In recent years, UK higher education has pursued more inclusive practices, adopting widening participation metrics, removing historically problematic statues, reviewing research culture environments, and renaming university buildings (Chigudu, 2021; Heath et al, 2013). Research has sought to understand how people from different 'non-traditional' backgrounds experience these institutions (Reay, 2017b). At present, studies of social class focus on the experiences of working-class academics and working-class students (Crew, 2020; Crozier et al., 2019). Academic research has not yet addressed the experiences of working-class professional services and administrative staff, who form a critical part of the political economy of knowledge production. This study used an interpretative approach, combining narrative inquiry and semi-structured interview questions to elucidate the narratives of 13 working-class professional service staff working in Russell Group universities. This thesis makes contributions from conceptual, empirical, theoretical and practical perspectives. Conceptually, a working-class identity, for the participants in this study, is formed from a multitude of varying characteristics, rather than a traditional association with employment and labour. Participants refer to their working-class identity through family history, occupations, deprivation and taste. Empirically, participants felt supported by their immediate networks but often at the price of uncomfortable relationships with academics. Here, a lack of value was made visceral by toxic behaviour, substandard remuneration, poor career progression, isolation and not being listened to in meetings. Concerning theory, I find a ubiquity with the use of Bourdieu in working-class studies. Yet, there is a disparity between theory and participant identification and a dislocation between temporalities of space, time and experience that the theories of Bourdieu fail to account for. I find that there is a lamination of field which working-class participants carry through their lives. I question social mobility, a rhetoric accepted as the way disadvantaged people are accepted into elite institutions. This assimilation accepts that middle-class space is normative in juxtaposition with working-class attributes which are seen to be undesirable. Inclusion, not representation, should be the goal of all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) if they want to embed equity in their workforce. This study works at frontiers of research on social class, developing a space where the experiences of professional services staff might be fully integrated in the cultural fabric of universities. For too long these voices have been ignored and pushed to the margins, I hope this will be the first of many studies to address this injustice.
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/rr87-x204
Pilgrim-Brown, Jess
Supervisors: Alexander, Patrick ; Brown, Carol
School of Education, Humanities and Languages
Year submitted for examination: 2023 RADAR publication date: 2024-02-13
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