To what degree? The influence of low socioeconomic status on the lived experience of graduate development and career transition.

Over the past six decades, Western nations have been growing in their concern about global economic competitiveness and economic performance linked to the knowledge economy. Most recently, the massification of higher education has seen more graduates than graduate-level employment, with those with lower resources experiencing the most difficulty. This has placed universities under increasing pressure to produce employable graduates.

This thesis examines the influence of lower resources on graduate development and career transition. In particular, the thesis draws upon data generated by narrative interviews (NI) held with six recent graduates with lower resources on a BA Sport Development and Coaching who were interviewed twice over two years post-undergraduate graduation. Predominantly from the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice, the lived experience of graduates from areas of high socio-economic deprivation was explored. Participants developed artefacts by plotting a social and professional target sociogram to demonstrate the development of social capital and a life trajectory to use as an aide memoire. Interview data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

The findings reveal how individual habitus, resources and their alignment with possible self can enable or constrain the trajectories of lower-resourced students. The research findings are presented in three conceptual groupings (comfort seekers, to a degree, and risk takers); each group is categorised according to their achievement of attaining their desired graduate-level employment. The research reported here broadens Bourdieu’s use of illusio to illuminate previous unexplored understanding of working-class students’ career decision-making processes and career management. Emotional investment in a possible self within the classed trajectory aids the rupture of habitus, which can be enabled or constrained by resources and field-specific requirements. The findings contribute to using habitus as a method through narratives and life trajectory as methodological instruments for capturing the habitus, uniting theory and method as Bourdieu intended.

This study demonstrates that a background of lower resources significantly influences dispositions, shaping perceptions and openness to adaptation or change. However, the dispositions of the habitus are not a solid state; they ebb and flow, enabling or constraining practice depending on the environment and Illusio for the game.