NICEC Seminar: Social class - a ramp and a barrier to career aspirations, decision making & pathways

Social class - a ramp and a barrier to career aspirations, decision making and pathways

Tuesday 20th January 5pm 

Social class often remains overlooked in discussions and interventions aimed at improving diversity, equality and inclusion. Despite shaping lives and opportunities in profound ways, social class remains hard to define, measure and discuss for both individuals and organisations. We know that social class shapes individual’s career decisions and outcomes in several ways, whether through influencing ideas around what is possible or desirable, shaping access to social and cultural capital that make some careers easier to pursue than others, or setting hard financial limits on available career pathways. Career services have a key role to play in levelling this playing field and providing equal access to career knowledge, opportunities and aspirations regardless of background.

In this NICEC workshop researchers from the Institute for Employment Studies, Kate Alexander and Dr Kyla Ellis, shared findings from research exploring the role of social class in career decision making, using the construction sector as a case study. Drawing on a review of the literature and qualitative interviews with expert stakeholders, employers and new and prospective construction workers they presented findings on how social class can act as a ‘ramp or barrier’ to certain careers, and how career services and employers can support people from a variety of backgrounds to find and enter fulfilling careers. The seminar gave participants the opportunity to reflect on the research and share their own knowledge and experience of social class and career advice and guidance. 

Reflections shared in discussion and in the online chat included:

• How the influence of social class particularly in terms of opportunities open to individuals can be unnoticed, with privilege noticed when you don’t have it.
• How definitions and categories of social class can be problematic and nebulous, but that classism can still be experienced. There are complex ways in which people see themselves and their place in the world, with strong surrogates and proxies like accent and schooling.
• How language use can reinforce dominant social discourses that seep into people’s ideas about career eg ‘just a labourer’, and into the neo-liberal concept of ‘individual career responsibility’ that is positioned as normal and unproblematic.
• Potential of Hodkinson & Sparkes' Careership model to provide a conceptual framework, this focuses on the interface between individual agency and sociological determinism.
• Suggestion we should perhaps focus more on ideas of ‘social influence’ rather than class to explore social prejudice. 
• The importance of career guidance offered in a more formal environment (other than the home/via the family), particularly to those who don’t have access to information that might appear obvious to those from middle class backgrounds.
• The importance of employers engaging with young people, and starting early (in Year 7 or 8). Noted increasing outreach activities of social value departments in construction firms. This appears to be increasing interest in construction roles such as quantity surveying and site management by showcasing the range of career available in the sector. Wonder whether activities and visibility of construction employers differs by size of employer.

Useful references/resources shared in the chat (some with links) included:

• The 93% club, who are mobilising support for people who come from state schools. https://www.93percent.club/about. And The Elephant Group who provide similar support https://theelephantgroup.org/. These initiatives, and the work of Joanne Conway, demonstrate how some employers (including BBC and Channel 4) are being quite proactive about addressing disadvantages of less privileged backgrounds. Click here for LinkedIn post. Also CIPD post on social mobility in the workplace
• Further work in universities such as the University of Southampton Social Mobility Network for staff and students, and their coaching programme for first-generation students; and the Working-class staff network at Leeds with over 300 members who collectively identify with the term.
• ‘The lives of working-class academics’, Ioan Burnell Reilly – includes a section about the complexity of defining class written by Geraldine Van Bueren, an International Human Rights Lawyer and Chair of the Alliance of Working-Class Academics. https://www.uel.ac.uk/about-uel/news/2022/december/lives-working-class-academics-explored-book
• ‘An unjust balance: a systematic review of the employability perceptions of UK undergraduates from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds’, Hazel McCafferty Click here for PDF 'An unjust balance...
• ‘You have to work ten times harder’: first-in-family students, employability and capital development, Hazel McCafferty Click here for PDF
• ‘Supporting Working-Class Students in Higher Education’, Stacey Mottershaw (co-author), a Routledge book based on research with a working-class student advisory board and each chapter has an individual reflection from other working-class academics. Adopts a myth busting approach eg tackling the myth that we live in a classless society. Click here for book by Cavigioli
• Dilnot, C., Macmillan, L., & Tyler, C. (2025). Inequalities in Access to Professional Occupations (CEPEO Working Paper No 25-01). UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities. https://repec-cepeo.ucl.ac.uk/cepeow/cepeowp25-01.pdf. Interesting research on access to professions.
• ‘The Class Ceiling - Why it Pays to be Privileged’, By Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison Policy Press. Interesting research which covers different industries including medicine, media and engineering. Also available as a UK Data Service Case Study. https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/case-study/the-class-ceiling-social-mobility-and-why-it-pays-to-be-privileged/
• Prof Stuart Green's commentaries on the issues surrounding the structure of the construction industry, have relevance in relation to careers attraction too. https://www.reading.ac.uk/cme/staff/stuart-green
• https://www.riseassociates.co.uk/downloads/ClassCeiling-Digital.pdf an exploration into the way structural barriers including class-based discrimination, low pay, lack of connections and exploitative practices limit access to the arts.