Possible Selves in a Transforming Economy: Upwardly Mobile Working-Class Masculinities,Service Work and Negotiated Aspirations in Australia

Abstract

The relationship between working-class masculinities and industrial (and post-industrial) employment has been of sustained interest to sociologists for the last 40 years. This article draws on recent research examining the experiences of upwardly mobile working-class young men navigating casual employment within an urban part of Australia adapting to post-industrialisation. In presenting three longitudinal case studies, the theoretical frameworks of selfhood, possible selves and imagined futures are used to understand how service sector employment contributes to the development of aspirations during the transition beyond compulsory schooling. The focus is on how service employment informed the young men’s lives, aspirations and their sense of self. An argument is presented which articulates how, to varying extents, this service work is where the participants both accrue value and become valued.

Keywords

aspirations possible selves service work working-class masculinities youth transitions

Introduction

In November 2017, the Holden car manufacturer closed its last Australian factory in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, Australia. With this closure, one of the last examples of intergenerational industry work, which had long sustained a strong cultural identity among many Australians, was lost. The closure was protracted, occurring over a two-year period, which contributed to a pervasive discourse in the local media and community concerning a transforming economy. Many young people living in this part of Australia now navigate their lives with a rapidly changing economic situation in mind. Interrelated with this precarity, many of them pursue part-time service work (mainly fast food and retail) in order to ensure the realisation of their aspirations. Simultaneously, the schooling young people experience often privileges a discourse of individualised empowerment and future-orientation, the so-called ‘entrepreneur of the self’ (Davies and Bansel, 2007: 252), which requires an enactment of selves that are market-ready, aligned with the demands of a changing economy.

Exploring the relationship between working-class masculinities and industrial (and post-industrial) employment has been of sustained interest to sociologists for the last 40 years (Choi, 2018; McDowell, 2003; Willis, 1977). As historic infrastructures of respectable employment commonly associated with masculine validation have been reformulated, it can be assumed that young men from working-class backgrounds face various challenges in establishing their selfhood (Nayak, 2003; Weis, 2003) as ‘subjects of value’ (Skeggs, 2011). Given the pervasiveness of post-industrialisation, if working-class young men in Westernised contexts are drawing upon employment as part of their identity construction, they are now more likely to draw upon the ‘McJob’ (Bottero, 2009: 9) as they ‘learn to serve’ (McDowell, 2003). There is a shifting relationship between masculinity, value and precarity for disadvantaged young men (Choi, 2018). Masculinities are highly contextualised and formed through social interaction, where they are ‘actively produced, using the resources and strategies available in a given milieu’ (Connell, 1998: 5). How working-class masculinity sits uneasily with the deference and docility required in the low-level service jobs has been well documented (c.f. McDowell, 2003; Nayak, 2003), though this has also been subject to critique (Nixon, 2009; Weis, 2003).

Drawing on data from a broader research agenda entitled the First-in-Family Males Project, the research team investigated the present opportunities and experiences, as well as long-term plans and future destinations, of young men from the northern suburbs of Adelaide who were intending to go to university. The aspirations of working-class young men are influenced significantly by their experiences with family, school and employment. For example, in Willis’ (1977) seminal work, he contends that schools are where working-class young men learn how to become labourers. There is a growing body of research which indicates that for many of these young men, casual labouring can be an affective experience – an integral part of their search for spaces for validation (Kenway et al., 2006; McDowell, 2003). Many of the young men in the research project spent substantial amounts of their time outside the classroom in service sector positions, where their subjectivities were continually shaped and re-shaped. As schools remain just one site of learning, this research focuses on what service sector labour offers and the ways in which it influences their aspirations.

