Working-Class People in UK Higher Education

Precarities, Perspectives and Progress

Jess Pilgrim-Brown|Teresa Crew|Éireann Attridge

Emerald

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Hardback

9781836620631

03 November 2025

£80.00

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9781836620624

13 October 2025

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9781836620648

13 October 2025

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Description
Contents
About

Winner of the 2026 Working-Class Studies Association Jake Ryan and Charles Sackrey Award

In recent years, UK higher education (HE) has sought to pursue more inclusive practices. However, we are yet to fully understand the experiences of a breadth of working-class people in HE. This edited collection uniquely brings together working-class reflections in the different roles and professions that exist in UK universities.

Focusing on understudied groups including working-class academics, students, professional services, administrative staff, ancillary workers and parents, the chapters explore definitions of class, reflections of classism, class-based experiences, inequalities, and theory in conjunction with roles and professional experiences. Guided by a collaborative and community oriented editorial process which embodies the ethos of working-class communities, the collection focuses on five main section areas: academics, students and student journeys, pedagogy, teaching & learning, non-academic staff in HE, and a final section dedicated to practical steps for the future.

A first of its kind, observing the experiences of working-class people across the breadth of UK higher education, this is a breath of fresh air on this subject. It is compelling reading for sociological researchers of class and society, academics across disciplines who have shared lived experiences, those in higher education management and those who work with social class and social mobility in industry.

Chapter 1. Introduction; Jess Pilgrim-Brown, Teresa Crew, and Éireann Attridge

Chapter 2. Academic Terminology; Rebecca White
Introduction to the section one: Underrepresented academics in UK higher education; Iona Burnell Reilly
Chapter 3. The normative trajectory of academics and class-based disablism in Higher Education; Alison Wilde
Chapter 4. From the council house to the ivory tower: Brilliance, bullying, passing, and the failure of academia for working-class academics; Leanne Dawson
Chapter 5. ‘Why are you talking like that?’ From fearing sounding ‘thick’ to embracing your voice: Working-class solidarity in academia; Kerry Preston and Norman Riley
Chapter 6. Breaking barriers: A working-class academic's journey towards a running a science festival; Claire Price
Chapter 7. Lasting legacy of imposter syndrome; Natalie Quinn-Walker
Introduction to the section two: Working-class students and their journeys to, and through, higher education; Éireann Attridge
Chapter 8. Lifting the ‘double mask’: Neurodivergent working-class students and the university experience; Nyika Suttie
Chapter 9. Educational narratives: Unravelling the experiences of mature students and working-class representation in lifelong education; Nysha Givans and Peter Bennett
Chapter 10. The heavy footprint of meritocratic discourse: An autoethnographic exploration of social and academic dislocation through elite higher education progression; Ed Penn
Introduction to the section three: Working-class pedagogy, methods, teaching and learning; Richard Waller
Chapter 11. A ‘view from within’: The pedagogy, practice and possibilities of drawing from a working-class background; Carli-Ria Rowell
Chapter 12. Rethinking knowledge from a working-class perspective: Voice, story and knowledge; Sorca Mc Donnell
Chapter 13. Classics for all: From classism to representation for working-class classicists; Arlene Holmes-Henderson
Chapter 14. The value of making explicit researcher positionality when researching working-class lives; Sarah McLaughlin
Chapter 15. The search for a ‘realistic Utopia’: Reflections on being an ‘insider/outsider’ in higher education; Sharon Clancy
Introduction to the section four: Non-academic working-class staff in UK HE; Charlie Davis
Chapter 16. Ancillary staff in higher education: In/visibility and mis/recognition; Marie-Pierre Moreau and Lucie Wheeler
Chapter 17. Bridging the gap: An autoethnographic reflection on working in both professional services and academic roles in UK HE; Stacey Mottershaw
Chapter 18. Becoming a ‘proper’ academic as a pracademic: Eating the imposterism trifle in an elite university; Rachael O’Connor
Chapter 19. In service to the academy: Exploring class and power hierarchies in the academic library; Darren Flynn
Chapter 20. “Prioritising the building, not the people in it”: The void of evidence in inclusive research, policy, and practice in UK Higher Education; Jess Pilgrim-Brown
Introduction to the section five: The future of working-class people in UK HE
Chapter 21. Solidarity spaces and places of reflection: Working-class identity in higher education arts faculty; Liza Betts and Jo Pickering
Chapter 22. Why we need working-class academics now more than ever; Charlie Rumsby
Chapter 23. Beyond the ivory tower: Transforming academia for working-class people; Teresa Crew

Jess Pilgrim-Brown is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford, UK.

Teresa Crew is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, Bangor University, UK.

Éireann Attridge is a PhD student in Education at University of Cambridge, UK.