Finding Moral Value through Maintaining a Working Class ‘Mentality’: Student Teachers from Working Class Backgrounds (Not) Becoming Middle Class

Abstract

This article examines the perspectives of student teachers from working class backgrounds about not becoming middle class. Little attention has been paid to conceptualisations of social class in teaching. In the context of drives internationally to diversify teaching populations, research is needed about the experiences of student teachers from working class backgrounds in their upwardly mobile trajectories. This article draws on a constructivist grounded theory study about the social class identities of 21 student teachers from working class backgrounds as part of a wider teacher diversity project in Ireland. Distinguishing between class ‘mentality’ and materiality, participants emphasised that one could not change class completely, rejected the middle classness of a teacher’s social status and positioned working class ‘mentality’ as morally superior. Those from working class backgrounds do not simply relinquish aspects of their identity through upward social mobility, suggesting that habitus may not always be divided upon traversing class boundaries.

Introduction

This article is about the perspectives of student teachers from working class backgrounds about not becoming middle class. Traditionally, teaching has been viewed as a predominantly middle class (Lampert et al., 2016) profession. This is also the case in Ireland, with teaching regarded as a profession ‘that recruits on such a small scale from among working-class young people and that is so important for the articulation and preservation of middle-class values and culture’ (Drudy and Lynch, 1993: 95). In Ireland, teaching has also been seen as an upwardly mobile profession, one to which the working and lower middle classes may aspire, with those from more privileged backgrounds aspiring towards more ‘elite’ professions (Coolahan, 2003). Both internationally (Schleicher, 2014) and in Ireland (Keane and Heinz, 2015; Keane et al., 2023b), teaching populations tend towards homogeneity, with those from lower socio-economic and minority ethnic groups, as well as those with disabilities, being under-represented. In Ireland, research and policy statements regarding teacher diversity have been in evidence for more than 20 years, and the last two National Access Plans (Higher Education Authority (HEA), 2015, 2022) have emphasised teacher diversity as a national priority. Under the innovative Programme for Access to Higher Education, Strand 1: Equity of Access to Initial Teacher Education (PATH1) (2017–2023), funded by the HEA, a number of teacher diversity projects are in operation across Centres of Teacher Education (Keane et al., 2023c), including one upon which this article draws, aiming to increase the participation in initial teacher education (ITE) of those from National Access Plan target groups, which include those from lower socio-economic groups. In this context, the need to explore the perspectives and experiences of student teachers and teachers from working class backgrounds in their upwardly mobile trajectories has gained importance. Yet, social class has received little attention in the context of teaching, to the point of it being almost invisible (Van Galen, 2008) in spite of its importance given significant class stratification in schools and society (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1979). Van Galen (2008: 100) has pointed out that ‘we know little about the social mobility of . . . public school teachers from poor and working-class homes’.

Of course, social class and related categorisations remain highly contested. For Ball (2003: 11) class is a ‘fuzzy’ concept. Indeed, the 1980s and 1990s were characterised by debates about its ‘demise’ (Ball, 2003: 5) as it was argued that social class was not useful in understanding modern social dynamics. However, scholars including Skeggs (2005: 968) have disputed such claims arguing instead that ‘class is so insinuated in the intimate making of self and culture that it is even more ubiquitous than previously articulated, if more difficult to pin down, leaking beyond the traditional measures of classification’. In this context, Savage (2003) has pointed to a ‘new class paradigm’ that understands class in more relational terms, emphasising class identities and practices in interrogating inequalities and issues of social mobility, including in subjective terms. Since the 2000s, there has also been an emphasis on the ‘inner conflict’ (Reay, 2008: 1073) of class, on the psycho-social and emotional (Lucey et al., 2003; Reay, 2008), indeed, on the affective domain more generally. Research has demonstrated that people are ambivalent about their personal social class location but do not accede to the notion of a classless society or of a reduction in class inequalities (Savage et al., 2001; Skeggs, 2004). The denial of the salience of class and the ambivalence of class identities at a personal level exemplifies Skeggs’ (1997) ‘disidentification’ thesis, and rather than demonstrating that class is less relevant, instead highlights how powerful a force it continues to be (Savage et al., 2001; Skeggs, 1997). In Ireland, things are even ‘fuzzier’ with class conceptualisations and associated categorisations viewed suspiciously as a particularly English phenomenon, and thus frequently rejected at the individual level, in Ireland’s post-colonial context (Breen and Whelan, 1996). While there is relatively little explicit acknowledgement of the significance of social class in public consciousness, this does not mean that social class analysis has less salience in Ireland. Indeed, Breen and Whelan (1996: 1) have argued that while ‘class boundaries in Ireland are less ritualized’ than elsewhere, they are ‘substantially more rigid than in other countries’.

