class matters in uk higher education

www.elsevier.com/locate/wsif

Women’s Studies International Forum 2

Class matters in UK higher education

Paula Black

School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK

Available online 4 June 2005

Synopsis

Higher education in the UK has undergone profound and rapid change in the past 20 years. Policy initiatives aimed at the

sector have led to research investigating impacts upon the participation and exclusion of potential student groups. In addition,

employment conditions for academic staff have come under scrutiny. This article investigates the ambiguous position of the

academic from a working class background, particularly in light of these policy changes. It makes use of Bourdieu’s conceptual

schema to understand the multi-dimensional nature of class position and corresponding mental structures. Techniques of

external audit and self-surveillance are also investigated in relation to their differential impact upon groups of academic staff.

Finally, a plea is made for more detailed empirical work which places class at the centre of the analysis in UK higher education.

D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

And what happens when we become academics? We

try to fit others into a system from which we feel

alienated (Skeggs, 1997, p. 133).

Higher education in the UK has undergone signif-

icant restructuring in the past 20 years and the changes

in this sector have been amongst the most dramatic of

any profession (Halsey, 1992). During the 1960s and

1970s, HE was expanded, but remained an elite sys-

tem. The sector also maintained its independence and

academics enjoyed a high degree of autonomy (Hal-

sey & Trow, 1971). From the early 1980s onwards,

the then Conservative government set in motion the

changes which continue today. Major trends which

have impacted upon academic staff include the in-

creasing size of the sector; casualisation; intensifica-

0277-5395/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2005.04.003

tion of work practices; erosion of pay in relation to

other professions; and the introduction of external

systems of audit. In terms of expansion of student

numbers, for example, the percentage of age cohort

who participate in higher education in the UK has

increased from 2% in 1940 to 36% in 2000 and the

current government has plans to expand this number

further (Gilchrist, Phillips, & Ross, 2003). These rapid

and fundamental changes have been to some extent

paralleled in other countries around the world (Currie,

Thiele, & Harris, 2002).

Accompanying these policy changes has been a shift

in the career structure and progression of academic and

research staff. This has become increasingly diversified

away from the traditional model where most academics

were lecturers employed on permanent contracts, with

a small number of (usually male) professors in largely

managerial roles. The traditional bureaucratic career

8 (2005) 127–138

P. Black / Women’s Studies International Forum 28 (2005) 127–138128

trajectory has become less common. There are increas-

ing numbers of professors, especially in deliteT researchuniversities, as the idea of a successful career is rede-

fined to mean achieving professorial status. Through-

out the sector, there has been an expansion of research

posts, largely on fixed term contracts, and a growing

use of performance related pay and monitoring devices

such as appraisal. Evidence seems to point to a highly

differentiated career structure for staff inside the acad-

emy. Instead of viewing boundaries centred upon en-

trance or non-entrance to HE, it is perhaps now more

accurate to see that getting in does not necessarily

overcome the difficulties of dmaking itT for staff (andstudents) from what might loosely be called dnon-traditionalT backgrounds. In addition, the fragmented

nature of the sector also encourages inequalities. The

removal of the binary divide in 1992 between old

dpolytechnicsT and traditional universities has done

little to undermine the distinction between these insti-

tutions in terms of their status, relative funding, and

characteristics of their student bodies.

Changes in the structure of higher education have

had far reaching consequences for staff and students

alike, together with as yet unclear impacts upon the

wider society in terms of the level and types of skills

distributed amongst the population, and also increasing

levels of student debt. Whilst student numbers in UK

HE have rapidly expanded, the introduction of fees and

loans which replaced grants has acted as a disincentive

to study for some particularly marginalised groups

(Hutchings, 2003). For academics, changes in HE

could be leading to a strong market orientation which

may involve the reworking of traditional cultural values

associated with academic life, for example, knowledge

being valued for its own sake and the separation of

academic values from themarket (Henkel, 2003). How-

ever, it may also be the case that newer entrants to the

profession are increasingly dissatisfied and vocal about

their position. It is also some degree of speculation at

the moment to begin to understand how the fragmen-

tation of the career trajectory has impacted upon differ-

ent categories of staff—for example in relation to type

of contract, sector of employment and grade.

