Working Class Female Students' Experiences of Higher Education

"A fascinating insight into the internal conversations animating working-class women's varied experiences of pursuing, sustaining and benefitting from higher education. This highly accomplished study, with its robust methodology, excellent grounding in the historical and social context of higher education in the UK, and its incisive analysis of rich body of qualitative data will be of vital interest to scholars of education, sociology and gender alike. Those working in higher education settings will also find much here to illuminate the challenges faced by many of our students and prompt informed consideration of how we might best support our students in navigating them.”
—Dr Jane McDonnell, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
This book explores the experiences of working-class women undergraduates at three universities in the North of England. The author examines the women’s identities, choices and emotions in relation to higher education; and how they reframe their constrained university choices to maximise their chances of academic success. Highlighting differences in working-class women’s learner identities, caring commitments and quests for upwards social mobility, the book offers an understanding of working-class female student journeys and their mixture of compromise, uncertainty and hope. It will be of interest and value to scholars of working-class women students, widening participation, and sociologists of education.
Sam Shields is Lecturer in Education at Newcastle University, UK. Her research interests include social inequalities and higher education, particularly focused on the intersection between gender and social class.