Current research on socio-economic mobility documents difficulties upwardly mobile people encounter at university and in professional work environments. However, early-life experiences of family, home and community are largely overlooked as a primary point of inquiry. This article examines accounts of early family life given by upwardly mobile Australians to consider the ways class processes impact family beginnings and life trajectories. The in-depth interviews discussed here reveal that the negotiation of differing class cultures begins during childhood, in the home and community. This is illustrated most clearly through reflections on a sense of belonging (or not), and on material and cultural dynamics of youth. These narratives challenge widely accepted notions of homogeneous working-class socialisation, and require a broader understanding of the complex ways in which the upwardly mobile negotiate relationships and identity. These are narratives of what happens when origins and ambitions are seemingly at odds.
AriesE.SeiderM. (2005) ‘The Interactive Relationship Between Class Identity and the College Experience: The Case of Lower Income Students’, Qualitative Sociology28(4): 419–43.
2.
BaxterA.BrittonC. (2001) ‘Risk, Identity and Change: Becoming a Mature Student’, International Studies in Sociology of Education11(1): 87–102.
3.
BertauxD. (ed.) (1981) Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences. Sage Studies in International Sociology 23. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
4.
BertauxD.ThompsonP. (eds) (1993) Between Generations: Family Models, Myths, and Memories, International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press.
5.
BertauxD.ThompsonP. (eds) (1997) Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility. New York: Oxford University Press.
6.
BourdieuP. (1984) Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
BourdieuP. (1990) The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
8.
BourdieuP. (1996) The State Nobility. Cambridge: Polity Press.
9.
BourdieuP. (2002) ‘Structures, Habitus, Practices’, pp. 345–58 in CalhounC.MoodyJ.PfaffS.VirkI. (eds) Contemporary Sociological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
10.
BourdieuP.PasseronJ.-C. (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage.
11.
BrettJ.MoranA. (2006) Ordinary People’s Politics. North Melbourne: Pluto Press.
12.
BuftonS. (2003) ‘The Lifeworld of the University Student: Habitus and Social Class’, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology34(2): 207–34.
13.
ConnellR.W.AshendenD.J.KesslerS.DowsettG.W. (1982) Making the Difference: Schools, Families and Social Division. North Sydney: George Allen and Unwin.
14.
DempseyK. (1990) Smalltown: A Study of Social Inequality, Cohesion and Belonging. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
15.
DenzinN. (1989) Interpretive Biography, Qualitative Research Methods Series 17. London: Sage.
16.
DevineF.SavageM. (2000) ‘Conclusion: Renewing Class Analysis’, pp. 184–99 in CromptonR.DevineF.SavageM.ScottJ. (eds) Renewing Class Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
17.
DewsC.L.LawC. (1995) This Fine Place So Far from Home. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
18.
DuncanS. (2005) ‘Mothering, Class and Rationality’, Sociological Review53(1): 50–76.
19.
ElliotJ. (2005) Using Narrative in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. London: Sage.
20.
EmmisonM.WesternM. (1991) ‘The Structure of Social Identities’, pp. 279–305 in BaxterJ.EmmisonM.WesternJ.WesternM. (eds) Class Analysis and Contemporary Australia. South Melbourne: Macmillan.
21.
EvansS. (2009) ‘In a Different Place: Working-class Girls and Higher Education’, Sociology43(2): 340–55.
22.
FriedmanS. (2014) ‘The Price of the Ticket: Rethinking the Experience of Social Mobility’, Sociology48(2): 352–68.
23.
GilliesV. (2005) ‘Raising the “Meritocracy”: Parenting and the Individualization of Social Class’, Sociology39(5): 835–53.
24.
HoggartR. (1970) The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-class Life with Special Reference to Publications and Entertainments. New York: Oxford University Press.
25.
HuppatzK. (2010) ‘Class and Career Choice: Motivations, Aspirations, Identity and Mobility for Women in Paid Caring Work’, Journal of Sociology46(2): 115–32.
26.
HuppatzK. (2012) Gender Capital at Work: Intersections of Femininity, Masculinity, Class and Occupation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
27.
IngramN. (2011) ‘Within School and Beyond the Gate: The Complexities of Being Educationally Successful and Working Class’, Sociology45(2): 287–302.
28.
IrwinS.ElleyS. (2011) ‘Concerted Cultivation? Parenting Values, Education and Class Diversity’, Sociology45(3): 480–95.
29.
JacksonM. (1996) ‘Introduction: Phenomenology, Radical Empiricism, and Anthropological Critique’, pp. 1–50 in JacksonM. (ed.) Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
30.
LahireB. (2011) The Plural Actor. Cambridge: Polity Press.
31.
LareauA. (2003) Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
32.
LawlerS. (1999) ‘“Getting Out and Getting Away”: Women’s Narratives of Class Mobility’, Feminist Review63(autumn): 3–24.
33.
LuceyH.MelodyJ.WalkerdineV. (2003) ‘Uneasy Hybrids: Psychosocial Aspects of Becoming Educationally Successful for Working-class Young Women’, Gender and Education15(3): 285–99.
34.
Masterman-SmithH.PocockB. (2008) Living Low Paid: The Dark Side of Prosperous Australia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
35.
McNameeS.MillerR. (2004) The Meritocracy Myth. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
36.
MilesA.SavageM.BuhlmannF. (2011) ‘Telling a Modest Story: Accounts of Men’s Upward Mobility from the National Child Development Study’, British Journal of Sociology62(3): 418–41.
37.
MillerR. (2001) Researching Social Mobility: New Directions. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
38.
NewmanK. (1999) Falling from Grace: Downward Mobility in the Age of Affluence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
39.
PeelM. (1995) Good Times, Hard Times: The Past and the Future in Elizabeth. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
40.
PeelM. (2003) The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
41.
PiniB.McDonaldP.MayesR. (2012) ‘Class Contestations and Australia’s Resource Boom: The Emergence of the “Cashed-up Bogan”’, Sociology46(1):142–58.
42.
PiniB.PreviteJ. (2013) ‘Bourdieu, the Boom and Cashed-up Bogans’, Journal of Sociology49(2–3): 256–71.
43.
ReayD.CrozierG.ClaytonJ. (2009) ‘“Strangers in Paradise”? Working-class Students in Elite Universities’, Sociology43(6): 1103–21.
44.
RyanJ.SackreyC. (1985) Strangers in Paradise: Academics from the Working Class. Boston, MA: South End Press.
45.
SayerA. (2005) ‘Class, Moral Worth and Recognition’, Sociology39(5): 947–63.
46.
SavageM. (2000) Class Analysis and Social Transformation. Buckingham: Open University Press.
47.
SavageM.BagnallG.LonghurstB. (2001) ‘Ordinary, Ambivalent and Defensive: Class Identities in the North-West of England’, Sociology35(4): 875–92.
48.
SennettR.CobbJ. (1972) The Hidden Injuries of Class. New York: Knopf.
49.
SkeggsB. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.
50.
SpaaijR. (2011) Sport and Social Mobility: Crossing Boundaries. New York: Routledge.
51.
ThompsonE.P. (1966) The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Vintage Books.
52.
TranterB. (2010) ‘Sampling’, pp. 99–118 in WalterM.(ed.) Social Research Methods. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
53.
WacquantL. (2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
54.
WalkerdineV.LuceyH.MelodyJ. (2001) Growing-up Girl: Psycho-social Explorations of Gender and Class. London: Palgrave.