Discussion of these issues has been on going. The

debate in relation to the gendered nature of discrim-

ination against staff is available and there is clear

evidence of women being concentrated amongst

lower grades as well as receiving less pay than their

male colleagues (AUT, 1999). However, whilst HE

has expanded to allow more variation amongst staff

and students, the progress made by women is more

evident than that made by those from a working class

background (Reay, Davies, David, & Ball, 2001). I

have found my own experiences more easily articu-

lated in the acceptable forms of gender discourse, than

to dtrade onT unease generated by a working class

background. The inclusion of class has become

dunfashionableT in the social sciences and humanities

(Medhurst, 2000; Reay, 1997a). This replacement of

class based explanations has arisen partly as a result of

the emergence of identity politics and a corresponding

focus upon ddifference.T Here, the dright to

recognitionT for particular groups of people based

upon one selected characteristic takes precedence

over more generalised and structural inequalities (Fra-

ser, 1995). To some extent, this shift in both theory

and politics is understandable and necessary. Howev-

er, the refusal to acknowledge the deeply embedded

physical and psychic structures of class should not be

a by-product. What I am trying to do here is to move

the focus back to acknowledgement of social class as

an issue for both students and staff in HE. I am not,

however, denying the importance of other structural

inequalities such as ethnicity and sexuality.

How then can we understand the experiences of

academic staff from a working class background?

Much of the writing on the subject contains autobio-

graphical elements, and it appears that often, the work

on class and gender has been maintained by feminist

academics from such backgrounds. The ambivalences

inherent in occupying a position amongst the educated

middle class has been the subject of both painful and

triumphant writing (see for example, Mahony &

Zmroczek, 1997). My own interest in both objective

career patterns and psychic structures of feeling is

framed in class and gender terms and has arisen

from my participation in UK higher education as a

student and member of academic staff at varying

periods during the past 20 years. Although back in

the early 1980s an dAT level in sociology had

equipped me with a theoretical understanding of

class, the profound implications of inequality and

the ambiguous sensation of shame and rage that this

engenders, had yet to impact upon me. In fact, it was

only upon my arrival at university that I began to

realise that not everyone was the same as those in the

P. Black / Women’s Studies International Forum 28 (2005) 127–138 129

world I had grown up. From the moment when a tutor

in a seminar dismissed my arguments for the existence

and importance of class as the result of my own

origins in a dlittle Moscow,T I have been constantly

drawn back to class analysis and politics. This interest

has now, inevitably, come to bear upon the world of

higher education. In terms of access, funding and the

educational experience itself, class is a fundamental

issue for our students. However, less discussed is the

impact of class background upon the career of aca-

demics, and the very content of what we teach and

research. As class goes in and out of fashion, partly as

a result of wider political agendas, it becomes more or

less possible to discuss it in relation to our own

identities and the work we do. My focus is both

upon the objective social conditions of the academic

career and working environment, and also upon the

psychic struggles inherent in movement through class

structures into institutions where the deverydayT wayof doing things is predicated upon knowledge and

skills closely linked to class background (and other

privileged positions).

In making sense of this auto/biographical experi-

ence, I have turned to the work of Bourdieu. Auto/

biography and Bourdieu are not often and easily

linked together. However, my own first reading of

Bourdieu, despite the extensive tables and footnotes

and the often obtuse language, produced gasps of

recognition and the relief of having my experiences

validated. Both in the dry statistical data of Distinc-

tion, but also in the setting out of taste, embodied

ways of being, and the psychic structure of the hab-

itus, Bourdieu seemed to have highlighted the

essences of class experience under an academic spot-

light (Bourdieu, 1984).

Bourdieu’s writing has appropriately been criti-

cised for over emphasising the role of class to the

exclusion or marginalisation of other categories such

as gender and ethnicity. In fact, despite claiming a

turn to gender as the logical outcome of his re-

search, he wrote Masculine Domination (2001a)

partly as a result of these criticisms. Despite this

shortcoming, his schema is useful for understanding

class in a useful and dynamic form. In contrast to

the Registrar General’s class schema or other sys-

tems which classify according to occupation, Bour-

dieu allows for differences within classes as well as

between them. In outlining a variety of capitals, he

maintains an economistic metaphor, but allows the

inclusion of non-economic criteria to determine

class position (Bourdieu, 1984, 1987). The location

of a class position for Bourdieu depends upon the

relative amount and composition of capitals. Capital

takes four forms: economic; cultural; social and

symbolic. Economic capital is fairly self-explanato-

ry, whilst cultural capital is possessed in either an

embodied state, in the form of cultural objects and

goods, and in an institutionalised form, most often

recognised in terms of educational qualifications.

Social capital consists of the networks and relation-

ships in which the person is embedded and can

mobilise. Symbolic capital is the form other capitals

take on once they have achieved recognition. Sym-

bolic capital is the key to validating and legitimat-

ing other capitals.

