Classed markers of a working-class academic identity

Abstract

Working-class academics (WCAs) represent a powerful example of widening participation policies, although their struggles (and achievements) are often overlooked once they enter the academy. Drawing on extensive qualitative interview data with WCAs, the largest study conducted, to date, in the United Kingdom, and informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Tara Yosso, this article outlines four main class markers that were inherent in the WCA identity of these respondents: a lack of a safety net to ‘manage’ academic precarity; an uneven access to capital; a complex habitus; ‘utilising lived experience’. This article ends with a consideration of how we can move forward in our approach to studying working-class cohorts and offers three key recommendations for further research.