the Primary Teaching degree. She lived about a 5 minute walk away from the institution. Her parents were proud of her achievement. Home was very important to her and she was prepared to consider a commute of one hour as a maximum for a primary teaching job when she had qualified. Camilla (Old College University, Primary Teaching Studies, next step—teaching assistant) Camilla had worked as a nursery nurse and also had a young daughter. The father of her daughter had moved away to university, but since graduating he had returned and was offering financial assistance. Her parents had passed away. She had started on a foundation degree, but had not been eligible to move onto the QTS programme. She commuted to the university via two buses. She also worked night shifts in a care home to make ends meet. She was considering the possibility of a SCITT programme, but generally was considering a role as a teaching assistant. Jo (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—MA Sociology) Jo had started to consider university when she was studying her A Levels at a Further Education College. Unfortunately, both of the local courses she had chosen in Performance/Creative disciplines were cancelled/had lost the University partner with degree awarding power. Jo managed to be accepted on to the widening participation Summer School of Civic-Global University. After initially starting one programme, she switched in the first few weeks with encouragement from a school friend. Jo had undertaken extensive volunteering roles in the Creative Writing field. Jo lived at home with her Mother and suffered from a serious health condition.

114 

APPENDIX B: PEN-PORTRAITS

Returners Lauren (Modern City University, Education BA, next step—Masters and PhD with the intention of becoming a university lecturer) Lauren had one daughter in primary school and was a single parent. She had ‘gone off the rails’ and dropped out of university a few weeks into starting when she had been younger. She had had her own cleaning business and had also worked as bar staff. Her family was pleased that she had gone back to university. She enjoyed learning foreign languages and going to museums and galleries, but her ‘home’ friends thought she was ‘strange’. Freya (Old College University, Primary Teaching with QTS, next step—Primary school teacher) Freya had been disillusioned with education and never completed her A Levels. She had spent time working abroad as an au pair and had also worked her way up into hotel management and had been moved around the UK to different hotels as she had been promoted. She realised that starting a family and having a romantic relationship may be difficult in her hotel management role and moved back home to take an Access to HE course. She now lived with her partner and drove to the local university. Antonia (Old College University, Primary Teaching with QTS, next step—Primary school teacher) Antonia had four children. She had married when she was in her early twenties and had enjoyed being a full-time Mum. Her marriage had subsequently broken down and she had revisited the idea of being a Primary School teacher which she had entertained before having her first child. Her parents were very supportive and were helpful in providing child-care support.

Mobility-Maintainers Nicola (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—Human Resources) Nicola had taken an ‘employability’ year out before completing her degree and during that time she had taken a Human Resources qualification. She planned to continue working in Human Resources upon graduating. She lived away from home and her parents had ‘downsized’ the family home, but she saw her family regularly. Tabitha (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—pupil pastoral support with longer term plan of social work)

  APPENDIX B: PEN-PORTRAITS 

115

Tabitha had attended a large further education sixth-form college which had badged itself as ideal preparation for university. Her family home was about 5 hours away. She had switched courses at university and her parents had said that she could get a job or choose a different degree course. Tabitha had undertaken volunteering at a ‘homework support club’ and upon graduating stayed in ‘Civic-Global City’ and was working in pastoral/learning support, with a longer term consideration of Social Work. Hattie (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—MSc Psychology conversion course, with longer term plan of educational or clinical psychology) Hattie had attended a sixth-form college which had focused on encouraging students to take a Science A Level as these were deemed of high value to Russell Group institutions and would be looked upon favourably if they did not meet the entry requirements. She had gone to live away at a ‘local’ institution two and half hours away from her family home. Her family carefully checked with friends in the Psychology field that the MSc Hattie planned to do was the ‘right’ one in terms of next steps career wise. Kerry (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step—SCITT primary PGCE) Kerry had attended a sixth-form college which had focused on choosing subjects and university cities as preparation for university. Her family home was about 6 hours away in Wales. She had switched courses at university. Her family had extensive experience of working in the education sector. The educational background of her family meant that they were happy to proof-read her university assignments before she submitted them. Chloe (Modern City University, Education BA, next step— Primary PGCE) Chloe had always had to ‘work hard’ at school and her university educated parents were happy for her not to go to university if she did not want to go. Her sixth-form focused on getting students into their ‘first choice’ and for Chloe this meant that she had been steered towards applying to the ‘Metropolitans’. Her sixth-form had spent time explaining how university ‘worked’ and she would regularly book a tutorial with lecturers to discuss assignment briefs and always completed the seminar reading including the extension reading. She was disappointed by the lack of commitment her fellow students showed to the course.

116 

Appendix B: Pen-portraits

Amelia (Civic-Global University, Education BA, next step— Primary PGCE) Amelia had attended a sixth-form and then accepted a place at Civic-­ global University about two hours away from her home town. Her parents were both university educated. She was returning to Civic-global University in the new academic year to undertake a Primary PGCE.

Index

A Academic challenge, 67 Agency, 2 Alienation, 89 Archer, Margaret, 2 Aspirations, 4 Autonomous reflexives, 79 B Belonging, 4, 61, 72 Bourdieu, P., 4, 61 Buoyancy, 69 C Civic-Global University, 11 Civic universities, 12 Clearing, 66 Communicative reflexives, 80 Constraints, 8, 67, 77 Contextual continuity, 10, 44 Contextual discontinuity, 44

Cultural capital, 7, 44, 61 D Dedication, 8 Deliberation, 8 Discernment, 8, 97 Discernment-Dedication-Deliberation cycle, 60 Dovetail/dovetailing, 10, 44, 95 E Elite institution, 4 Enablements, 8, 77 F Fallible, 46, 60, 77 Femininity, 3, 103 Feminism, 25 Fractured, 9 Friendships, 102

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Shields, Working Class Female Students’ Experiences of Higher Education, Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7

117

118 

INDEX

G Gatekeepers, 38 Gender, 4 Geographical mobility, 91 H Horizon-Expanders, 66 I Incremental-Hybrids, 67 Intergenerational, 98 Intergenerational mobility, 98 Interlocuters, 48 Involuntary placement, 40, 77, 102 L A Level/s, 23, 68 Life project, 8, 45, 60 London Nine, 12 M Maintenance grant, 26 Meritocratic, 3 Meta-reflexive, 9 Middle-class women, 20 Mobility-Maintainers, 70 Modern City University, 11 Modus vivendi, 14n3, 44, 55, 60, 79, 97 Morphogenesis, 2, 45 Morphostasis, 2 N Natal contexts, 44 Neoliberal, 3 O Old College University, 11

Open University, 12 Oxbridge, 12 P The Pledge, 12 Post-feminism, 3 Pride, 103 Primary teaching, 105 Q Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), 90 Qualitative, 2 R Resilience, 69 Returners, 70 Robbins Report, 12 S Social capital, 7, 44 Social class, 3 Stability, 2 Strong learner identities, 102 Studious friends, 61 T Thought and talk, 10, 48 Tralatitious, 9, 44 Transformation, 2 U ‘Ubiquitous ‘student experience,’ 44 W Widening participation, 104 Working-class women, 19