This use of capitals when combined with an

understanding of the fields within which they operate

and the processes of recognition which occur in each

allows us to build a clear picture of class at work in

the educational field (Bourdieu, 1995). In particular,

it becomes appropriate to speak of high levels of

cultural capital without corresponding levels of eco-

nomic capital and still to see this position as middle

class. It is precisely this location in which most UK

academics find themselves.

By also incorporating the mental structure of the

habitus, we are able to make sense of how a current

middle class background is profoundly affected by

predispositions, habits, tastes and ways of being learnt

in a different class position (Bourdieu, 1984, 1998).

Bourdieu describes the habitus as da mental structure

which, having been inculcated into all minds social-

ized in a particular way, is both individual and col-

lectiveT (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 66). He also talks of this

mental structure or dstructure of predispositionsT as adkind of practical sense for what is to be done in a

given situation—what is called in sport a bfeelQ for thegameT (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 25). This combination of

the habitus with capitals understood within a particu-

lar field allows for an understanding of the ease or

otherwise which may be felt in social space. Particular

fields, including that of education, require specific

types of capitals and the knowledge generated through

them. Knowing the drules of the gameT or possessingthe types and volume of capitals which facilitate

smooth and privileged movement within a field allows


the person to exist like a dfish in water,T never needingto be conscious of the water which surrounds her

(Bourdieu, 1987). In contrast the water can become

very murky indeed where the knowledge, skills and

tastes possessed are dwrong.T In this way, it becomes

clear how it is valid to see the importance of class

background for an academic in a contemporary, living

sense, rather than in historical or ossified terms. Even

the nostalgia of class mobility is avoided if Bourdieu’s

schema is employed in that the class left behind is

never fully left and therefore becomes more difficult

to idealise or demonise.

In this article, I examine some of the more or less

explicitly auto/biographical writing by women in

higher education who focus on experiences of

class. Many of these writers have also made use of

Bourdieu’s conceptual schema. In general, however,

the combination of self-critical autobiographical in-

vestigation and Bourdieu’s work has been under-

explored. I then go on to outline a key element of

contemporary universities: the impact of external

audit regimes. This example is important because it

has become a fundamental characteristic of contem-

porary higher education in the UK, and increasingly

in other countries around the world. I will make the

case that class is one important aspect of any critique

of this process and that Bourdieu’s work is useful to

draw out the class based implications of the incor-

poration of audit into management structures. Audit

is also vital in that it is not simply about measure-

ment but is actually implicated in a process of

identity formation for academics in the current con-

text. Here the auto/biographical and the structural

intersect.

Identity and exclusion in higher education

Material on the status of women academic staff

from working class backgrounds generally draws

upon feminist frameworks to illustrate how margin-

alisation occurs through gender, but also that priv-

ilege is attached to class background, despite gender

identity. In this sense, the double exclusion of class

and gender interacts to create a profound sense of

ambiguity and unease amongst this group of

women, a fact clearly reflected by writers on these

issues.

Diane Reay, for example, dexplores the difficulty ofreconciling socialization into academic culture with a

subjectivity that still draws powerfully on working

class identityT (Reay, 1997b, p. 18). She argues that

the representations of working class people in acade-

mia are rarely complex, and that even where pictures

are presented, they tend to focus on, and glorify,

working class masculinity. Reay charts the decline

in academic explanations grounded in class, but

shows convincingly how her current position as a

feminist academic is still highly influenced by her

working class background. Her dsuccessT story, a

source of pride, also potentially offers a justificatory

discourse to New Right rhetoric abut the dtriumph of

individualism over community; proof that equal op-

portunities workT (Reay, 1997b p.20). She charts how

this discourse of individualism has redefined every-

thing from health, to education, to housing as the

responsibility of the individual, and that success or

failure is seen to rest upon individual characteristics.

Her very position in academia then is in danger of

reinforcing such ideas, and becomes a source of much

discomfort.

