TY - JOUR

T1 - Classed markers of a working-class academic identity.

AU - Crew, Teresa

PY - 2022/10/1

Y1 - 2022/10/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - working-class

KW - Microaggressions

KW - Lived experience

KW - Academia

KW - Academics

KW - Acenteeism

KW - Habitus

KW - Capital

U2 - 10.1386/jclc_00011_1

DO - 10.1386/jclc_00011_1

M3 - Article

VL - 1

SP - 129

EP - 144

JO - Journal of Class and Culture

JF - Journal of Class and Culture

SN - 2634-1123

IS - 2

ER -