Learners, learning, learned: Class, higher education, and autobiographical essays from working-class academics

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the expectations, experience, and identities of academics may be just as crucial to improving the participation of students from low socio-economic status (SES) as higher education policies, admissions and marketing activities, but are routinely ignored. In particular, we observe that highly relevant, well-informed, and readily accessible accounts offered by academics from working-class backgrounds are not credited with the attention they deserve. This gap, or silence, signals a complex and poorly-understood relationship between education, knowledge and class. We assert that without addressing and better understanding this relationship, the situation is unlikely to improve, and the enrolment share of low SES students will remain shamefully low.