In terms of a feeling of ease or familiarity, the

dfemale academic from a working class background

is unlikely ever to feel at home in academiaT (Reay,1997b, p. 21). In other work, Reay has described this

unease as the result of the habitus generated by class

position (Reay, 1997a). Drawing upon Bourdieu’s

term, Reay shows how the dispositions of class

mean that the working class habitus in a middle

class location leads to ambivalence and a sense of

somehow being dout of placeT (Reay, 1997a, 1997b).Similarly, Lawler (1999) discusses the narratives

of class mobility used by women from a working

class background who have moved to a position

which may be marked as middle class. Of the seven

women in her study so defined, five explained their

move through education. All of these women worked

or had worked in education or training. All explained

their trajectory as a story of success. However, all also

exhibited the dpain, sense of displacement and the

shame which can accompany such a moveT (Lawler,1999, p. 7). In this way, we might see that the gain of

cultural capital in educational form leads to a transi-

tion in class location and as such this is interpreted in

the common discourse as a story of success or

achievement. Perhaps even a dstruggle against the


odds.T However, this movement is not matched by a

complete and easy transformation in the habitus. The

resulting pain, guilt and unease is a motif which runs

though the stories of women who have moved be-

tween class positions (see also for example, Walker-

dine, Lucey, & Melody, 2001). Education is a

common source of both mobility and feelings of

inadequacy. The ability to succeed in an unfamiliar

world with a set of rules which remain alien, and are

implicit until transgressed, depends upon learning to

read, understand and dpassT according to those rules.

In this situation, the habitus is in a constant state of

tension:

The way I feel at work is that although I am in, I am

not of, the place and I have, therefore, a critical

response to the institution which is embedded in

those autobiographical structures and meanings re-

ferred to by the short-hand of didentityT (Wise, 1997,

p. 124).

This sense of occupying a position both inside and

outside has created some of the most exciting and

insightful sociological work. However, it also helps to

account for the particularly uncomfortable world of

the academic from a working class background. This

position is compounded by gender. Quite apart from

any inequalities in pay, promotion prospects or con-

ditions of work which all academic woman face,

women whose original class background does not fit

easily into the middle class world of academia face

further tensions dout on the borderlandsT (Steedman,

1986).

Skeggs (1997) argues that working class identity is

Other to middle class drespectability.T The judging of

working class women as having failed against middle

class standards of femininity is recognised both in

wider social structures, but also by the women them-

selves. They are aware of their own Otherness and

inevitable failure. For this reason, working class iden-

tity is often characterised by resentment and anger as

well as by resistance (Skeggs, 1997, p. 126). Skeggs

charts her own movement into academia as an almost

accidental accrual of capitals, particularly educational

success, which facilitated access to a new social and

cultural world. The skills and capitals which had

previously been valued became worthless as this

movement progressed. In entering a world where

different modes of being and feeling were required,

she states that for the first time in her life, she became

insecure (Skeggs, 1997, p. 130). However, despite

success and seeming security, these feelings did not

subside, and the presence of this class based insecurity

remained:

I am marked by class (both by politics and by being

recognized) in the same way as Gayatri Spivak (1990)

documents being always marked as a representative of

Black. I am fixed and identified. I just wish sometimes

that others would raise the issue, ask the question, see

the things. I’m also so terrified of being identified as

being unworthy that I work myself constantly into

physical illness. It is an obsession. I cannot stop. If I

stop someone may notice that I’m not really cut out

for this job. I want the titles, Doctor, Co-ordinator,

Senior, as a sign that I cannot be recognized as

unworthy. I do try to re-establish my doldT cultural

capital to engender a space for comfort, but hedonism

and the demands of academia are impossible to hold

together. So every hedonist impulse is suffused with

guilt. And I’ll never have the drightT knowledge

(Skeggs, 1997, p. 133).

This is a clear articulation of an auto/biographical

experience understood within Bourdieu’s framework

based on capitals and their recognition or otherwise.

The power here lies in seeing this framework applied

and experienced at the very level of subjectivity.

There is also power in showing how in a hierarchical

society the symbols of class are read and in this

reading and recognition, this identity is taken as

representative of others who belong to the same

category. Thus the invitation to speak as Black or

as working class and the profound discomfort en-

gendered either by taking on this role, or by failing

to do so. It is also a vivid illustration of how in the

movement through social space undertaken by the

(previously) working class academic, it is necessary

for her to accrue capitals and to learn to move in a

very different world. The sense of movement, or

acquiring new skills, and the effort in gaining rec-

ognition for them are an additional burden arising

from origins in marginalised positions. The articula-

tion of class and gender in this environment can

produce unsettling experiences:

While most academic feminist women seem to ex-

perience mainstream academe as an assault on their


identity as women, this is not always my own expe-

rience. Certainly I am very aware that at times I am

the only woman in a room full of grey suits and I

see all around me the ways in which the boys’ club

that is higher education gatekeeps women’s partici-

pation and privileges only boys who dplay the gameTand kiss the right backsides. Although I remember

from time to time to be truly shocked that this state

of affairs can persist in a profession purported to

contain such great minds and liberal values, I am not

really surprised. . .. In this setting, my identity as a

person with a dworking classT background predomi-

nates, and deeply affects the way I feel about the

work that I do. This is because it is the only place

left that I dfeelT working class, where I am sur-

rounded by people (other academics and many stu-

dents, women as well as men) who are decidedly

posher than me, who have a dbetterT education, goneto the drightT school, speak differently and, for all I

know, think differently. Outside my place of work,

and paradoxically because I have used a similar

institution to effect my own social mobility, and

because I now work in this institution, I am to all

intents and purposes a member of the educated

middle class (Wise, 1997, pp. 123–4).