For working-class young men living in Australia intent on pursuing higher education, their immediate futures will almost certainly involve balancing part-time labour with academic work. Access to this work influences their financial capacity and subsequent geographical mobility and has consequences for how they engage in university life (e.g. commuting, extracurricular activities, social engagement). Establishing relationships with employers who are flexible around their academic commitments – or proactively working toward managerial positions within the service industry – may be essential to securing a university degree. Conversely, their experiences with labour may set these young men on a different trajectory entirely. Focusing on a time of transition from high school to university, the research documents the relationship between their employment experiences and their aspirations. The overarching research questions were: How do these marginalised young men, living in one of the poorest post-industrial urban regions in Australia, experience service sector employment during a time of transition beyond compulsory schooling? How do their employment experiences influence their aspirations? The research highlights the ways in which the various selves of young men come into being in relation to experience (Weis, 2003), specifically through overlapping and conflicting ‘regimes of value’ (Skeggs, 2011: 496) within a community experiencing economic upheaval.

First, the article poses overlapping theoretical frameworks on selfhood, possible selves and imagined futures, which allows us to explore how these young men navigate service labour in the liminal time between adolescence and adulthood – arguably a critical period for the formation of their aspirations. The next section presents longitudinal data from three young men – Avery, Fred and Oliver – exploring how their relationship to service sector employment changes from the conclusion of their formal studies into their post-school year. As McDowell (2012: 584) writes, ‘Identities may be relational and performative but they are not free floating or indefinitely changeable’ and, in presenting the journey of the participants, it is critical to consider the ways service sector employment shapes aspirations.

Theories of selfhood, possible selves and imagined futures

In exploring identity work, subjectivities and aspirations, the article draws on the concept of ‘positioning’, which raises the question of possible selves that are often contradictory (Davies, 1989: 229). Foundational to the analysis is the production of the self, one’s subjectivity, which involves learning both inclusive and exclusive practices, and positioning oneself in relation to these practices in order to establish a sense of belonging (Davies and Harre, 1990). Davies and Harre (1990: 46) argue that ‘[h]uman beings are characterised both by continuous personal identity and by discontinuous personal diversity’, where selfhood is the product of discursive practices leading to a multiplicity of selves. Resulting from such discontinuity, people become active in how they position themselves (‘reflexive positioning’); however, this takes place as they are simultaneously positioned by others through social interaction (‘interactive positioning’) as gendered, classed and ethnic individuals. This theoretical underpinning allows us to theorise identity work and selfhood as the grappling with both subjective constraints and accepted discursive practices (Renold, 2004), often within highly gendered pervasive discourses (Francis, 2000).

Building on theories of selfhood, the article considers two overlapping theories: possible selves and imagined futures. Each focus on futurity and youth agency. Though possible selves has a genesis in social psychology and human development, recent scholarship has broadened the concept to consider what it can lend to sociological inquiry (Harrison, 2018; Henderson, 2018). Furthermore, the theory of possible selves increasingly plays a role in theorising the relationship between labour and aspirations, such as ‘career possible selves’ (Pizzolato, 2007) and wider employment (Hardgrove et al., 2015). Put succinctly, the conceptual framework of possible selves involves consideration of representations of the self in the future in terms of the selves that are hoped for and ones that are not (Markus and Nurius, 1986). These possible selves are framed by a ‘connection between young people’s imagined futures and their perceived, structured positions in society’ (Hardgrove et al., 2015: 164). Therefore, the development of possible selves is contingent on the ways in which such selves are validated by the social (Markus and Ruvolo, 1989; Stevenson and Clegg, 2011). In presenting an argument for a sociological theorisation of possible selves, Henderson (2018: 32) writes:

If the social construction of possible selves is given more emphasis, however, the concept can be used instead to identify where there are inequalities of available resources, and the analysis therefore focuses on systemic inequalities, rather than on individual lack.

Additionally, in Harrison’s (2018: 5) work on aspirations and education, he calls attention to the sociocultural, where the milieu young people inhabit (e.g. family, peers, schooling, employment, etc.) contributes to ‘what selves are possible for them, which are desirable, and which are probable’. Similar to other theoretical frameworks used to explore how aspirations are formed (habitus, capability approach, rational action theory, etc.), the idea of possible selves ‘derives from a view of the self-concept as dynamic, complex, contextually interactive, and evolving’ (Rossiter, 2007: 6). Dissimilar from these theoretical frameworks is how possible selves holds the self, subjectivity and the temporality (and fragility) of selves in high regard.

