Artikel

'A fish out of water?' The therapeutic narratives of class change

Young people from working class backgrounds remained mostly excluded from the widening educational participation which characterised postwar Britain. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews which were part of a wider study about ‘Social Participation and Identity’ (2008–2009), this article explores the unusual learning trajectories of a group of working class adults born in 1958, who participated in higher education (HE) in a context where most people from the same socio-economic backgrounds did not. Drawing on Bourdieu’s social theory, the findings suggest that different types of retrospective accounts were mobilised to reconcile working class habitus of origin and the perceived habitus as adults. Most research on working class and higher education focuses on the experiences of youth. By contrast, the use of retrospective accounts of adults has enabled the study to capture the implications that the educational trajectories have later in life. The authors consider these accounts a part of wider narratives that they define ‘therapeutic’. Therapeutic narratives were employed to come to terms with the ambivalence produced by social mobility. Therefore, respondents were negotiating the sense of exclusion attached to class change, and the acknowledgement of the opportunities associated with a working class habitus accessing new social fields viaeducation.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Journal: Current sociology ; ISSN: 1461-7064 ; Volume: 64 ; Year: 2016 ; Issue: 3 ; Pages: 353-372 ; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Thema
Bourdieu
habitus
higher education
social field
social mobility
therapeutic narratives
working class

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Franceschelli, Michela
Evans, Karen
Schoon, Ingrid
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Sage
(wo)
Thousand Oaks, CA
(wann)
2016

DOI
doi:10.1177/0011392115595064
Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Artikel

Beteiligte

  • Franceschelli, Michela
  • Evans, Karen
  • Schoon, Ingrid
  • Sage

Entstanden

  • 2016

Ähnliche Objekte (12)