Social class, identity and the good student: Negotiating university culture.

Pearce, J., Down, B. and Moore, E. (2008) Social class, identity and the good student: Negotiating university culture. Australian Journal of Education, 52 (3). pp. 257-271.

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Abstract

Through the use of narrative portraits this paper discusses social class and identity, as working-class university students perceive them. With government policy encouraging wider participation rates from under-represented groups of people within the university sector, working-class students have found themselves to be the objects of much research, particularly research centred around the notion of 'class'. However, working-class students are, for the most part, studied as though they are docile bodies, unable to participate in the construction of who they are, and working class accounts of university experiences are quite often compared to the middle class normative model. This paper explores how working-class students see themselves within the university culture. Working-class students' voices and stories form the focus of this paper, in which the language of 'disadvantage' is addressed and the ideologies of class identity explored.