What is useful about possible selves is the notion of possibilities and what this may mean for the study of aspirations longitudinally. As the young men in the study move through new spaces, their aspirations are intertwined with changing experiences as they encounter new aspirational discourses which may be rebuffed, subverted or embraced (Stahl, 2017). Central to thinking with possible selves is how – at any given moment – people can and do hold a wide arrangement of potential future projections and self-conceptions. Always temporal, possible selves are vacillating, where some selves may be well developed while others are less so. Ibarra (1999) calls these provisional selves, where there is space for experimentation and the learning of skills and characteristics that young people may aspire to in the future. Furthermore, Rossiter (2007) notes how, on an affective level, the imagined outcome of achieving a particular self can bring with it a feeling or emotion attached to that outcome such as happiness or insecurity. Adding another dimension, Rossiter (2007: 6) writes how past self-representations can become ‘an influence on possible selves to the extent that the past self will be reactivated in certain situations’.

To be clear, the approach presented in this article does deviate with arguments in sociological scholarship which contend that possible selves is a way of making understandings of agency more concrete, as noted by Hilton and Kirkpatrick Johnson (2015). Instead, the emphasis is on possibilities in relation to aspirations and how both are realised in the social, specifically service sector employment. Essential to the analysis is a consideration of how possible selves works in tandem with the conceptual framework of imagined futures, which has played a greater role in the education and training literature. In their research, Ball et al. (1999: 210) emphasise how ‘imagined futures’ can be ‘relatively clear, relatively stable and relatively possible’ or ‘vague, relatively unstable and beset with uncertainties’. Ball et al. (1999) suggest that individuals with clear, stable imagined futures use them to motivate their activities and make choices, though they put more emphasis on how family capital contributes to these forming futures. Similarly, Beckert (2013: 220), who focuses on economic and sociological approaches to decision-making concerning labour, theorises imagined futures as infused with ‘fictionality’ or ‘fictional expectations’ where individuals are ‘motivated in their actions by the imagined future state and organise their activities based on these mental representations’. Therefore, with regards to choice, Beckert sees agents as evaluating decisions in terms of possible actions against hopes for the future, as opposed to responding impulsively (2013: 220). Furthermore, Hardgrove et al. (2015: 164) emphasise the ways in which research about imagined futures has also provided insightful observations concerning ‘the internalised socio-cultural values held by young people’ where they contend:

As our world continues to undergo significant changes, scholars of youth transitions have developed an eye for generational ‘rupture’ and sharp breaks between the lived experiences and values of this generation and those of their parents and grandparents (see Cole, 2011). However, enquiry into imagined futures demonstrates that there is a good deal of coherence in social and cultural values carried to the present among young people today.

Young people’s identities, experiences and social horizons are always relational, each informing the other, though heavily anchored by specific identity markers. Young people, vacillating between various possible selves as they understand themselves in relation to ‘real’ or ‘imagined’ futures, draw on both their daily experiences and their pasts as they consider their projected futures. Discussions of class and labour require scrutiny regarding the cultural and identity resources available, which may contribute to how agents become upwardly mobile.

To conclude the theoretical framing section, Henderson (2018: 37) writes of the balance required in attending to the ‘sociological demands of the concept’ of possible selves, as well as ‘the integrity of the original concept that risks becoming blurred beyond the point of recognition’. For sociologists, possible selves may be too personalised or individualised. Throughout the article, consideration is given to how possible selves can advance the knowledge of gender and social context. In terms of studies of masculinities, possible selves in some ways complements Aboim’s (2010) arguments concerning plural masculinities where, building on Connell’s seminal work, Abiom emphasises a pluralised dynamic of masculinities (e.g. hybridised, flexible, able to appropriate signifiers of other masculinities) founded in a discursive approach to power as opposed to hierarchal, which will be explored further.

