Abstract
This chapter, drawing on a qualitative study in British Columbia Canada, explores how a group of working-class men negotiated their performance of masculinities within and beyond a university setting. I focus on how these participants felt they belonged or did not belong to the different communities they inhabited. I suggest that for these men in the process of acquiring middle-class professionalism and an academic accreditation, they draw on the cornerstones of working-class masculinity, such as hard ‘graft’, receiving pride from one’s stoic tasks, and with the aim of being able to provide for one’s family and to endure hardship without complaint. As this chapter will show, these men believe these desires cannot be fully achieved in low-skilled, service sector employment. However, this pressure to succeed is coupled with a dual burden of negotiating a successful masculine identity beyond the university space. These experiences of higher education show that some young men fail to feel like they belong to either of these communities.
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Notes
- 1.
It is not my intention in this chapter to discuss the nuances and differences between various providers of higher education. For further information on this, and how it links to masculinity making and social inequalities, I would direct the reader to Harper and Harris (2010) or Waller et al. (2018).
- 2.
All name used as pseudonyms
- 3.
The Canadian Higher Education sector is diverse, but can be broadly split into three categories. Those with a medical school and doctorial programmes, those without a medical school, often terms ‘comprehensive’ and smaller universities based on the liberal arts model found in the US. See https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-canada for further information [Accessed 18 March 2018].
- 4.
Some participants who were the sons of immigrants, or have moved to Canada, explained that their parents did have formal university qualifications, but these were from non-English speaking countries and were not viewed as acceptable inCanada.
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Ward, M.R.M. (2019). (Un)Belonging in Higher Education: Negotiating Working-Class Masculinities Within and Beyond the University Campus. In: Habib, S., Ward, M.R.M. (eds) Identities, Youth and Belonging. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96113-2_10
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