Becoming and unbecoming academics: Classed resources and strategies for navigating risky careers

Abstract

Academics influence not only knowledge production but also selection to the labour market and policy development. They have power. Despite the sociological attention paid to class in higher education, few studies have examined the way in which class interferes with the careers of those navigating from being students to becoming scholars. Building on Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction, this study examines how class influences different groups' experiences of becoming academics. Based on 60 interviews with Norwegian scholars in their early to mid‐careers, the analysis identifies the kind of classed resources that are in play in the unequal access to academic positions. Beyond more classical resources, such as financial, cultural, and psychological certainty, the interviewees point to the significance of an early familiarity with the rules of the game and strategic navigation of the academic system. We use these findings to discuss and nuance Pierre Bourdieu's perspectives on the role of incorporated, practical consciousness and disinterestedness in class reproduction in the academic world. This theoretical contribution facilitates the combined analysis of the implicit and the explicit ways that dominant classes preserve their position in the hierarchy, which the study demonstrates as key to social reproduction in academic careers.