This article draws on a constructivist grounded theory study exploring the social class identities and experiences of 21 student teachers from working class backgrounds in Ireland through a total of 31 semi-structured interviews. Following an overview of the theoretical framing, the literature review and methodology, this article examines the way in which the student teachers viewed their class identities as they were in the process of becoming teachers, ostensibly, becoming middle class. The findings are discussed through the lens of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, with a particular focus on what happens as individuals are faced with traversing class boundaries.

Theoretical Framing ¹ and Literature Review

Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and habitus clivé are relevant in considerations about social mobility. Habitus concerns an individual’s dispositions and ways of being in the world, which develop from one’s primary socialisation, particularly one’s social class background (Bourdieu, 1977). While in his earlier writings, habitus was presented as a relatively durable set of dispositions, his later works indicated a more nuanced and complex position. Indeed, Silva (2016) observes that Bourdieu’s presentation of habitus as a more rigid, deterministic and relatively unified concept (e.g. Bourdieu, 1984) generally evolved over time towards being more fragmented, flexible and elastic (e.g. Bourdieu, 2000). Bourdieu’s theory is relational in that people’s behaviours are analysed in relation to the field (or social context) in which they take place. Thus, habitus is understood to be enacted in particular ways relative to specific fields and to others’ positions within that field, with the social context that actors are inhabiting directly informing habitus’ enaction. Indeed, Bourdieu argued that social class was produced through everyday social actions, ‘not as something given but as something to be done’ (Bourdieu, 1998: 12). For Bourdieu (1999), sudden upward social movement could result in dislocation of the habitus, such that an individual experiences habitus clivé, or cleft (divided) habitus. An experience of significantly changed life conditions could lead to their dispositions losing coherency, leading to a habitus ‘divided against itself’ (Bourdieu, 1999: 511), with the individual feeling ambivalent and out of place. More recently, and in the context of educational research, however, von Rosenberg (2016) observes the work of scholars whose work points to the lack of fit between an individual’s habitus and the specific situation, context or field as the genesis of habitus modification from the perspective of (positive) transformation. Further, von Rosenberg (2016: 1489) emphasises the processual nature of the habitus, noting that its proclivity for repetition and reproduction necessarily implies ‘the possibility of unexpected misfirings and, as a consequence, of change or transformation’. Von Rosenberg provides examples of habitus transformation in the context of field based on his own empirical observations that underscore the importance of time in the reconstruction and transformation of habitus.

