Strategies employed by middle-class families to ensure successful educational outcomes for their children have long been the focus of theoretical and empirical analysis in the UK and beyond. This resonates through all education sectors, from accessing the most desirable pre-school provision, to achieving places at the most selective universities. The topic has also been the focus of wider public debate recently over progression into the job market, including media exposés of how internships are secured, and UK government enquiries on access to the professions. Using interview data from a Leverhulme Trust-funded study of working- and middle-class undergraduates at Bristol’s two universities I examine processes of capital acquisition and mobilisation by students and their families to enhance future social positioning.

Admission to the lecture is free.