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Get lucky? Luck and educational mobility in working-class young people’s lives from age 10–21

Title: Get lucky? Luck and educational mobility in working-class young people’s lives from age 10–21
Authors: Archer, L
Francis, B
Henderson, M
Holmegaard, H
Macleod, E
Moote, J
Watson, E
Item Type: Journal Article
Abstract: Scant sociological attention has been given to the role of luck within social mobility/reproduction. This paper helps address this conceptual gap, drawing on insights from over 200 longitudinal interviews conducted with 20 working-class young people and 22 of their parents over an 11-year period, from age 10–21. We explore the potential significance of luck within the trajectories of 13 educationally mobile young people who were the first in family to go to university, six young people who achieved similar educational levels to their parents and one young person whose status was less clear cut. Our analysis suggests that particular forms of luck may be instrumental in creating opportunities for social mobility, although the consequentiality of these are mediated through interplays of agency, structure, habitus and capital. We conclude that paying further attention to luck may help augment sociological understandings of structure/agency and Bourdieusian understandings of social reproduction.
Issue Date: 4-Jul-2023
Date of Acceptance: 27-Apr-2023
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/105640
DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2023.2211234
ISSN: 0142-5692
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Start Page: 843
End Page: 859
Journal / Book Title: British Journal of Sociology of Education
Volume: 44
Issue: 5
Copyright Statement: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Publication Status: Published
Online Publication Date: 2023-05-12
Appears in Collections:Central Faculty



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