While, in the past, working class identity was valorised in various ways (Loveday, 2014), the increasing stigmatisation of working class identities over time has been observed (Skeggs, 2005), with working classes in Britain increasingly viewed only in deficit terms (Lawler, 2005; Reay, 2005) and positioned as inadequate and, indeed, valueless (Loveday, 2014; Skeggs, 2004). Blackman (1996: 362) has argued that to be working class signifies ‘pathology – it is “Other” to the middle-class orientation’ (see also Skeggs, 1997). In this context, people’s ambivalence with regard to their own class positions, especially those who may be ‘objectively’ categorised as working class, is unsurprising (Loveday, 2014; Savage et al., 2001; Skeggs, 1997). Despite this pathologisation, as Friedman et al. (2021) in the UK explain, working class identities are popular even among those who would be ‘objectively’ categorised as middle class. Friedman et al. (2021) observe that 61% of those in professional and managerial jobs (whose parents worked in working class jobs) identify as working class, demonstrating ‘the enduring emotional pull of class origins in shaping people’s sense of self, particularly among those who experience upward social mobility from working class backgrounds’ (Friedman et al., 2021: 719; see also Friedman, 2016; Ingram, 2011; Lawler, 1999). Social mobility is oft presented as a benign if not positive developmental force. Notwithstanding potential gains in economic capital, Friedman (2016: 145) reminds us that social mobility, however, ‘affects the emotional life of an individual’, exacting ‘a considerable psychological price’, and can lead to ‘hidden injuries’ (Sennett and Cobb, 1972), including a sense of disjunction, dislocation and anxiety. In her study of educationally successful working class boys, Ingram (2011: 290) considered the impact on habitus when it encounters different conditions, and is potentially modified, with the ‘new’ habitus consisting of conflicting elements, producing a ‘habitus tug’ and emotional difficulties whereby ‘conflicting dispositions struggle for supremacy’ such that the individual can ‘feel pulled in different directions’. In Loveday’s (2014: 723) study of upwardly mobile individuals, the enduring impact of class background was highlighted as well as the ‘ambivalence inherent in movement across classed social fields’. In Friedman’s (2016) study of the subjective experience of upward mobility, in spite of significant social progression, his participants still thought of themselves as working class. The vast majority emphasised wanting to ‘hold true’ to their upbringing, experiencing upward social mobility as problematic. Through their sense of their habitus being out of synch, they experienced feelings of unease, insecurity and inferiority as they ‘faced upwards in social space’ and ‘facing downwards they were invariably met with a sense of guilt, estrangement and abandonment’ (Friedman, 2016: 141). In contrast, Lawler’s (1999) seven white British women who had been born into working class families defined themselves as middle class at the time of interview. Most reported being eager to escape their working class origins and were happy to adopt most (though not all) middle class dispositions. However, even in this study, Lawler (1999: 3) reports disrupted habitus with these women reporting that they did not feel able to fully inhabit a middle class habitus and highlighting ‘the pain and sense of estrangement associated with this class movement’.

How these processes play out in the context of the teaching profession has not received attention to date. Indeed, Maguire (2005b: 428) argues that despite the central role of education in the reproduction of class inequalities, there has been a ‘sidelining’ of the complexities involved for teachers, with ‘very little recent work . . . explor[ing] the ways in which classed practices interpolate the lives and identities of teachers in their daily lives’. As Maguire (2005b) notes, research in the 1980s regarding teachers and class focused on ascertaining their objective class location, with assumptions that economic positioning determined (subjective) class identification. While issues of subjective class identity in the context of social mobility and teaching have not been interrogated in previous research, there is a burgeoning literature on social class, teaching and teacher education more generally. Research has pointed to teachers from working class backgrounds claiming social justice-based and altruistic motivations and being more likely than their middle class peers to view themselves as potential ‘change agents’, particularly with regard to their impact on the education of working class pupils (see Burn, 2001; Maguire, 1999, 2001, 2005a; Van Galen, 2008). These teachers have also been found to prioritise being relatable and inclusive and perceive that sharing the classed self with their students in disadvantaged schools assists in this process (Keane et al., 2023a). Research has also reported working class teachers’ concerns about not fitting in, including regarding markers of class such as dress and accent in diverse school contexts (see Burn, 2001; Jones, 2019; Lampert et al., 2016; Maguire, 1999, 2001, 2005b), and about having to leave behind their family’s class background (Maguire, 1999, 2005a, 2005b). In these studies, those from working class backgrounds remained resolutely working class in terms of their identity, sometimes hyper consciously so (see Maguire, 2005a), despite their upwardly mobile trajectories, but there is no examination of their thought processes with regard to their class dis/identifications.

Methodology

This article draws on data collected in a study exploring the social class identities and experiences of 21 student teachers in Ireland from working class backgrounds, recruited as part of the Access to Post-Primary Teaching (APT) project (2017–2023), a teacher diversity project in Ireland funded under PATH1. APT’s objective is to support the recruitment, retention and success of those from lower socio-economic groups into the Professional Master of Education (PME) at the University of Galway, a two-year postgraduate post-primary initial teacher education (ITE) programme. All obtained their PME place through the competitive selection system having met application requirements. To qualify for APT, participants were required to have entered undergraduate level via a pre-entry Access or Higher Education Access Route (HEAR), ² eligibility for which required certain socio-economic criteria in relation to family income to be met. Thus, in ‘objective’ terms, all would be regarded as coming from lower socio-economic groups, ³ or as being ‘working class’. The project has supported 43 student teachers to date, and this article draws on interviews with Phase 1 participants (N = 21). Three were male, and 18 were female. One was a member of the Irish Travelling community, the other 20 were White, Irish and of the settled community. Full ethical approval for the study was granted by the institutional Research Ethics Committee. Pseudonyms are used throughout.

