The Society for Research into Higher Education South West Higher Education Seminar Series in collaboration with BRILLE at UWE Bristol
Higher Education and Social Class
Class Dismissed? The influence of social class on the university experiences of first-generation, working-class students
Dr Wolfgang Lehmann, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario
What is an Authentic University Experience? Working Class Students’ Motivations for, Perspectives on, and Valuing of Higher Education
Professor Gill Crozier, Department of Education, Roehampton University
Monday 21 February 2011
17.00 – 19.00
University of the West of England, Bristol
Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS 16 1QY
Booking: To book a place or for further information, please contact:
Ursula Mulligan: 0117 9656261 or
Research Administrator
Department of Education, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Bristol BS16 1QY
Tel: 0117 3284285
SWHE Co-ordinators: Professor Ann-Marie Bathmaker (BRILLE, University of the West of England, Bristol); Dr Lisa Lucas (GES, University of Bristol) Dr Rajani Naidoo (ICHEM, University of Bath)
The Society for Research into Higher Education South West Higher Education Seminar Series in collaboration with BRILLE at UWE Bristol
Higher Education and social class
PRESENTER Information
Dr Wolfgang Lehman: Class dismissed
In this talk, Wolfgang Lehman will present data from a four-year longitudinal, qualitative study analzying the experience of working-class students at a research-intensive Canadian university. He will outline structural disadvantages, in terms of economic, social, and cultural capital, that these young people encounter. Rather than viewing working-class status exclusively as a barrier, however, he will also show how these students draw on their working-class backgrounds to construct uniquely working-class advantages. Finally, he will discuss implications for theory and policy.
Dr Wolfgang Lehmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. Hespecializes in the areas of education, work, and social inequality. His main research focus is on the interplay between structural factors and individual agency in processes of educational inequality and school-work transitions. He is currently working on a project investigating the experiences of first-generation, working-class university students, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Professor Gill Crozier: What is an Authentic University Experience?
Claims of “pointless degrees” and questionable universities voiced in the right wing press and by Tory ministers raise the spectre of the ‘authentic’ (Taylor 1992) university and ‘authentic’ subject (Bourdieu 1988) of study. These discourses are part of the context in which government spending on Higher Education is being pared back and New Labour’s commitment to ensuring 50% of adults attend university is dropped. The hierarchisation of university education and subject knowledge is hardly a new phenomenon. However, recent education policy, the financial cutbacks and raising student fees take these discourses to new levels. Moreover, these developments and the expected shift towards the privatisation of Higher Education raise the question of ‘what is university education for?’ This paper challenges the over simplistic pragmatic correlation between university education, skills and work through the analysis of working class university students’ experiences. Drawing on qualitative data from a 28 month ESRC project (Crozier and Reay 2008 RES-139-25-0208) I present an analysis of working class students’ motivations of why they chose to go to university and the value that this experience gave to them. In so doing I interrogate the notion of the ‘authentic’ and pursue the question from the perspectives of the students, of what is university education for?
Gill Crozier is Professor of Education at Roehampton University, London. She is a Sociologist of Education and her work has focused on ‘race’ and its intersection with social class and gender. She has researched extensively issues relating to parents and schools, and young people, students’ experience of higher education and is also concerned with education policy, and the socio-cultural influences upon identity formation and learner experiences. Her recent projects include The Socio-Cultural and Learning Experiences of Working Class Students in Higher Education and UK Project director of the Comenius Collaborative Project (European University of Cyprus lead University) Teacher In-service Training for Roma Inclusion.