Social class and the experience of university education: narrative inquiry.

Abstract

Access to and success by students from a range of backgrounds is often considered as a barometer of the democratic health of higher education institutions. As in many other African contexts (Asamoah, 2015; British Council, 2014; Lourens & Fourie-Malherbe, 2017), perceptions that, as part of the education system, higher education should enact a social justice agenda by being a gateway to better job opportunities have persisted in Mauritius. However, the extant literature reveals that a number of structural and cultural factors within the system and in the workplace impede automatic conversion of access to university into tangible changes for students who live in challenging family contexts. This study advances the debate by proposing an alternative outlook on university education through the eyes of students from different social classes, probing their pre-university trajectories as well as their actual experiences, and their outlook on the future. Anchored in the critical paradigm, it adopts a theoretical framework built on the sociological lens of Bourdieu’s reproductive theory and the social justice lens of Sen’s capability approach. In order to collect first-hand accounts of the reality of university students, the life history approach was adopted, with the application of narrative inquiry methodology. Through the juxtaposition of the theoretical lenses of Bourdieu and Sen, this work offers new insights into the role of the university at societal level. It analyses how university education, instead of acting as an equaliser across social classes, and an elevator of students from poor families, in fact pre-determines their life chances, thereby contributing to the perpetuation of the established social hierarchy. The study emphasises the key role that organic intellectuals are expected to play in rethinking and overhauling the current educational system.