Financial, academic and pastoral supports are provided to APT participants, and they also participate in research. This article draws on data collected as part of one specific research strand; the research question concerned how the participants described their class identities and experiences in the context of becoming a teacher. While grounded theory (GT) was adopted due to its focus on conceptualisation (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), its constructivist school (Charmaz, 2014) was selected due to the classical school’s problematic objectivist underpinnings (Charmaz et al., 2018). Key features of GT include an iterative approach to data collection and (early) analysis, and theoretical sampling aimed at ‘filling’ gaps in the emerging conceptual analysis (Charmaz et al., 2018). Using a constructivist approach facilitated critical reflexivity regarding participant and researcher positionalities ⁴ and acknowledged the co-construction of theory with participants (see Charmaz et al., 2018). Thirty-one interviews were conducted with participants over the two-year PME; 10 in Round 1, 11 in Round 2 and a further 10 in Round 3, with each of the 21 participants engaging in one or two in-depth, semi-structured, interviews over this timeframe. Initial interview questions pertained to their understandings of social class and their related identities ⁵ and their PME experiences and became more targeted towards gaps in emerging categories as the study progressed. All interviews were transcribed verbatim.

Data analysis commenced early, involving Charmaz’s (2014) line-by-line initial and focused coding, the constant comparative method (Glaser, 1965), the development of categories and critical reflective memoing. The provisional categories developed after Round 1 informed the interview schedule for Round 2, after which an updated set of categories and their properties was constructed. At this point, a summary of provisional findings was shared with all 21 participants and their feedback invited, with 10 agreeing to a second interview to discuss the findings and ‘fill’ emerging conceptual gaps. Round 3 interviews were analysed using the same coding procedures, ultimately resulting in five categories, each with a number of properties. One significant category included ‘performing a different class’ (see Keane, 2023) through which participants were found to perform a differential social class identity in their placement schools, especially around their middle class teacher colleagues, in order to not be looked down upon. However, this behaviour, in which they did not wish to engage, resulted in significant bifurcation of the self. Two other categories related to how the participants understood class categorisations in general and in relation to themselves. ⁶

In this article, I examine a category about the participants’ belief that one could never change class completely, strongly identified in the data from Round 1, with participants differentiating between class ‘mentality’ and materiality. A related category, also strong from Round 1, revealed participants’ eagerness to position previous experiences of lack and struggle as positive. Bringing these provisional categories to the participants during Round 2 interviews confirmed their prevalence and also facilitated the identification of key properties. Participants highlighted what they perceived as key benefits of the working class ‘mentality’. The more developed categories were brought back to participants in Round 3 interviews during final theoretical sampling and further explicated therein. Memoing throughout this final stage led to the integration of the two categories into one, Finding moral value through maintaining a working class ‘mentality’, with the following properties: differentiating between class materiality and class mentality, emphasising benefits of the working class mentality and interrogating the positive ‘spin’ of past challenging experiences. Each will now be examined.

Findings

Differentiating between Class Materiality and Class Mentality

Regarding their conceptualisation of class, the participants differentiated between class materiality and ‘mentality’. When the question of whether one could change class arose, several started off by responding that yes, one could, explaining that one could get a better job and earn more money than before. However, most quickly clarified that while one’s material conditions could improve, one’s original class ‘mentality’ would always remain:

You don’t change class completely, in terms of mentality . . . most people don’t forget where they came from . . . because of the struggle . . .. your journey you’ve worked hard that you will never forget it . . . You can change jobs and you can get different salaries . . . but I don’t think you forget where you come from. (Ava, Round 3)

I don’t know if you can change class . . . I think there’s something in you always that’s gonna be what you’ve grown up as and what you’ve experienced, and I think that’s why class is such a tricky subject to talk about because maybe you can’t change it . . . I think that there’s an element that stays the same. (Esther, Round 1)

