The Intersections of a Working-Class Academic Identity - by Teresa Crew (Paperback)

About the Book

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online.

Acknowledging the institutional challenges that hinder the work and careers of working-class academics, Teresa Crew calls for a more inclusive and equitable higher education landscape.

Book Synopsis

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online.

Despite ongoing efforts to promote diversity, universities continue to reflect and perpetuate traditional patriarchal, colonial, and privileged hierarchies of gender, ethnicity, and class. Ensuring class diversity in academia is crucial for challenging the perception of universities as exclusive domains of privilege. Acknowledging the institutional challenges that hinder the work and careers of working-class academics (WCAs), The Intersections of a Working-Class Academic Identity recognises the adverse impacts of the overrepresentation of scholars from privileged classes, including a lack of cultural wealth in teaching and research, as well as the discouragement of talented working-class individuals who might otherwise pursue prolific academic careers.

Looking beyond individual struggles, author Teresa Crew presents an informed, alternative perspective to the prevailing viewpoints in research on working-class individuals in higher education, analysing statistical data and consolidating the systemic challenges encountered by WCAs within a framework of classism. Recognising that academia is not only a classed space, but one that tends to be white, masculine, and able-bodied as well, Crew builds upon her previous research to incorporate a rich intersectional overview of the voices that higher education continues to overlook, including clear recommendations for future research and support.

Proposing not a suggestion for transformation but an impassioned plea to dismantle barriers and dissolve silences, The Intersections of a Working-Class Academic Identity calls for informed strategies and robust support systems that will foster a more inclusive and equitable higher education landscape.

Review Quotes

A hugely important book, which deserves to be read not only by academics, whatever their class, but also all universities, who desperately need to update their policies to encompass central issues of class. Based on research with working class academics at a wide range of university types, the book is erudite and offers a very significant contribution to the field. Everyone should read the research participants' own proposals for university change - what a wonderful change to present policies and practices they would make! Bring them on!

--Professor Valerie Walkerdine, Cardiff University

This rich and thought-provoking book provides a powerful rejoinder to deficit models of social mobility and underlines the profound wealth of knowledge and experience that working-class academics bring to the academy.--Professor Sam Friedman, London School of Economics

About the Author

Teresa Crew is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy as well as Senior HEA Fellow at Bangor University, UK.