Self-Made Men

ISBN-13: 9783031079566 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Garth Stahl

Opis

This book explores how boys from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds disengage from their education, and are resultantly severely underrepresented in post-compulsory education. For those who attend university, many will be first-in-their-family. As first-in-family students, they may encounter significant barriers which may limit their participation in university life and their acquisition of social and cultural capital. Drawing on a longitudinal study of young Australian men pursuing higher education, the book provides the first detailed account of socially mobile working-class masculinities. Investigating the experiences of these young men, this book analyses their acclimatisation to new learning environments as well as their changing subjectivities. The monograph draws on various sociological theories to analyse empirical data and make practical recommendations which will drive innovation in widening participation initiatives internationally. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in widening participation, transitions, social mobility and Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities.

Spis treści

1. Introduction

Class and higher education

Australian higher education

The First-in-Family Males Project

Structure of Self-made men

Part I: Masculinities, class, education

2. Upwardly mobile working-class masculinities

Setting the stage

Working-class masculinities, education and social mobility: A brief genealogy

Masculinities, neoliberalism and schooling

Masculinities in higher education

Delineating the boundaries of working-class and middle-class masculinity

Conclusion

3. The Australian higher education context

Recent equity policies in Australian higher education

Equity groups, the Bradley Review and marketization

Meritocracy, masculinity and the Australian ‘fair go’

Conclusion

4. Theorizing social mobility and the first-in-family experience

‘Injuries of class’ and class as affective

Bourdieu, habitus and disjuncture

Becoming socially mobile

Theorizing class: Pathologization, shame and the lived experience

Investing in the self: The practice of self-crafting

Conclusion

Part II: Findings

5. The transition to university: Dissonance, validation and meritocratic subjectivities

Education as a value-constituting practice

School performativity, spoon feeding and the ‘rough ride’

Hard work and meritocratic subjectivities

Conclusion

6. Performing the entrepreneurial self

Calibrating and regulating new forms of selfhood

Investing in new forms of selfhood

Conclusion

7. Narratives of value and fulfilment

Independence and feeling valuable

Producing subjectivities of fulfilment

The fragility of fulfilment

Conclusion

8. Relational subjectivities and self-crafting in times of transition

The changing peer group

Shifting family dynamics and the university experience

Conclusion

Part III: Conclusions

9. Reflections and recommendations

Studenthood in neoliberal education contexts

The production of classed and gendered subjectivities

Masculinities in higher education: Effective forms of support

Concluding thoughts

O autorze

Garth Stahl is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland and former Research Fellow, Australian Research Council (DECRA), Australia. His research interests lie on the nexus of neoliberalism and socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality, and social change. Currently, his research projects and publications encompass theoretical and empirical studies of learner identities, gendered subjectivities, equity and difference, and educational reform.

Blurb

“With a focus on the Australian context, Garth Stahl offers a glimpse into the world of working-class masculinities and the blurring of social class lines ...a deep dive into the higher education experience, this book provokes a rethink of the working-class masculinities that we thought we all knew and understood.”
—Michael Kehler, Research Professor of Masculinities Studies in Education, University of Calgary, Canada

“Garth Stahl’s book highlights the ongoing reality and complexity of structural inequity in, and beyond, higher education. This is a rich exploration of masculinities, through a study of young men who were ‘first in family’ to attend university.”
—Andrew Harvey, Program Director, Pathways in Place, Griffith University, Australia

This book explores how boys from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds disengage from their education, and are resultantly severely underrepresented in post-compulsory education. For those who attend university, many will be first-in-their-family. As first-in-family students, they may encounter significant barriers which may limit their participation in university life and their acquisition of social and cultural capital.  Drawing on a longitudinal study of young Australian men pursuing higher education, the book provides the first detailed account of socially mobile working-class masculinities.  Investigating the experiences of these young men, this book analyses their acclimatisation to new learning environments as well as their changing subjectivities. The monograph draws on various sociological theories to analyse empirical data and make practical recommendations which will drive innovation in widening participation initiatives internationally. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in widening participation, transitions, social mobility and Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities.

Garth Stahl is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland and former Research Fellow, Australian Research Council (DECRA), Australia. His research interests lie on the nexus of neoliberalism and socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality, and social change. Currently, his research projects and publications encompass theoretical and empirical studies of learner identities, gendered subjectivities, equity and difference, and educational reform.