Wise points out that it is in fact only in academia that

she any longer feels working class. Outside of this

arena, and precisely because of her participation within

it, she is dto all intents and purposes a member of the

educated middle-class.T This is a key point in that it

indicates the liminal position of the (ex)working class

academic. Traditional occupational based class schema

is inadequate to articulate this tension, whilst an under-

standing of class as composed of varying types and

amounts of capitals can account for fissures within

occupational strata. The sedimentation of habits, tastes

and embodied ways of being incorporated into the

habitus also helps to explain how as an inhabitant of

the world of education and middle class cultural values

she subscribes to these values, whilst at the same time,

she is forever fearful of being recognised as an impos-

tor. This ambiguity in being dinT but not dofT this socialmilieu leads to both a fear of somehow being dcaughtout,T but also a critical engagement with the taken for

granted presumptions inherent within much of academ-

ic life. However, it also means that social spaces where

the drules of the gameT can be taken for granted are

limited. This in itself is an exhausting yet potentially

exciting position to occupy.

External audit and self monitoring

External audit and the regulation of work popula-

tions within HE have become dbig businessT in recent

years. An expanding body of literature exists to explain

to management and staff how effective systems of audit

might be implemented. This has been paralleled by

literature which offers critique to the unthinking ex-

pansion of bureaucratic surveillance mechanisms (see

for example, Morley, 2003). This process of audit then

is vitally important to the operation of UK universities,

and others worldwide. Audit is important in two ways.

Firstly, it has been introduced as a means of regulating

the field of education in the transition from an elite to a

mass system, and is linked to wider processes of mar-

ketisation. Secondly, it is implicated in identity forma-

tion in that audit does not remain external. How I

perform in teaching and research assessments has be-

come such an intrinsic factor in my professional iden-

tity that it is almost impossible to reflect on it. More

worrying is how this fear of dfailureT has crept into otherareas of my life, at times determining my own emo-

tional and physical state. Audit is not simply about

measuring output, it is about validating specific types

of identity and rewarding the possession of social and

cultural capital.

The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), Subject

Review and other forms of audit have been introduced

into the UK university system as tools with which to

measure academic productivity and quality. However,

they have generally not been carried out in tandemwith

a commitment to equality of opportunity on the part of

staff or students. Our role as educators has not been

made clearer in the drive for efficiency. Instead aca-

demics have become increasingly subject to self-sur-

veillance. The RAE culture has bred competitiveness,

individualisation and pragmatism. As each staff mem-

ber fights to be included as dresearch active,T then the

ground rules of the RAE are internalised and used to

evaluate and spur on our research output. However, the

will to challenge the drules of the gameT appears to havebeen fragmented and dissipated as self-surveillance has

become more and more successful. This of course has

also been aided by the abolition of academic tenure and


the casualisation of employment in the sector which in

itself differentially distributes relative privilege.

Power (1997) and Rose (1999) see the develop-

ment of audit techniques as central to the redefinition

of expertise. Power (1997), for example, has written

of the daudit societyT and the means whereby verifi-

cation techniques in financial audit have expanded to

form a wider strategy of risk management within

organisations. The UK is increasingly distinctive vis

a vis other industrialised nations in its reliance on

these forms of audit. The RAE and Subject Review

have a dual character in that whilst increasing bureau-

cratic control of the academic profession, they have

also resulted in the visibility of teaching, learning and

research processes which have previously remained

implicit. This has allowed academics to reflect on, and

potentially to improve, their own practices (Jary,

1999, 2001, 2002). It has also demystified the status

of the academic. The potential here is to allow the

transmission of skills and knowledge in a more egal-

itarian manner. The student becomes more aware of

what is expected of them. The newer academic is

relieved of the necessity to be initiated into the archaic

and secretive practices of the elite system. The poten-

tial offered by the explicit negotiation of the drulesT ofacademic life, and the input of a more varied staff

body, could lead to radical debates within HE which

may have been less possible within the traditional elite

system.

