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Methodology

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Education, Aspiration and Upward Social Mobility

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Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that a dominant approach to studying social mobility relies upon survey data, which does not provide much evidence about the sorts of aspirations, barriers, resources, opportunities and experiences that are often very significant for explaining why people are or are not upwardly mobile. Moreover, these factors are particularly relevant in the case of ethnic minority groups. The alternative approach that I have adopted draws upon biographical method, as initially developed in the form of life history studies and oral history work. This kind of approach has been applied to the study of social mobility by a number of researchers (e.g., Bertaux & Thompson, Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility, Clarendon Press, 1997; Bertaux & Thompson, Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility, Transaction Publishers, 2007), though not specifically to the case of social mobility within ethnic minority groups.

I outline how I recruited informants for my study and the process of interviewing, noting the flexible and open-ended approach I used. One of the potential problems with the biographical research method I adopted concerns the reliability of the accounts my informants provided of the decisions that they had made in the past, and the various factors that shaped these. I argue that any thoroughgoing constructionist approach to interview accounts, treating them as simply inventing the past, is unsustainable. I outline a number of strategies I used within the interviewing in order to improve the accuracy of the information provided. Also important here was the exercise of reflexive awareness on my part, as both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ in relation to my informants and their world, paying particular attention to ways in which I could have influenced their accounts.

Finally, I look at ethical aspects of the research process, the issues I needed to take into account and how I dealt with them.

In Chaps. 4, 6, 7 and 8, I analyse the interview data I collected by considering how the experiences within the family, educational institutions, the neighbourhood and workplace all shaped the career aspirations and trajectories of my informants.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/oral_history#early_history.

  2. 2.

    This is contrary to recent work that emphasises the pain of social mobility (Goode, 2019; Hanley, 2016).

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    Aqsa Saeed

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Saeed, A. (2022). Methodology. In: Education, Aspiration and Upward Social Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82261-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82261-3_4

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