Research design and methods

Young men growing up in urban poverty in Australia remain significantly less likely to engage with their education and training (Lamb et al., 2015). The First-in-Family Males Project explores the aspiration of males (n = 42) who were the first in their family to transition from high school into university (Stahl and McDonald, 2019; Stahl and Young, 2019; Stahl et al., 2020). A first-in-family student is defined as ‘no one in the immediate family of origin, including siblings or parents, having previously attended a higher education institution or having completed a university degree’ (O’Shea et al., 2017: vii). The primary instrument for the research was semi-structured interviews focusing on the identification of cultural patterns regarding aspiration. Working closely with six different schools in two areas of urban disadvantage (the western suburbs of Sydney and the northern suburbs of Adelaide), the participants were recruited and interviewed shortly before they took their final school exams. Then, they were interviewed twice during the post-school year.

The use of semi-structured interviews allowed the researchers to maintain an element of standardisation while also personalising the questions. Effective semi-structured interviews require an awareness of how interaction occurs and also a sensitivity to the inherent power imbalance. As noted in past research with secondary school young men, they can be ‘uneasy and monosyllabic’ (Francis, 2000: 20) and, in an effort to create an open atmosphere, the researchers found self-deprecating humour recounting stories of casual employment to be effective in terms of building rapport (Stahl, 2016). Interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed and processed via QSR International’s NVivo Version 12 software. The qualitative analysis primarily involved content analysis focused on identifying themes and coding the data specifically in relation to how the participants produced the self as well as changes in aspiration. Pseudonyms are used for all participants to ensure anonymity.

This article focuses on three young men living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide (n = 26). The wider sample was diverse in terms of ethnicity: Anglo-Australian (n = 12), Vietnamese (n = 5), Filipino (n = 2), Afghani (n = 2), Fijian (n= 1), Cambodian (n = 1), Samoan (n = 1), Tanzanian (n = 1), Aboriginal (n = 1). About half had experienced some form of part-time employment when the research team first met with the participants with Asian backgrounds having primarily worked for their families in produce farming. The three case studies were selected because their employment (1) had started early, (2) was in the service industry and (3) was not attached to the family unit. Furthermore, each of the young men was of the same ethnicity (Anglo-Australian), was born in Australia, had attended the same low fee-paying independent school and lived in and around the suburb of Elizabeth. Within the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ SEIFA rankings¹, Elizabeth is considered the most disadvantaged suburb of Adelaide and is likely to become more economically disadvantaged in the years to come.

Findings: Three case studies of transition

The participants’ experiences with forms of employment are explored as spaces of value production, often serving as powerful sites of socialisation. Therefore, the investigation requires focusing on the foregrounding of certain norms and values. The longitudinal nature of the study allows us to see how different selves are present over a transitional period, specifically in regard to securing and maintaining employment and how this is intertwined with the formation of their subjectivities and aspirations. As the participants navigate casual employment, the article documents how their aspirations are reaffirmed, mediated, or, in some instances, thwarted, depending on their labour contexts and experiences. The next section considers their aspirations and labour experiences in Year 12. Then, an analysis of the ways in which certain facets of their identities altered over time during the post-school year is presented.

The end of Year 12: Possible selves and imagined futures in the labour market

Avery

Within the wider cohort, Avery was an outlier with a clear, defined high aspiration for himself to study economics and finance at a prestigious university. Avery admired Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, who he described as ‘a multi-billionaire, big guy now . . . has a net worth of like 20 billion or something like that . . . I look up to him’. When the research team first met Avery in the final weeks of Year 12, he was working over 30 hours a week at Hungry Jack’s, a fast-food chain, where he had been employed for three years. Balancing this level of work would be challenging for anyone, and when queried about his motivations, Avery responded: ‘I’m a workaholic, I guess. I never stop’. In describing his general schedule, Avery said:

[I]t’s like school is like 8:40 a.m. until 3:15 p.m. and then work’s usually from 4:00 in the afternoon until 12:00 a.m. sort of thing, and then I get home at like 12:15 and then from …[then]… until 02:00, 03:00, is school work again and then sleep from 03:00 until 07:00.

