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Higher education has long been associated with the promise of a good life. Participation, however, has no guarantees.<\/p>\n
Former prime minister Gough Whitlam\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that Australia\u2019s higher education system was not straightforwardly a \u201cgreat instrument for the promotion of equality\u201d. Instead, it mainly functioned as \u201ca weapon for perpetuating inequality and promoting privilege\u201d.<\/p>\n Scholars<\/a>, too, have demonstrated how the rewards of higher education are unevenly distributed: it matters who you know, where you go to university and what you study. It also matters where you live.<\/p>\n My\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0(soon to be\u00a0published with Bloomsbury<\/a>) reveals the experience of upward social mobility can be emotionally costly too \u2013 particularly for graduates from the working class.<\/p>\n Moving up and becoming different from one\u2019s family and friends can involve losses, not just gains.<\/p>\n Young people today, particularly those from underrepresented groups, are\u00a0encouraged<\/a>\u00a0to participate in higher education.<\/p>\n My small-scale qualitative research focused on the experiences of one of these underrepresented groups: working-class students and graduates who were the first in their family to attend university.<\/p>\n I interviewed six current students and 20 graduates from Cranebrook and its surrounding suburbs in the Penrith area of outer Western Sydney \u2013 a region known as Australia\u2019s manufacturing heartland.<\/p>\n I was interested in how class and place shaped their experiences before, during and after attending university.<\/p>\n I was also interested in the \u201cexistential\u201d dimensions of the mobility experience: how university becomes a means to a good life and what constitutes a good life.<\/p>\n For the research participants, going to university was not necessarily about class escape and escape from place.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing well\u201d involved finding suitable employment close to home and staying put in Penrith \u2013 a region not conventionally seen to be the site of a good life. Some outsiders imagine it to be a place of stagnation that lacks opportunities \u2013\u00a0the \u201cother\u201d Sydney<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the research participants, Penrith was instead a place of community, familiarity, security and possibility. Here was somewhere they could live out their version of the Australian Dream.<\/p>\n Of the 26 participants I interviewed, 20 continue to live in Penrith. Of the six who live elsewhere, four expressed a desire to return to Penrith.<\/p>\n The participants enjoyed the spaciousness of suburbia, as well as being close to family and friends.<\/p>\n Houses with Outhouse, Charcoal and coloured pencil on paper (2003) http:\/\/t.co\/HvqvgNitjZ<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/QA7LUokHgM<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Reg Mombassa (@regmombassa) January 21, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nHow do graduates see a good life?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
University isn\u2019t necessarily about escaping<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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