- Berenice is Research Fellow at Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo", currently working on the Horizon project ... moreBerenice is Research Fellow at Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo", currently working on the Horizon project CLEAR (Constructing Learning Outcomes in Europe). Her key areas of interest are educational inequalities, social (im)mobility, ethnic and racial inequalities, Bourdieusian theory and qualitative methodologies. Her PhD thesis draws on in-depth interviews and photo-elicitation to explore the experiences and identities of British-born young women of Bangladeshi origins in Higher Education.edit
The last two decades have seen a considerable increase in the number of working-class and minority ethnic students participating in higher education. Yet, compared to their white middle-class peers, students from these background still... more
The last two decades have seen a considerable increase in the number of working-class and minority ethnic students participating in higher education. Yet, compared to their white middle-class peers, students from these background still tend to have higher drop-out rates, lower attainment, and to fare less well in terms of employment outcomes. This chapter will look at the experiences of British-born young women of Bangladeshi ethnicity, of both working-class and middle-class origins, to provide a better understanding of the ways in which ‘getting on’ at university is informed by class and ethnicity as intersecting dimensions of social identity. To do so, I will draw on in-depth interviews conducted with 21 female students attending a range of differently ranked institutions in London, and will apply a Bourdieusian lens of analysis to the main discourses that emerged. Building especially on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capitals, findings highlight the substantially classed and ‘raced’ character of participants’ perceptions of ‘fitting in’ at specific institutions and subject degrees, and contribute to illuminate underlying processes. Furthermore, they draw attention to the role that is played by class and ‘race’ / ethnicity in shaping common issues confronted at both an academic and social level, and illustrate in this sense some of the ways in which inequalities are (re)produced through higher education.
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Symposium organized by Saskia Bonjour and Sebastien Chauvin within the "Class in the 21st Century" conference. Amsterdam Research Center on Gender and Sexuality (ARC GS) 22-23 October 2015 University of Amsterdam 1) Class and the policy... more
Symposium organized by Saskia Bonjour and Sebastien Chauvin within the "Class in the 21st Century" conference.
Amsterdam Research Center on Gender and Sexuality (ARC GS)
22-23 October 2015
University of Amsterdam
1) Class and the policy construction of the (un)deserving migrant
Immigration policies create categories of people that distinguish between those allowed to enter and stay in destination countries, and those to whom borders stayed closed. A substantial body of scholarly work explores the ways in which these politics of belonging are shaped by conceptions of national identity, ethnicity and race. Increasingly, there has also been attention to the role of constructions of gender and sexuality in shaping immigration politics. While intersectional approaches to the analysis of immigration policies are thus on the rise, the role of class, and its intertwinement with other axes of inequality, has remained remarkably underexplored. The first two panel of the symposium ask which role class plays in the construction of the ‘(un)desirable’ migrant in political debate and policies. How are different requirements relating not only to income but also to education, housing and even national origin or ‘integration’ related to class? How does class intersect with ethnicity on the one hand and gender and sexuality on the other hand in construing degrees of desirability? Do we observe class serving as a proxy for ethnicity, or vice versa, in political debates and policies?
2) Class in mobility strategies and migration experiences
While class figures at various degrees in migration policy, it also shapes the strategies and experiences of transnational migrants. Class defines the resource inequalities that separate those who are able to migrate from those who lack the means to travel. It also determines the array of conditions that drive people to want to leave or not, whether in reference to local competition in origin communities or through classed imaginaries of success associated with destination countries. Together with gender and age, class cultures inform the nature of migration decisions and the types of collective expectations invested in individual migrants. The last two panels of the symposium asks which role class plays in constraining and shaping the agency of international migrants, the differences in prestige between various groups of migrants, and internal conflicts within diasporas. How do class differences translate into various experiences of transnational marriage and family migration? How does class become relevant for asylum seekers persecuted for their sexual or gender identity? Does class play out in value conflicts over gender and sexuality within migrant communities in destination countries? How do migrant men and women navigate and perform gendered and class expectations embedded into host country migration policies? Do policy categories only function as constraints, or can they also become resources to strategize with?
Amsterdam Research Center on Gender and Sexuality (ARC GS)
22-23 October 2015
University of Amsterdam
1) Class and the policy construction of the (un)deserving migrant
Immigration policies create categories of people that distinguish between those allowed to enter and stay in destination countries, and those to whom borders stayed closed. A substantial body of scholarly work explores the ways in which these politics of belonging are shaped by conceptions of national identity, ethnicity and race. Increasingly, there has also been attention to the role of constructions of gender and sexuality in shaping immigration politics. While intersectional approaches to the analysis of immigration policies are thus on the rise, the role of class, and its intertwinement with other axes of inequality, has remained remarkably underexplored. The first two panel of the symposium ask which role class plays in the construction of the ‘(un)desirable’ migrant in political debate and policies. How are different requirements relating not only to income but also to education, housing and even national origin or ‘integration’ related to class? How does class intersect with ethnicity on the one hand and gender and sexuality on the other hand in construing degrees of desirability? Do we observe class serving as a proxy for ethnicity, or vice versa, in political debates and policies?