Even acquiring postgraduate qualifications and becoming a teacher, they rejected the idea of being middle class because of their new educational and employment statuses:

I have changed, I’ve got an education, I’m trying my best to get money and . . . education. People could say ‘Oh well she’s not lower class she’s middle class now’ but . . . I don’t think you can leave your original class behind. I feel like that’s what you grew up with . . . how can you change it just because you’ve got an education or got more money. (Sophie, Round 1)

No, because I think I’ll still have that working class mentality. (Sarah, Round 3)

Some felt that ‘full’ class change (materiality and mentality) was possible but while it might happen for future generations of their families, ‘you yourself will never’ (Michelle):

I don’t think you’ll ever totally leave it completely. Like there’ll always be some sort of inclination of where you came from. It will probably change generations down but you yourself will never. (Michelle, Round 3)

It’s a mentality that you are from a certain background . . . always going to be who you are, and the way you’re brought up affects the rest of your life, you can’t just flick a switch and be upper class . . . grandchildren . . . by the time it comes to that then I’d imagine so . . . but no, you don’t just change mid-generation. (Jane, Round 3)

The participants identified three dimensions of the working class mentality: having various experiences of lack, working hard and being appreciative. There was a strong sense that having past experiences of lack led them to be hard working to improve their situations, which subsequently made them appreciate it all the more (versus being handed it). These experiences were seen as core parts of the working class mentality, engrained from a young age:

It’s something that’s engrained, it’s how you approach everything, your relationships, your work, and your education . . . working class, it’s kind of – get up and do it. You’re not going to get anything handed to you, so you need to work hard. And that’s definitely something that I believe has to be done . . . to get further in life, have to work . . . I think that’s a really good quality to have. (Jane, Round 3)

Financially, you can get the good job, good money coming in, and you’d be considered middle class, but if you’ve grown up working class you’ll always have that mentality engrained in your mind . . . working class people, like you’re brought up knowing you have to work hard and it’s not easy to get by, and you have to do certain things . . . that’s something you always kind of have in your mentality. (Anna, Round 1)

They explained that part of this was being inured to and expecting insecurity, which had led them to always have a back-up plan. The participants related having learnt from a young age that they had to work for something if they wanted it:

You can have all the money but that can be taken away in an instant. Whereas your mentality’s probably the one thing that you know you’ll always have and it’s one thing I suppose to keep. (Jane, Round 3)

I’m always going to . . . have a back-up plan that things mightn’t always go to plan . . . because you have worked from such a young age you are driven . . . it’s important to not get complacent with where you are in life, because you never know when it’s going to be taken from you . . . because of the working class mentality you have drive and motivation to push yourself further . . . If you yourself don’t do it no-one can do it for you. (Sarah, Round 3)

The participants were clear that not only did they feel one could not change class completely, they also did not wish to, citing the comfort that came from the familiarity of one’s background:

It’s comfort. Something you’re familiar with . . . you do change as a person as well, but you still keep that because it’s comfort, it’s something you remember, it’s something you know through and through. (Brigid, Round 1)

It’s just what you grew up with. And you became comfortable with it, and that’s who you are. (Louise, Round 1)

They also underlined being proud of their family roots and not wanting to leave their background behind as it was a fundamental part of their identity:

You wouldn’t want to leave it behind. It’s a case of always kind of returning to your roots and having that . . . you always keep it with you, and I would always return to it. You’re proud of it, you know. (Jane, Round 1)

You know, that’s what your family maybe came from, so maybe you don’t want to leave that behind either. (Maria, Round 1)

Emphasising Benefits of the Working Class Mentality

The participants viewed the working class mentality as having certain benefits. They attributed their current success – becoming teachers – to this mentality:

It’s just part of you, and you are where you are because of it . . . you don’t want to become a snob and pretend it was never part of you. (Anna, Round 1)

Because it made them who they are . . . I think I’m strong mentally. Probably because I’ve had a probably different life than what my friends have had. They probably would have been better off than me, but I think I’m mentally stronger than they are because of the experience. (Elizabeth, Round 1)

You didn’t get to where you are from nothing. You had to start somewhere. And it would be a shame to leave that behind. (Michelle, Round 1)