However, the selection of skills and competencies

for reward is a gendered, and I would argue, classed

process. Processes of audit operate with a tacit agree-

ment around what counts as an important activity to

be reviewed. As has been shown historically, what

comes to be viewed as a highly regarded skill is

usually the work associated with masculinity (Glucks-

mann, 2000). In approaching academic citizenship,

the tasks carried out by women in departments are

usually those which contribute to general academic

life, but which remain un-rewarded by review and

promotion criteria (Acker, 1994). In addition, mem-

bership of influential social networks, the confidence

and ability for self-promotion, and the knowledge

needed to pursue a recognised career path are actually

indicators of social and cultural capital. A skill, or a

capital, is not such intrinsically, but must be validated

within an objective social structure to be recognised as

having value. This is what Bourdieu refers to as

symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1999). The processes of

audit and review select very specific competencies for

recognition and this in itself reinforces class and

gender inequalities in that the skills selected are actu-

ally forms of capital more likely to be accrued in

certain positions than others. I should be careful to

point out here that I do not claim that this is a new

phenomenon. This process of recognition and exclu-

sion is intrinsic to universities. However, what has

happened in recent years is that bureaucratic proce-

dures have increasingly entrenched this reward system

at the same time as actually making it more visible

and potentially open to critique.

Audit or accountability is only required in a situ-

ation where there is a lack of trust:

As the term accountability implies, people want to

know how to trust one another, to make their trust

visible, while (knowing that) the very desire to do

so points to the absence of trust (Strathern, 2000,

p. 310).

Although this lack of trust is not unique to HE

but is rather an extension of governance practices

which have in turn transformed the role of the

professions, it seems less than coincidental that

audit practices become endemic at precisely the

time where an elite system is expanded. The

dabsence of trustT highlighted by Strathern coincides

with entry of both staff and students who cannot be

trusted to engage in implicit practices as they do not

necessarily possess the same knowledge and capitals

held by those previously in the majority in UK

universities. This transformation of the field has

been managed through bureaucratic procedures. As

Strathern again points out, dThere is nothing innocent

about making the invisible visibleT (Strathern, 2000,p. 309).

Self-surveillance and the operation of disciplinary

procedures are of course differentially experienced.

Quite apart from the impact of a market system in

education upon support staff (for example the extra

burden generated by surveillance procedures on ad-

ministrative staff), within the academic profession

different positions are evident. The removal of the

binary divide between old polytechnics and universi-

ties to create a unified university sector did not

remove the inconsistencies in employment condi-

tions, pay, and resources between different types of


institution. This in turn impacts upon the ability for

institutions to invest in the audit dgame.T In parallel

with the different types and amounts of cultural assets

possessed by staff and students, universities them-

selves might be seen to posses varying amounts of

resources and abilities which are required to succeed

in assessment. Even within a university, the experi-

ence of policy changes will be different for a male

professor secure in a permanent post, compared to a

young woman employed in a temporary research

position. Diane Reay has described this second

group as the dleg workersT in the academy (Reay,

2000, p. 14), vividly illustrating how gender and

class position impact on how their work is viewed

and also the type of employment prospects they face.

This ddim drossT (Reay, 2000, p. 13), as she has heardthem referred to, performs the invisible labour of

academia whilst facing the prospect of seeing their

work undervalued and under rewarded. In this very

insecure and marginalised position, the effects of

external and self-surveillance take on a new intensity.

It is the institutionalised process of audit which

allows the formalisation and even measurement of

insecurities, or lack of dcorrectT cultural assets, whichmay already haunt academic and research staff from

working class backgrounds.

The theorisation of risk (Beck, 1992), reflexivity

(Giddens, 1991) and other understandings of the con-

temporary self can be criticised for relying upon

notions of dan interested, optimising, risk-taking selfT(Skeggs, 2002 not numbered). Skeggs argues that such

theories, focusing as they do on middle-class values,

rely upon ideals of the self-related to the bourgeois

individual subject (Skeggs, 2004). However, not all

selves are able to occupy such a position.

And against this are those who have been symbolically

devalued and are not seen as capable of having a

reflexive accruing self but are pathetic, backward, ex-

cessive, profligate, passive or aggressive but not

rational. They are the constitutive limit and are now

figured as the abject white working class (Skeggs, 2002

not numbered).

