Introduction

This book is about the workings of social class, race (specifically whiteness) and gender in young graduates’ lives. Its aim is to provide insights into the ways in which the dominant policy goals of social mobility and graduate employability are experienced by young people themselves. The book is based on a longitudinal study of young people from working-class and middle-class backgrounds (the Paired Peers project), who attended one of two universities in Bristol, UK, during the 2010s: the University of the West of England Bristol (UWE), a modern ‘post-92’ university; and the University of Bristol (UoB), a member of the high-status Russell Group of universities. The book traces the unfolding of their young graduate lives through an analysis of a unique longitudinal qualitative data set gathered over a seven-year period.

This is the second of two books from the project team. The first book (Bathmaker et al, 2016) presents the findings of the first phase of the project and considers students’ experiences of getting in, getting on and getting out of university. It demonstrates the significance of social class, as well as gender and race, for students’ experience of higher education and contributes a critical and complex understanding of social reproduction and social mobility through higher education. In this follow-on book, we use data from both Phase 2 and Phase 1 of the project, and turn the spotlight onto the transition beyond university through to four years post-graduation. Most data about graduates in the UK are collected through the national graduate outcomes survey, a limited quantitative survey that captures a snapshot of graduate destinations just 15 months after leaving university. Our book provides an original qualitative longitudinal perspective on the process of early career development, which is not captured by the graduate outcomes survey or by other studies.

The Paired Peers project (2010– 17) followed a cohort of 90 young people from middle-class and working-class backgrounds who started undergraduate study in England in 2010 and who graduated in 2013/14. The study followed these young people throughout their undergraduate lives and for four years post-graduation.