They also identified a sense of pride having achieved through their own efforts:

It’s the sense of reward. Even looking back on myself, there were a lot of things that I encountered that got in my way but it made me more resilient . . . the sense of achievement later on in years looking back . . . it’s something that makes people feel really proud that they worked. (Ava, Round 3)

People are proud to say that they’ve done that. You know because you’ve achieved something. (Jane, Round 3)

Another benefit they reported was that working for something resulted in being appreciative. Their particular experiences had led them to be appreciative of things, they felt, in contrast to those who ‘were just handed things’ (Anna, Round 3):

You appreciate everything that you have more so. Growing up, I would’ve known that getting something for my birthday was a big deal . . . they’re saving up, I’m not going to ask for something too big . . . because you’d know that’s going to be a struggle. It’s always in the back of your mind that they’re going to have to work hard for this . . . Like it’s something to be proud of that you can work hard for something rather than just be handed it. (Jane, Round 3)

I think you tend to appreciate more what you have when you have to work for it first. I grew up with friends that were handed things and got whatever they wanted . . . my parents weren’t able to give me money, everything I had I worked very hard for it. And I appreciate it a lot more . . . if you’re handed everything and you don’t necessarily have to work for it, that doesn’t maybe come as easily. (Anna, Round 3)

Being appreciative was a positive way of being and made it ‘easier to be happy’ (Anna). The participants also felt this mentality meant working class people were more resilient than others, who they felt might be more ‘entitled’ (Esther) and less ‘able to deal with’ life (Anna):

I think they will find failure quite difficult in life, because they might develop this unconscious attitude that they will get what they want . . . I think it’s easier for us to cope with failure, and we become more resilient . . . I just don’t think there’s the same amount of appreciation for things. More entitlement, things like that. (Esther, Round 3)

What I found is I’m able to deal with situations better, even finance . . . there’s people who maybe haven’t necessarily struggled in their lives. If they come across small things, they might not necessarily be able to deal with them as well . . . you’re more able to deal with life a little bit better perhaps. (Anna, Round 3)

Importantly, the participants seemed to perceive a type of moral superiority in having worked hard for versus ‘being handed’ something. While most of the participants did not feel that someone without such experiences made one a ‘bad’ person, there was a strong sense that having had these experiences made one an extra good person. As Jane remarked, she had ‘added proudness’ or ‘added moral value’, and it meant that one ‘had the edge on them in the morality sense’ (Esther):

You’re going to feel good about yourself if you’ve worked hard for something . . . I don’t like to say that people are more superior than others . . . more so that you feel better . . . Having gone through college and funding myself, I feel much better about what I’m doing . . . Not that those people would feel bad about themselves, but maybe I might have that added proudness, or that added kind of moral value to what I’ve done. I know I’ve worked hard for something, rather than being handed something. (Jane, Round 3)

I’m unsure do they make you a better person but I think they would give you better qualities . . . if I had been handed everything on a plate maybe I wouldn’t have the same kind of outlook and qualities . . . I’m feeling very scared to say that these people are bad people (laughs) . . . I just think that maybe there are so many morals that you develop when you have had these lack of things, because you’ve had to become more resilient, you’ve had to overcome the failures, to learn to appreciate the important small things. So I think you have that kind of edge on them in the morality sense. (Esther, Round 3)

A lot of people get things handed to them very easily. If you have worked for them you appreciate them ten times more . . . you can take the moral value that I’ve worked for this and I’ve earned it and I deserve it, rather than just having it handed to you. (Sarah, Round 3)

Such was the participants’ valuing of the working class mentality that they felt that even if their own children were to grow up in more middle class environments, in terms of the opportunities available to them as a result of their parents’ improved circumstances, they wanted to ensure that they passed on this mentality:

I’m going to be on a decent salary for hopefully the rest of my life. My boyfriend is as well. We’ll have a good life . . . so I suppose my kids could be middle class but we would definitely bring them up with working class mentalities . . . it would be easy for them to maybe not have that mentality, but I would definitely be very anxious to keep that. (Sarah, Round 3)

I would prefer to have my children possess a working class mentality, just to learn the value of life and money, to work hard. You don’t want to hand everything on a plate. (Ava, Round 3)

