Full Description
Working-class academics often experience difficult and turbulent times during their journey into and through academia. The terms working class and academic are somewhat paradoxical, as the assumption is, since becoming an academic, they have moved away from their class. For some, this may be true, for others, not so.
Presenting a collection of life stories written by Irish-identifying working-class academics, Notions explores the lives of those not born into the elite but occupying an elite position in higher education — how they got there, what their journey was like, what their experiences were, if they faced any struggles, and if they had to, or still do, (re)negotiate their identities.
The first autoethnographic collection of working-class experiences of academia in Ireland, Notions is a valuable contribution to the existing body of literature on social class, inequalities, widening participation and higher education that will be of interest to any reader interested in Irish society and culture.
Contents
Chapter 1. 'Confin'd within the Verge of their Occupations': Sectarianism, Class and the Contraction of Political and Intellection Horizons in UK's Higher Education Industry; Stephen Baker
Chapter 2. Tracing Threads of Precarity: Working-Class Lives, Academic Insecurity and the Labour of Belonging; Vicky Brady
Chapter 3. Middle Class Values Trapped in a Working-Class Academic; Kieran McCartney
Chapter 4. Belonging and Solidarity in Working Class Research; Sorca Mc Donnell
Chapter 5. Not Knowing Our Place: Social Class, Structural Division and Hegemonic Control in Northern Ireland; Aaron Edwards
Chapter 6. On Not Getting Found Out: A Fugitive Class Identity in the Cultural Geography of Irish and British Higher Education; Marcus Free
Chapter 7. "You Use your Education Against me": Familial Dislocation as an Effect of a Higher Education; Sheila Gaffney
Chapter 8. Clay-Footed and Curious: A Journey of Becoming; Declan Mc Kenna
Chapter 9. A Class Negotiation through the Lens of Education: Exploring Social Class and Inequality; Michelle Kinsella
Chapter 10. Seen Butt Unseen; Keith Murphy
Chapter 11. Double the Diaspora: On Being Second Generation Irish and Working Class; Deirdre O'Neill
Chapter 12. Epilogue: The Change-Makers: How Irish Working-Class Academics are Challenging and Disrupting Dominant Discourses in Higher Education; Iona Burnell Reilly
