Journal
SOCIOLOGY-THE JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION
Volume 55, Issue 4, Pages 716-733Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/0038038520982225
Keywords
class identity; class origin; intergenerational self; multigenerational social mobility; privilege
Categories
Funding
- Sam Friedman's ESRC [ES/N001184/1]
- ESRC [ES/N001184/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Through origin stories that downplay their own privileged backgrounds and forge connections to working-class extended family histories, individuals from privileged class backgrounds create a self-identity that deflects and obscures their class privilege. They construct a narrative of upward mobility 'against the odds' that erases the structural privileges that have influenced their trajectory.
Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class? We address this question by drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, 36 of whom are from middle-class backgrounds but identify as working class or long-range upwardly mobile. Our findings indicate that this misidentification is rooted in a self-understanding built on particular 'origin stories' which act to downplay interviewees' own, fairly privileged, upbringings and instead forge affinities to working-class extended family histories. Yet while this 'intergenerational self' partially reflects the lived experience of multigenerational upward mobility, it also acts - we argue - as a means of deflecting and obscuring class privilege. By positioning themselves as ascending from humble origins, we show how these interviewees are able to tell an upward story of career success 'against the odds' that simultaneously casts their progression as unusually meritocratically legitimate while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their trajectory.
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