Within HE modes of surveillance are introduced

which individualise value, worth and concepts of

dsuccess.T Despite the apparent transparency of these

processes and the openness to debate about the fair-

ness of criteria—the very fact of their operation is not

open to negotiation or refusal. This is what Morley

has referred to as the TINA effect (there is no alter-

native) (Morley, 2003 pix). If these processes are tied

to self-creation, then we can see that some groups of

workers are automatically and inevitably more likely

to dfailT by their standards:

The major shift is one from in which the possessive

individual was restricted to an elite, to one in which it

is being promoted for everybody, but without the

resources to enable it. The problems of global capitals

then become projected as a failure of particular groups

(Skeggs, 2002 not numbered).

Skeggs makes this argument in relation to the

white working class in general, and in particular to

working class women. Within HE, the valuation and

rating of bourgeois individual characteristics and

skills are increasingly evident, and within that envi-

ronment, those who might already feel dout of placeTare doubly disadvantaged. In this way, the internalisa-

tion of processes of audit and surveillance have been

linked to the creation of subjectivities and identities

within the workplace (Adkins & Lury, 1999). In the

context of HE, Morley (2003) shows how the emo-

tional investment in audit has become a key feature of

UK universities. Staff themselves become transformed

in the process, not simply as workers, but as people.

The power of discourse and the performativity in

academic life, particularly in relation to fulfilling

quality criteria, mean that resistance becomes dissi-

pated, and self-audit the norm. One of her respondents

summarises this position wonderfully:

And it’s just the whole thing is so unutterably

awful. . . it’s like a post-modern form of torture. It’s

like, you know, beat yourself up before they come to

beat you up, and then you will be beaten up again. It’s

the most awful, awful process! (quoted in Morley,

2003, p. 90).

Yet this post-modern torture is not random or

evenly distributed. This is why Skeggs points out

the assumptions about the universality of the subject

inherent in some contemporary understandings of

identity formation. This is also why I have argued

that the field of higher education can be usefully

understood through a dynamic framework based on

class and capitals. When the processes of audit are

combined with anxieties around class background the


torture becomes magnified. Add in the ddrama of

classT and there is an extra beating already going on

before the torture of audit is added.

Why does class matter in UK higher education?

There is a psychic economy involved in quality as-

surance. Quality assessment, accountability and the

auditing of academic work have had a profound im-

pact on reconstructing academic conditions of work

and academic identities. The academic habitus has

been challenged (Morley, 2003, p. 67).

I never really possessed the academic habitus. It is

something I have striven to learn and to become over

a period of years. When university education

remained the preserve of the elite few, less reflection

was required on both the purpose and content of such

an education. For those new entrants to university

who have arrived as a consequence of the move to a

mass system, the value and purpose of education are

very different. However, questioning old forms of

privilege does not mean that the political project

driving the change is itself progressive. In fact, whilst

working in an old university, I feel caught between a

critique of an old system based on aristocratic values,

and a new market-driven system based on the acquis-

itive values of the petit bourgeois.

The creation of a particular kind of subjectivity

through self-surveillance and the requirements of the

academic context can be related to political context at

the local, national and international levels (Giroux &

Myrsiades, 2001). Epstein (1995) argues that the pre-

vailing discourse of the New Right has fed into man-

agerialism and also an orientation towards education

as consumerism. As a New Right agenda in the 1980s

and 1990s and a Blairite agenda in the 1990s and

recent years has pervaded all areas of social and po-

litical life in the UK, such ways of viewing the world

have become dcommon senseT not only to our students,but also to academics themselves. Whilst higher edu-

cation has expanded to welcome Black, women and

working class students, the pressures on academics

due to this expansion have allowed little time to nur-

ture the skills required to survive an academic educa-

tion, particularly if these skills were not possessed

prior to entry into the system. Higher education can

be seen as a product of wider social economic and

political pressures. The protective image of the ivory

tower can to some extent lead to claims that the

inequalities and injustices of the dreal worldT are put

aside upon entrance to university. In contrast, if we

place the university firmly back in its social context, it

is inevitable that the issues of class, and other struc-

tural inequalities are inherent within the system for

both staff and students.

