Aspiration versus Attainment: Identity Construction Amongst Graduate Scheme Workers

在英国，就像在西方世界的大部分地区一样，年轻人越来越多地面临着他们渴望的生活和他们可以实现的生活之间的差距。因此，面对生活成本上升和经济机会减少，出现了“愿望差距”。我的项目将在主题和方法上进行创新：通过使用民族志的方法来研究在尚未探索的研究生计划领域中工人身份的创造和社会化，我将探索抱负和成就之间的差距是如何出现的，以及如何将其理解，体验和管理为个人生活经验。我将与两家私营部门组织合作，学生雇主协会和安永会计师事务所，学习专业研究生计划，并参加安永会计师事务所的参与观察计划。我的工作将是第一个在西方背景下对“抱负差距”问题进行民族志学解释的工作，并将建立在丰富的人类学文献和我的本科论文的理论框架之上，以创建一个新的研究领域，探索年轻人如何融入英国的工作世界。我的工作将保持跨学科的重点，因为它将在人类学系和商学院下进行，以创造具有广泛适用性和商业用途的研究。我的目标是将我的研究结果整合到公司中，以调整改善业务成果和工人的生活，并改善政策的制定。"

In the UK, as in much of the Western world, young adults are increasing facing a gap between lives they aspire to live and those they can attain. Thus an 'aspiration gap' arises in the face of rising costs of living and diminished economic opportunity. My project will innovate in both subject and method: by using ethnographic methods to research worker identity creation and socialisation in the as-of-yet unexplored field of graduate schemes, I will explore how a gap between aspiration and attainment has emerged, and how this is understood, experienced and managed as individual lived experience.I will partner with two private-sector organisations, the Institute for Student Employers and Ernst & Young, to study professional graduate schemes, and to join an Ernst & Young scheme to carry out participant observation. My work will be the first to ethnographically situate the 'aspiration gap' problem in a Western context, and will build on the theoretical frameworks of a rich body of anthropological literature and my undergraduate dissertation to create a new area of research, which explores how young people are socialised into the world of work in the UK.My work will maintain a interdisciplinary focus, as it will be carried out under both the Anthropology department and the Business School to create research with wide-ranging applicability and commercial use. I aim for my findings to be integrated by companies to adjust improve business outcomes and workers' lives, as well as result in improved policy formation."