Abstract
In conclusion, Chap. 9 summarises the main themes covered in the book and considers the wider implications of my analysis. I also assess the extent to which Bourdieu’s theoretical ideas have been useful in understanding the aspirations and career trajectories of my informants. On the one hand, the deterministic aspect of his earlier work does not explain how women are able to succeed given their relative lack of cultural capital from within the home. However, a wider appreciation of the scope of cultural capital to include cultural heritage within working-class Pakistani homes, and cultural capital available within schools, is useful to understand how working-class Pakistani women find the necessary resources for educational success. This tension between structure and individual capacity is explored by drawing on the findings from the interview data. The chapter finally reflects on affective aspects of the journey to achieve social mobility, drawing on a growing body of literature that reveals the emotional costs incurred by some groups of working-class people in achieving social mobility. Using my interview data, finally I show how my informants fared in this demanding and life-changing process.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
However, Fauzia Ahmad’s (2012) work on Muslim marriages found that too much education can disadvantage women in the marriage market.
- 2.
For a discussion of how Islam can be viewed in terms of capital generated within families, see Franceschelli and O’Brien (2014). Also, for a discussion of how cultural capital can exist within homes of disadvantaged people in the US, see Yosso (2005). Using the term ‘funds of knowledge ‘, Luis Moll and colleagues explore similar issues among Mexicans in the USA, including what schools can do to give greater recognition to community-based skills and knowledge (Gonzalez et al., 2005; Moll & Greenberg, 1990). See also Pat Thomson’s (2006) examples from Australia in Miners, diggers, ferals and show-men.
- 3.
The parents of my informants did ensure that their children received a formal Islamic education. All informants attended a local mosque daily after school from the age of seven until the teenage years. There they learned the Quran and Islamic rituals in a disciplined environment. In the process, they were expected to defer to and obey their teachers. This probably reinforced some of the personal qualities, mentioned earlier, that served them well in higher education and pursuit of a career. At the mosque school they also developed a positive and respectful attitude to (religious ) literacy and knowledge generally.
- 4.
There are questions about just how modern this is. After all, Augustine’s Confessions written in 397–400 CE is precisely about this question.
- 5.
See Shain (2020) for a discussion of the impact of austerity and discrimination on the aspirations of British Pakistani schoolgirls and young women forming Generation 9/11.
References
Adkins, L. (2002). Revisions: Gender and Sexuality in Late Modernity. Open University Press.
Ahmad, F. (2001). Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women and Academic Achievement. Gender and Education, 13, 137–152.
Ahmad, F. (2012). Graduating Towards Marriage? Attitudes Towards Marriage and Relationships Among University-Educated British Muslim Women. Culture and Religion, 13(2), 193–210.
Appadurai, A. (2004). The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition. In V. Rao & M. Walton (Eds.), Culture and Public Action. Stanford University Press.
Appiah, K. A. (1992). In My Father’s House Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. Methuen London.
Archer, L., Hutchings, M., & Ross, A. (2003). Higher Education and Social Class Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion. Routledge Falmer Taylor and Francis Group.
Ball, S. (2003). Class Strategies and the Education Market the Middle Classes and Social Advantage. Routledge.
Becher, H. (2008). Family Practices in South Asian Muslim Families Parenting in a Multi-Faith Britain. Palgrave Macmillan.
Beck, J. (1998). Morality and Citizenship Education. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Beck, J. (2003). Citizenship and Citizenship Education in England. In J. Beck & M. Earl (Eds.), Key Issues in Secondary Education (2nd ed.). Continuum.
Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1995). The Normal Chaos of Love. Polity Press, in association with Blackwell Publishers.
Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2008). Individualisation. Sage.
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press.
Bertaux, D., & Thompson, P. (2007). Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility. Transaction Publishers.
Bok, J. (2010). The Capacity to Aspire to Higher Education: ‘It’s Like Making Them Do a Play Without a Script’. Critical Studies in Education, 51(2), 163–178.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The Forms of Capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. (1977). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (R. Nice, Trans.). Sage.
Brah, A., & Minhas, R. (1985). Structural Racism or Cultural Difference: Schooling for Asian Girls. In G. Weiner (Ed.), Just a Bunch of Girls. The Open University Press.
Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press.
Devine, F., & Savage, M. (2005). The Cultural Turn, Sociology and Class Analysis. In F. Devine, M. Savage, J. Scott, & R. Crompton (Eds.), Rethinking Class: Culture, Identities and Lifestyles. Palgrave Macmillan.
Exley, D. (2019). The End of Aspiration? Social Mobility and Our Children’s Fading Prospects. Policy Press.
Franceschelli, M., & O’Brien, M. (2014). Islamic Capital and Family Life: The Role of Islam in Parenting. Sociology, 48(6), 1190–1206.
Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2020). The Class Ceiling: Why It Pays to Be Privileged. Policy Press.
Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Polity.
Giddens, A. (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (2007). Living in a Post-Traditional Society. In U. Beck, A. Giddens, & S. Lash (Eds.), Reflexive Modernisation Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Polity Press.
Gonzalez, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of Knowledge: Theorising Practices in Household Communities and Classrooms. Lawrence-Erlbaum and Associates.
Goode, J. (2019). Clever Girls. Autoethnographies of Class, Gender and Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature.
Hanley, L. (2016). Respectable: The Experience of Class. Allen Lane.
Hoggart, R. (1957). A Scholarship Boy. In R. Hoggart (Ed.), The Uses of Literacy Aspects of Working-Class Life with Special Reference to Publications and Entertainments (pp. 238–249). Chatto and Windus.
Hussain, Y., & Bagguley, P. (2007). Moving on Up. South Asian Women and Higher Education. Trentham Books Limited.
Lareau, A. (1989). Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education. Falmer Press.
Littler, J. (2018). Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power & Myths of Mobility. Routledge.
Maton, K. (2010). Habitus. In M. Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu Key Concepts. Acumen Publishing.
McNamee, S. (2018). The Meritocracy Myth. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
McNay, L. (1999). Gender, Habitus and the Field: Pierre Bourdieu and the Limits of Reflexivity. Theory, Culture and Society, 16(1), 95–117.
Mohamed, H. (2020). People Like Us. What It Takes to Make It I Modern Britain. Profile Books.
Mohammad, R. (2005). Negotiating Spaces of the Home, the Education System, and the Labour Market: The Case of Young Working-Class, British Pakistani Muslim Women. In G.-W. Falah & C. Nagel (Eds.), Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion and Space (pp. 178–200). Guildford Press.
Moll, L., & Greenberg, J. (1990). Creating Zones of Possibilities: Combining Social Contexts for Instruction. In Vygotsky and Education. Harvard University Press.
Oakley, A. (1974). Housewife. Penguin.
Reay, D. (2017). Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Policy Press.
Reay, D., David, M., & Ball, S. (2005). Degrees of Choice: Class, Race, Gender and Higher Education. Trentham Books Limited.
Sayer, A. (2005). Moral Significance of Class. Cambridge University Press.
Shahrokni, S. (2018). The Collective Roots and Rewards of Upward Educational Mobility. The British Journal of Sociology, 69(4), 1175–1193.
Shain, F. (2020). Navigating the Unequal Education Space in Post-9/11 England: British Muslim Girls Talk About Their Educational Aspirations and Future Expectations. Educational Philosophy and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1769604
Spohrer, K., Stahl, G., & Bowers-Brown, T. (2018). Constituting Neo-Liberal Subjects? “Aspirations” as Technology of Government in UK Policy Discourse. Journal of Education Policy, 33(3), 327–342.
Thomson, P. (2006). Miners, Diggers, Ferals and Show-Men: School-Community Projects that Affirm and Unsettle Identities and Place? British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27(1), 81–96.
Webb, J., Schirato, T., & Danaher, G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. Sage Publications.
Williams, R. (1979). The Long Revolution. In R. Williams (Ed.), Politics and Letters Interviews with New Left Review. Verso.
Williams, R. (1980). Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory. In Problems in Materialism and Culture, Selected Essays. Verso.
Wrigley, T. (2000). The Power to Learn. Stories of Success in the Education of Asian and Other Bilingual Pupils. Trentham.
Yosso, T. (2005). Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Saeed, A. (2022). Conclusion. In: Education, Aspiration and Upward Social Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82261-3_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82261-3_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-82260-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-82261-3
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)