“This book is so well written! It would be excellent for undergraduate courses as it is rooted in the literature and rich with original data. Class Cultures and Social Mobility shines a bright light on the ‘hidden strengths’ people raised in working-class homes bring to their middle-class worlds.”
— Annette Lareau, author of Unequal Childhoods
“A well-written, interesting, timely and emotionally engaging book …. presenting complex sociological concepts and findings simply and in a straightforward, engaging way.”
— Elizabeth Lee, author of Geographies of Campus Inequality: Mapping the Diverse Experiences of First-Generation Students
When working-class first-generation students enter college or the professional workplace, they often find themselves immersed in entirely new worlds. As the first members of their family to graduate from college, they must learn the unwritten rules for how to speak, behave, and interact with new peers and colleagues. First-gen students might feel like they are constantly playing catch-up or that they don’t belong. As they strive to fit in and do well, they risk a heavy toll of alienation, shame, imposter syndrome, loss of identity, or broken ties with friends, family, and their community.
But there are ways to flip the script. This accessible and highly engaging book tells the stories of upwardly mobile first-gen graduates who turned their working-class roots into a strength. Through dozens of interviews, first-gen graduates shared how they faced and overcame hardship in their emotional journey of upward mobility.
While they had to learn the rules of new cultural worlds, they also found that their working-class background equipped them with unique skills in college and their professional careers. In whatever field they entered, they leveraged these strengths–their working-class cultural capital–to navigate relationships and handle professional responsibilities that others couldn’t.
These heartfelt stories also reveal how upwardly mobile first-gen graduates can balance the competing demands of the two class worlds. There needn’t be a choice between economic success or maintaining authenticity to one’s community. As models of social mobility, they show how people can stay true to themselves while embracing the opportunities of middle-class life and lifting up others. It further offers research-based recommendations for the types of social support, university programming, workplace practices, and individual actions that can help first-gen students and graduates navigate it all. Whether you’re an educator, student, working professional, or advocate, this book provides a powerful way to reimagine the transformations that accompany this journey.
For more information on my broader research, click here.