Those who are elite or middle class, white older males have historically dominated the ivory tower. Despite growing numbers of academics from outside these narrow characteristics, research by the Social Mobility Commission shows that professional occupations are still 'deeply elitist'. Hey's (2003) research states that the very presence of 'queer subjects', such as female working-class academics, question the norms of academia (p319). As such, when such academics are accepted into the academy, they tend to encounter alienation, stereotyping and macroaggressions as well as survivor guilt and the impostor syndrome (Warnock, 2016: 30-35).
However, emerging findings from this exploratory study finds that not all will desire to 'pass' in this middle-class culture, and instead highly value the cultural capital that their working class backgrounds bring to the academy. Whilst the 'poor', 'struggling lone parent' and 'just about managing' (JAM) are subjects of sociology lectures', they are also 'characters' that these atypical academics may have 'played', or be closely acquainted with. Emerging findings from this exploratory study first considers Wakeling's (2017) question if an academic can actually be working-class. It then takes an intersectional approach to discuss the cultural capital typical of a female working class academic e.g. insider's knowledge, a sense of the familiar and the potential to widen participation.