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This article aims to explore the dominant normative patterns that establish the timing and order of life events, determining the desirable life strategies for working-class youth in modern Russia.

Exploring the interrelationship between new working-class studies and life-course studies, this research combines the consideration of life course as a structurally organised integrity with a phenomenological perspective on the study of life strategies. The empirical basis of research consists of a survey of 1532 young working-class representatives living in the Ural Federal District of Russia and biographical in-depth interviews with 31 of them.

The study resulted in persisting significance and values of traditional life-course structures while showing that the current social conditions do not allow for this life strategy to be fulfilled. Young workers choose adaptation and survival life strategies that restrict the realisation of their professional and cultural potential. The obtained data have confirmed the presence of some worldwide tendencies, such as the dispersion of events during transition to adulthood, a combination of schooling and full-time work and an earlier career start of working-class representatives.

The sequencing and timing of life-course events of Russian working-class youth is an original research topic. The present study proposes and substantiates the notion of the new working class and criteria for its definition.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which economic factors influence the career decision‐making process of working class students.

The study involved an initial survey of 165 final‐year students from a range of degree programmes. It was followed by in‐depth interviews with 30 working class students.

It is shown that many working class students are not actively involved in career enhancing activities that develop their employability. The majority of students are also failing to engage seriously in the career decision‐making process. Furthermore, most students indicate that they wish to remain within commuting distance of their home when looking for jobs. Existing research identifies limited economic capital as an important factor influencing such behaviour. However, this study suggests that the students' values and their non‐financial circumstances appear to have more effect on their career decision making.

If economic factors were the most important influence on the career decision‐making behaviour of working class students there would be a limited role for careers education. However, because the students' values appear to be a more important influence there is scope for intervention. This paper suggests that activity based approaches using multiple case studies, analogical encoding and group work seem to provide the best way of encouraging students to critically evaluate the way they currently engage in career decision making.

This paper provides evidence to support interventions to improve the career decision‐making behaviour of working class students (and the wider student population). It also advocates a novel approach to such interventions.

The overarching question of this paper is, “What are the advantages of being an upwardly mobile academic?” The extant academic research on working-class academics has usually emphasized various kinds of “deficits” of working-class academics. In this paper, the author demonstrates that although class positions can constitute a formidable burden, they can translate into specific advantages in academia.

This study is based on the narrative, phenomenological approach, which has been applied in working-class studies and higher-education research. The empirical material comprises the collection of 25 narrative interviews conducted and analyzed according to the biographical narrative interpretive method (BNIM).

This paper looks at the experience of working-class academics from a holistic perspective, including both the downsides and upsides of being an “outsider within,” or “insider without.” It uncovers four assets of a working-class background – referred to as “navigational capital,” “revolutionary potential,” “wisdom” and a distinct “working-class pedagogy.”

The working-class pedagogy can be turned into support programs for working-class individuals. Their navigational capital can foster evolutionary changes and small improvements for the benefit of the entire academic community. Their revolutionary dispositions can trigger major reforms, and their unique experiences can be utilized as case studies in teaching.

This paper engages with the literature on the cultural mismatch and cleft habitus in the academic context. It analyzes the positive but rarely discussed aspects of being an upwardly mobile academic with a working-class background. By recognizing these unique assets, it engages with the literature on inclusive universities and can help make higher education more inclusive and sustainable.

Scholars have made important inroads to theorising and understanding working-class people's experiences of higher education (HE), as well as the broader complexities of navigating overlapping and sometimes competing middle- and working-class spaces.

In this chapter, we hope to add to this body of literature through examining the experiences and histories of two working-class women currently in the early stages of academic careers. Through the use of ‘experimental autoethnographies’ (Read & Bradley, 2018) and based on an assemblage of autoethnographic artefacts, we trace our journeys from undergraduate to post-PhD employment, picking up on key moments of pain, disconnect and isolation on the one hand, and celebration, support and pride on the other.

Through the tracing of these key moments in our recent academic trajectories, we make visible the difficulties of navigating elite spaces of academia as women with no family history of HE participation, exploring the ways in which we take on the role as ‘academic translator’ for those around us when discussing the labyrinthine meanings of academe. At the same time, and reflecting on these experiences from the perspective of navigating the margins of academia, we reject the pathologising narratives of working-class people and communities as uninterested in or hostile to HE through the unpacking of joyful moments shared with those around us related to our academic successes.

Finally, we point to ways in which we, as academics – however early career or precariously employed – are now in the position to support marginalised students or colleagues, ending our chapter with a series of practical suggestions for making academia ‘thinkable’ for future generations.

In recent decades, economic and social differences have increased in many Western countries. The consequences of these societal changes are higher unemployment and more insecurity within the working class. Hostile attitudes towards the poor and immigrants have grown in scale and intensity, leading to claims of a crisis. However, these attitudes are not as common among the ethnic Norwegian working class as they are in the United States and France. Workers in Norway are more hostile towards the rich than vulnerable groups. In contrast with those in the United States and France, it appears that the working class in Norway still struggles for recognition of its societal role and political identification, and this ‘struggle’ is still fought against the economic elite.

In this chapter, I use an autoethnographic approach to explore my everyday experiences as a senior lecturer at a UK-based university. My academic trajectory covers over 20 years when I, a working-class person with no qualifications, entered university. I outline my journey from student to academic. My day-to-day experiences of being a working-class academic (WCA) have been generally positive, but I've still encountered microaggressions, and feelings of isolation. This chapter also illuminates the cultural wealth that I bring to academia by virtue of my working-class heritage before ending with some points for reflection.