Interrogating the Positive ‘Spin’

Only Robert pointed out that the challenging experiences lying behind this mentality also had the potential to produce negative effects:

They could build you up but then they could break you down . . . there’s a lot of people that have those experiences and you know they didn’t do well in life . . . unemployed . . . alcoholism . . . poverty . . . there’s a lot of working class people who unfortunately it hasn’t been a positive experience for them, that experience hasn’t really driven them to move up in the world. (Robert, Round 3)

When asked about the idea of the working class mentality being presented to me as almost wholly positive, the participants identified a desire to protect themselves and their families of origin as the key motivator. Focusing on the positive allowed one to protect the self in that it gave one a sense of validation and meaning, making it seem that one’s struggle – and oneself – was therefore worthwhile:

That’s what made your life kind of worthwhile . . . it’s something that makes people feel really proud that they worked. Maybe it’s a very Irish thing, that you worked hard to get where you are today . . . justifies why you took this path . . . makes it all worthwhile, gives it meaning, sense of justification. (Ava, Round 3)

Observing that this was an optimistic perspective, Robert noted wryly that ‘maybe you’d like to think it’s worth it’ because one would not wish to see such experiences as ‘pointless’:

Maybe you’d like to think it’s worth it, that even the negative things were all necessary to get you where you are. It’s an optimistic view of life . . . because you wouldn’t want to think of those experiences as being pointless. You would like to think that going through those troubles would’ve got you where you are today, and would’ve made you the person you are today . . . people like to attach worth to those experiences, that they were necessary, there’s meaning, that it did get you somewhere. (Robert, Round 3)

Protection or defence of one’s family was also reported as a motivating factor in the presentation of past challenging experiences as predominantly positive. The participants explained that doing otherwise would constitute an attack on their family, which they were anxious to avoid. They emphasised that, despite challenging experiences, they had not missed out on anything important and underlined all their families had done to support them:

You want to defend it . . . your family, you don’t want to say, ‘well my family weren’t able to give me anything and provide’ . . . we all kind of got out of it, so it wasn’t that we had these terrible life situations where we couldn’t get out of it. (Anna, Round 3)

I’ve got to where I am now and my family have supported me along the way. I would hate to say anything that would go against that . . . although there has been certain struggles I’ve had to overcome, I haven’t missed out on any important things . . . you don’t want to seem unappreciative . . . your parents and your family and not wanting to ever deny everything that they’ve done for you. (Esther, Round 3)

Discussion and Conclusion

For Bourdieu (1999: 139), ‘sudden upward movement in social space can dislocate the habitus, initiating a painful and disorienting struggle to reconstruct one’s sense of place within social space’. In this regard, evidence of habitus clivé (divided habitus) in my participants’ narratives may have been expected, given their upward social mobility. Instead, similar to Friedman’s (2016) study, the primary working class habitus of my participants appeared undivided despite their significant progression in employment and economic terms. Through their distinction between class ‘mentality’ and materiality, despite ‘objectively’ becoming middle class, my student teacher participants resisted claims of a fully changed class identity, emphasising that one could not leave behind the core aspect of one’s class of origin, that of mentality, which they wished to neither deny nor denigrate. They argued that working class mentality (having experiences of lack, working hard versus being ‘handed’ things, expecting insecurity), was engrained from a young age, and their narratives underlined the benefits that they felt accrued from this mentality (making you who you are, bringing you success, being appreciative). Indeed, they were consciously seeking to maintain their working class habitus, of ‘“holding true” to one’s upbringing’ (Friedman, 2016: 137), and rejecting a middle class habitus. Friedman (2016: 141) also reported that his participants did not fully want to belong in their ‘field of destination, and that success somehow implied abandoning one’s origins’, essentially viewing success as a form of betrayal of one’s family (Bourdieu, 2000). In the same way, it could be that in an attempt to not abandon, or be seen as abandoning, their origins, my participants instead refused their class destination identity. They acknowledged and claimed the economic and professional status of being a teacher, and associated material benefits, but none of the ‘mentality’ associated with middle classness, which they seemed to associate with people ‘being handed everything’, feeling entitled and being unappreciative. The student teachers talked about class in ways that ‘inscribe[d] class as a part of the self, rather than some external marker attaching to indicators such as employment or housing’ (Lawler, 1999: 19). It is important to note, however, that there was evidence of habitus clivé in the participants’ experiences on school placement. As explained (see Keane, 2023 for in-depth treatment), the participants performed a differential class identity (what I termed class chameleoning) in their placement schools, especially around their middle class teacher colleagues, and evinced significant disquiet and discomfort in this regard. Their ‘performing up’ behaviour was done in the context of a specific social field or action context in order to avoid feeling looked down upon. This chameleoning behaviour is an example of the relationality of habitus to field. In a sense, they were performing a disposition required by the field (Silva, 2016). However, during this study’s interviews, which can be understood as another specific action context, the participants’ habitus appeared undivided as they explained what they felt was their general ‘mentality’.

