Still Jenny from the block? Working-class women, higher education & social mobility in the COVID-19 context

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A university education is generally viewed as a route through which social and economic standing is enhanced. That is, it is considered a catalyst for upward social mobility. However, are all graduates afforded this 'opportunity'? And how has the COVID-19 pandemic effected young people's graduate trajectories? In the 1990s, social scientists in the UK found that while increasing numbers of working-class students were accessing university, they were not benefitting from it in the same way that the middle-classes and elites were. It was the latter groups who monopolised the "superior jobs" in the graduate labour market (Brown and Scase, 1994, p.17). For too long, graduates from working-class background, particularly BAME women, have disproportionately faced navigating the low-waged, precarious jobs market upon graduation and beyond. This remains the case today as the global auction for talent ensues and informal processes of mobilising high value capitals, rather than formal academic credentials, play a major role in who gets which job (Brown and Souto-Otero, 2020). As this is a considerable and growing issue, a closer, more in-depth look at the routes throughout which social privilege is (re)produced through higher education is required. I did just this during my PhD research as I interviewed fifteen working-class women who studied at a UK university over a longitudinal basis. They graduated into a saturated employment market which offered them little opportunity for professional employment. From this, I designed a set of conceptual tools that allowed me to take an 'intra-class' theoretical approach to understanding the narratives of working-class women. Conceptualising these allowed me to problematise work which viewed those in the 'working-class' category as homogenous, unpick and speak to the details of differential class experiences within one class category. This delineates my work from other sociologists, particularly other Bourdieusian scholars. This is an important theoretical contribution which I will continue to develop throughout the Fellowship. I found in my thesis that graduation was a point at which where various forms of inequality are reproduced. To research this surrounding COVID-19 is a necessity, as it has been acknowledged that women, young people and BAME groups have been worst affected by the pandemic. This Fellowship has been designed to attend to this important social problem, to do further research and create policy impact which will allow for the distribution of opportunities in a more equal manner. Through embarking on the programme I have designed, I will be situated at the heart of academic policy debates that are about to emerge on the impact of COVID-19 on social mobility and social inequalities faced by young working-class people, particularly young women.