Interrupted trajectories: the impact of academic failure on the social mobility of working-class students

Higher education (HE) is often viewed as a conduit for social mobility through which working-class students can secure improved life-chances. However, the link between HE and social mobility is largely viewed as unproblematic. Little research has explored the possible impact of academic failure (in HE) on the trajectories of working-class students or the ways in which working-class students may re-construct their career aspirations as a result of such academic failure. This paper seeks to fill this apparent gap by focusing on a group of non-traditional students enrolled on a BA undergraduate programme in a post-1992 university. Utilising Bourdieu's notion of habitus, the paper identifies how academic failure contributes to possible trajectory interruptions and whether these are temporary or possibly permanent. It specifically focuses on how working-class students interpret and respond to their academic failure and the possible impact this has on their social mobility.