2) Class in mobility strategies and migration experiences
While class figures at various degrees in migration policy, it also shapes the strategies and experiences of transnational migrants. Class defines the resource inequalities that separate those who are able to migrate from those who lack the means to travel. It also determines the array of conditions that drive people to want to leave or not, whether in reference to local competition in origin communities or through classed imaginaries of success associated with destination countries. Together with gender and age, class cultures inform the nature of migration decisions and the types of collective expectations invested in individual migrants. The last two panels of the symposium asks which role class plays in constraining and shaping the agency of international migrants, the differences in prestige between various groups of migrants, and internal conflicts within diasporas. How do class differences translate into various experiences of transnational marriage and family migration? How does class become relevant for asylum seekers persecuted for their sexual or gender identity? Does class play out in value conflicts over gender and sexuality within migrant communities in destination countries? How do migrant men and women navigate and perform gendered and class expectations embedded into host country migration policies? Do policy categories only function as constraints, or can they also become resources to strategize with?
Research Interests:
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This study explores Pathways to engage children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in nature-based activities. It discusses challenges in balancing multiple demands on National Parks to protect biodiversity and meet human... more
This study explores Pathways to engage children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in nature-based activities. It discusses challenges in balancing multiple demands on National Parks to protect biodiversity and meet human recreational needs, suggesting that regional parks that combine wild and managed areas offer a better solution than doing nothing and allowing yet further human encroachment on 'pristine' natural environments. The study concludes how the participants of the study frames and/or defines the progress in relation to nature.
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This paper explores how subjective experiences of social mobility are informed by dimensions of identity other than class (e.g. ethnicity, gender). Drawing on in-depth interviews with British-born young women of Bangladeshi Muslim,... more
This paper explores how subjective experiences of social mobility are informed by dimensions of identity other than class (e.g. ethnicity, gender). Drawing on in-depth interviews with British-born young women of Bangladeshi Muslim, working-class origins in higher education, I critically interrogate their articulations of class positioning and trajectory and the interplay between participation in education and employment and gendered identities. Findings evidence the multifarious and value-ridden character of class signifiers, the relational nature of class positioning and the entrenchment of middle-classness and whiteness, and testify to the compounding tensions experienced by upwardly mobile individuals of minority ethnic origins. The pursuit of upward mobility through participation in higher education and employment is also shown to entail shifts in gendered expectations and strains in performing valued gendered identities. Ultimately, I argue that social mobility processes are better understood as involving a movement across material and symbolic spaces where markers, dispositions and practices linked to individuals' class, ethnicity, religion and gender acquire differential value. This intersectional lens enables a complex and nuanced picture to emerge, which foregrounds multiple tensions, displacements and resulting inequalities in experiences and outcomes.
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This paper explores the narratives of British-born young women of Bangladeshi heritage to examine the influence of social class and university participation on ethnic identification. As UK-born young people of minority ethnic origins... more
This paper explores the narratives of British-born young women of Bangladeshi heritage to examine the influence of social class and university participation on ethnic identification. As UK-born young people of minority ethnic origins access higher education in growing numbers, questions about their socio-cultural incorporation are increasingly salient. This article draws on interviews with 21 female undergraduates of Bangladeshi background. It investigates their understandings and constructions of their ethnic identities and underlying processes related to class location and trajectory. This is conceptualised following Bourdieu as an amalgam of economic, cultural and social capital. Findings highlight: how middle-class capital can be drawn on in the construction of a “positive” ethnic identity; how intersecting ethnicised and classed hierarchies of value can hamper the development of a positive conception of one’s ethnicity and lead to “self-distancing”; and how participation in higher education can favour the re-evaluation and “re-claiming” of ethnic identities by promoting exposure to new and valued interpretive repertoires of what it means to be Bangladeshi. They reveal the fluid, relational character of the meanings and value attached to ethnic categories by young people of minority ethnic background, and the significance of economic, social and cultural capital in informing these meanings.
Since the turn of the century, young people’s aspirations have featured prominently in UK education policy and practice. Governments of all sides have espoused a rhetoric and enacted initiatives which have tended to focus on somehow... more
Since the turn of the century, young people’s aspirations have featured prominently in UK education policy and practice. Governments of all sides have espoused a rhetoric and enacted initiatives which have tended to focus on somehow ‘correcting’ the aspirations of students of working-class and minority ethnic origins. This paper applies a Bourdieusian framework to the analysis of the education and career aspirations of British-born young women of Bangladeshi heritage in higher education. In doing so, it advances a theoretically informed understanding of aspirations, which accounts for the multiple factors that contribute to shape them as well as for the relative implications in terms of future pathways. Drawing on interviews with 21 female undergraduate students, and building on Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and capital, I conceptualise aspirations as an aspect of habitus. I argue that this conceptualisation allows light to be shed on the ways in which multiple, intersecting dimensions of social identity and social structures play out in the shaping, re-shaping and possibly fading of aspirations. Additionally, it enables us to examine the mutually informing influences of aspirations and capital on practice. Findings indicate that the valuing of education and social mobility expressed by those of Bangladeshi and other minority ethnic origins are integral to collective constructions of ‘what people like us do’, which are grounded in diasporic discourses. They also illuminate the significance of social and cultural capital for young people’s capacity to aspire and actualise aspirations, as these contribute to delineate their ‘horizons for action’. This suggests that by failing to adequately recognise how structural inequalities inform differential access to valued capital, prevailing policy and practitioners’ approaches attribute excessive responsibility to students and their parents. The notion of ‘known routes’ is in this respect put forward as a way to make sense of aspirations, expectations and pathways, and the role of institutions in forging possible futures is highlighted.