The other notable finding was that the participants not only claimed ongoing working class ‘mentality’ but positioned it as beneficial and as providing ‘added moral value’ (Jane). As noted, the participants experienced significant bifurcation of the self as part of habitus clivé on school placement, emphasising that they did not wish to ‘perform’ a different class but felt they had to in order to be accepted by their middle class colleagues (Keane, 2023). Lawler (1999: 14) claims that her participants from working class backgrounds who were subsequently ‘able to “pass” as middle class’ sensed that they could neither ‘fully inhabit’ a middle class habitus nor ‘fully possess’ its dispositions (1999: 17). Indeed, she argues that ‘taking on the markers of middle-class existence’ (1999: 3) is also pathological because it risks both ‘getting it wrong’ and is linked to triviality and pretentiousness, which makes women from working class origins especially vulnerable. In the same way, it is likely that my participants sensed that they could not fully inhabit a middle class habitus and as a result rejected it and identified worthy aspects of their working class habitus to promote. Savage et al. (2001: 877) argue that ‘to confront class . . . threatens people’s fragile sense of self-dignity and self-respect’, perhaps because of their understanding that ‘class is not an innocent descriptive term but is a loaded moral signifier’ (Savage et al., 2001: 889). In the context of the pathologisation of working classness (Lawler, 1999; Loveday, 2014), and their far fewer opportunities for value accrual (Skeggs, 2011), the onus was on my participants to find a way of constructing something valuable and valued in their working class origins. In Skeggs’ (1997: 279) ethnographic study, the working class participants generated value for themselves by claiming to be better mothers than middle class mothers who sent their children to childcare while they worked externally, thus ‘invert[ing] class divisions and claim[ing] moral superiority’. Similarly, it could be argued that my participants inverted typical working class pathologisation and claimed moral superiority over those who had not had to struggle, instead having had things ‘handed to them’. Loveday (2014: 279) argues that ‘one response to being ashamed of the negative valuation associated with being recognized as “working class” is attempting to gain respectability on the terms of the dominant’. Whereas her female participants expressed shame at their former working class identities, the men actively constructed valuable class identities through recourse to the past. My participants – although mostly female – actively constructed their working class mentality not only as valuable but as morally superior. Further, their emphasis on the ‘added moral value’ accrued from enduring past experiences of lack and working hard implies a valuing of suffering, a particularly Catholic value (Eberl, 2012), which may be a feature of classed sensibilities in the Irish context given the Catholic church’s strong historical role in the formation of national identity. My participants’ desire to position past experiences of lack as a positive was also related to their desire to protect and defend their families of origin. As Neil, a man from a working class background, in Loveday (2014: 732), remarked, a key characteristic of what it means to be working class is ‘a loyalty . . . to your past’. These conflicts speak to the ‘complexities of the losses as well as the gains’ (Lucey et al., 2003: 285) inherent in upward social mobility and class transformation (Lucey et al., 2003).

Friedman et al. (2021: 729) have emphasised ‘the importance of differentiating research on class identity between class origin and class destination. Most research in this area tends to elide this temporal dimension and simply ask, whether, generally, people feel they belong to a particular social class’. While this study has focused on student teachers’ reflections upon their changing (or not) class identities, and has shown that those from working class backgrounds do not simply relinquish aspects of their identity due to upward social mobility, the findings contribute more generally to sociological knowledge in showing that habitus may not always be divided upon traversing class boundaries.