The globalisation of neo-liberal economic and so-

cial policy has affected educational systems around the

world. In the USA, Australia and parts of Europe,

managerial structures have been transformed from tra-

ditional patriarchy to dentrepreneurial patriarchyT (Cur-rie, Harris, & Thiele, 2002, p. 5). This means that whilst

the structures of universities globally remain highly

gendered and masculine, the specific form of this mas-

culinity has transformed due to the impact of global

political pressures. Similar audit systems are being

introduced throughout Europe, including the countries

of Eastern Europe, supported by the European Union

(Morley, 2003). UK consultants are often involved in

developing these systems both in Europe and more

widely. Morley cites a World Bank funded initiative

in Turkey based on the UK assessment system (Morley,

2003, p. 21). The transformations in the UK higher

education system I have discussed can be partially

applied to universities worldwide, particularly as the

main driving force for change comes from the globali-

sation of neo-liberal policies, supported by the hege-

mony of powerful European countries and the US. The

dominance of higher socio-economic groups in HE is a

significant concern for a majority of industrial nations

(Archer, 2003). However, it is also important not to

simply export categories such as class, gender or draceTand apply them to inequalities in differing national and

local contexts. The very stability of these labels has

been criticised in social theorising and particularly in

policy contexts (Weiler, 1993). For this reason, it is

possible to speak of global trends and shared agendas at

the international level, but also to remain sensitive to

local priorities.

One of the key features of an academic system is the

space for debate and reflection. The space to engage in

these activities in higher education means that as work-

ers increasingly subject to the demands of the market

place and New Right ideology, we are in a uniquely

privileged position to critique such processes. This

does not mean that the right to dissent has gone


unchallenged, prompting academic resistance (Currie,

Harris et al., 2002). It could be argued that other

groups of workers have faced the brunt of policies of

privatisation and the intensification and surveillance

practices described here. There does appear to be some

evidence that the worst excesses of privatisation are

being questioned even in countries such as the USA

and Australia, both countries which have embraced the

minimisation of State intervention in public services

(Currie, Harris et al., 2002, p. 10).

Particularly within the social sciences, it is possible

to carve a space for critique and constructive debate.

The processes of surveillance which have become so

familiar to those of us in the UK have at least allowed a

structured and official space to engage in reflections on

our teaching and research practices. Although I am not

optimistic about the political project which is driving

such surveillance, I do believe that the very process

itself may have some beneficial outcomes such as

making previously implicit drules of the gameT explicit.This in itself may have positive outcomes for students

and staff from backgrounds which have been under-

represented in higher education. However, in order for

this debate to prove productive, it must link to wider

political questions and movements. The widening in-

ternational critique of a market driven ethos which has

been allowed to pervade the public sector in industrial

and industrialising nations from the 1980s onwards is a

strand of contemporary politics which HE staff and

students can most usefully contribute to.

As Skeggs (1997) points out, class is rarely claimed

as a positive identity and ironically only in academia

may class labels be viewed with pride. It is this pro-

found ambiguity which arises from the space created by

academia to deconstruct categories and to interrogate

the implications of such categorisations which might

not be available in other class locations, whilst at the

same time, the very presence in middle class educa-

tional establishments make this naming and under-

standing a painful process. The language with which

to express this guilt, shame, joy and fear remains

inadequate to the task. This is in itself a disadvantage

and a frustration in an environment where reward

comes for linguistic prowess.

From within this space, I make a plea for more

detailed empirical research to build upon work already

begun, and to more fully investigate the issues I have

set out (Morley, 2003). I am fully aware how class

cannot be isolated from other factors such as gender

and ethnicity. I am also aware of the potential ironies in

ascribing class disadvantages to a group of people who

are relatively privileged and who themselves are part

of an intellectual elite. However, within Bourdieu’s

schema of differing types and amounts of capitals, it

does make sense to talk of differences within employ-

ment sectors as well as between them. It is also per-

fectly feasible to apply a class based analysis to the

distinctions between institutions and also between ac-

ademic disciplines themselves, as he does in Homo

Academicus (Bourdieu, 2001b). A similar analysis of

British universities, or in other countries outside

France, would make an interesting point of compari-

son and critique. This type of analysis lends itself to

quantitative work investigating the positions inhabited

by academics within institutions and the employment

conditions experienced by them. This should illustrate

whether, and to what extent, possession of certain

social and cultural capital effects the trajectory through

the social space of higher education. In addition, qual-

itative research could throw light upon the combina-

tion of biography and social structure. In particular, an

understanding of the habitus is useful here as it allows

us to grasp the potential for class mobility whilst at the

same time holding on to a sense of doriginsT whichpotentially lead to a sense of unease. Such unease

generated from a variety of locations has been much

used by feminism to offer critique of structures from

what might be seen as the marginalised inside. It seems

a vital use of these critiques to apply them to our own

workplaces and practices.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Colette Fagan, Diane Reay, Mike Sav-

age and Ruth Woodfield for their comments on sec-

tions of this paper.

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