Abstract
This chapter focuses on students’ preparation to move on. We discuss students’ desires and ambitions, how they have sought to use work experience, placements and internships to prepare them for their next step, and develop the notion of positional capital—capitals for careers: What do students make of what they’ve got; do they ‘know’ how best to utilize the resources they’ve developed; how do they package themselves? We consider the extent to which the institution the students attended opens up or restricts their opportunities in different labour markets, and we examine how institution intersects with social class.
Does class ‘trump’ institution? Are the middle-class and upper middle-class students at UWE able to capitalize on additional resources to overcome any negativity stemming from the institutional reputation? Do they thus find themselves in a better position than the working-class students from UoB, who whilst having attended a Russell Group institution, nevertheless have acquired less ‘valued’ capitals to show for it, and are less able to mobilize these in moving on from university study.
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Bathmaker, AM., Abrahams, J., Waller, R., Ingram, N., Hoare, A., Bradley, H. (2016). Getting Out. In: Higher Education, Social Class and Social Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53481-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53481-1_6
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