Tales of the unexpected: The lives and experiences of working-class academics

Abstract

This article explores and discusses some aspects of autoethnographies from a published collection written by working-class academics. The original objective was for each academic to write an account of their life and their experiences of becoming who they are in an industry steeped in elitism. I was interested in how they experienced becoming a working-class academic, what their journeys had been like, and how they navigated their way into their professional roles. I was also curious about their identities and if they continued to identify as working class, or if their social positioning and/or identities have undergone change. The autoethnographies are powerful and deeply personal accounts of the working-class academics' lives; they make a significant contribution to the field of research on higher education by providing unique insight into personal experiences. Within this article I have explored some of the accounts and considered how the academics overcame, for example, feelings of failure from previous educational experiences, feelings of (un)belonging and tackling imposterism.