Atrocity Stories and Access to Elite Universities: Chickens at the Station

Sam Hillyard,Madeleine Winnard,Jonathan Tummons

doi:10.1002/symb.513

Abstract

The article explores the interactional management of class relations using atrocity stories as a conceptual device vis‐à‐vis new case study data. We argue that interactionist ideas are well placed to comment on the hidden injuries of class in the higher education sector and demonstrate this using atrocity stories and Goffman's work. We use the atrocity stories of atypical cases (non‐traditional graduates of an elite university) to expose class differences. Atrocity stories and Goffman's work on cooling, impression management, and total institutions were used here to unlock extended interviews with graduates from the 1960s–1980s who attended one elite British university. The findings expose the manifestation of the English class structure and a variety of responses. The conclusion finds evidence of resistance rather than challenge. A call is made for more longitudinal ethnographic research exploring how universities might promote access agendas—with particular attention to those both upwardly and downwardly mobile.

Highlights

The article explores the interactional management of class relations using atrocity stories as a conceptual device vis-à-vis new case study data
Our article described the interactional management of class distinctions via atrocity stories
we contribute to an understanding of the maintenance

Summary

Introduction

The article explores the interactional management of class relations using atrocity stories as a conceptual device vis-à-vis new case study data. The enduring debate about class inequality in access to higher education in the United Kingdom and many. We argue that class inequality in access to higher education has traditionally been examined at a macro level with limited interest in the mechanisms by which class exclusion is accomplished. The article makes its own contribution by, third, outlining and extending atrocity stories and using their articulation to examine the subjective experience of class across student careers at an elite university. We use these stories to illuminate how control is accomplished through everyday life in an elite university and, in doing so, enhance earlier 1970s micro analyses. Our conclusion suggests that the interactional management of social class injuries merits more longitudinal ethnographic study for both those upwardly and downwardly mobile and how we understand the road not taken (cf. Frost 1916)

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion