Ambivalent Agents: The Social Mobility Industry and Civil Society Under Neoliberalism in England.

Abstract

This article examines civil society organisations working to enhance social mobility in England, especially through higher education. Against the backdrop of neoliberal governance, we investigate whether these organisations operate as protective counter-movements resisting marketisation or as institutional mechanisms that stabilise the inequalities they aim to address. Drawing on Karl Polanyi's concept of the 'double movement' and Nancy Fraser's critique of marketised social protections, we map and analyse over 100 charities and non-profits established since 1992. We combined qualitative coding of organisational websites across nine Fraserian dimensions with Latent Profile Analysis to identify structural patterns within the field. Findings reveal that most organisations balance critical framings of inequality with funder-compatible, technocratic delivery models. We argue this structural ambivalence is a defining feature of civil society under neoliberalism and show how the social mobility industry operates to suggest symbolic reform without redistributive transformation. Our contribution is threefold: we provide the first systematic typology of the UK's social mobility sector, extend Polanyi and Fraser's theoretical frameworks into social mobility and education policy, and offer a methodological model combining qualitative and quantitative methods with AI-assisted research.