When asked how his schedule would affect his upcoming Year 12 exams, Avery said: ‘I’m thinking of having the week before and the week of exams off, but other than that I’m not making a plan to stop’. As for the allure of such work, it seemed to be centred around Avery’s conception of stability. From his perspective, his intense approach to labour was part of being successful where he wanted to ‘[. . .] earn a decent living for myself. I want to make something out of myself and not – just to make something of myself and be successful.’ Working long hours in the service sector meant that Avery was tipped to become promoted where, according to him: ‘Yeah, I work so much because they’re trying to get me into management by the end of the year so I can do that part-time while at uni, so I’ve been really working more so in the side of money and the stock coming in and the cash flow and stuff like that – as well as the normal work I’m doing’.

In terms of possible selves, Avery entered the labour market at an entry-level, but he did not intend to stay at this level, accruing added responsibilities with the goal of becoming a manager. In comparison to his formal schooling – which he did not regard highly, resulting in inconsistent attendance – Hungry Jack’s is where Avery felt like a ‘subject of value’ (Skeggs, 2011), where his work was recognised and rewarded as he climbed the ladder. As a result, his possible self at Hungry Jack’s appeared more developed, which further motivated him as an employee (Stevenson and Clegg, 2011). During the interviews, Avery emphasised the necessity of school, but the only class he felt passionate about was business:

[Business is] what I’ve always found interesting and then only for the last two years I’ve been able to take up that class and that’s where I want to go in my life. I want to proceed in that kind of area and it’s really interesting to me, that’s why it’s my favourite class.

One possible self for Avery was to manage a Hungry Jack’s but, interwoven with this, there was a sense of pursuing more esteemed employment which would require an Economics and Finance degree. Avery’s aspiration towards a life in business was informed by both his formal schooling and his participation in service sector employment and training: ‘My definition of success is basically – well, I know it’s different for everybody, but personally it would be how much money you’re making. I don’t know, I’m a very money-orientated person, I’ll admit that, but, yeah, that’s how I define success, is by money, I guess.’ These aspirations seemed to be reified by the diverse friendship group he had amassed through working at Hungry Jack’s, where his extended hours allowed him access to people who had graduated high school and had gone into higher education. According to Avery, the social validation at Hungry Jack’s contributed to him pulling away from high school life and contributed positively to his development. It was clear Avery felt a sense of fit with the service sector, describing himself as a proficient and skilled worker, yet, simultaneously, he could see beyond this employment. In terms of his imagined futures, for Avery, the management of a Hungry Jack’s would satisfy him during his intended studies, and it fit with his long-term aspiration to enter into the business sector albeit at a much higher and more lucrative level.

Fred

Fred, who described himself as ‘fun’, ‘respectful’ and ‘loving’, was very family-focused, where the most important thing to him was ‘making other people happy’. He was also heavily involved in sports, which structured a lot of his time and contributed to his aspiration to attend university and study Sports Science. As Year 12 was coming to a close, Fred admitted that he could have applied himself a bit more to his studies; however, he was aspiring to university regardless. In terms of possible selves (e.g. loving son, premiere athlete, student), Fred often imagined himself as a husband and father and this aspiration appeared to mean just as much to him as further education or success in athletics.

Fred’s father, who had left school to work as a bricklayer for Fred’s grandfather, grew up in the house next to where Fred and his family were currently living. In considering his aspirations in relation to his father’s, Fred described how there used to be a sense of employment security when his father was his age, whereas he was dealing with a more precarious economic climate:

Dad dropped out of school but he had somewhere to go though, because he had a – he had his dad’s business that he could work for and then when he grew up it became his business, so he had a business to run in the future for him for when he was my age. So – whereas – I’m not saying I want to – but if I dropped out, I could probably go into an apprenticeship or something like that, but that’s all I have, though, whereas if Dad dropped out he had somewhere to go and it’s the same with my grandfather as well.

Fred was the youngest in his family, and his older siblings had struggled with unemployment. For example, both Fred’s older brother and brother-in-law recently experienced failed business ventures and long-standing unemployment. Fred spoke about how both were searching for work and how difficult they were finding it. During Year 12, Fred worked at Bunnings, a hardware chain. When discussing his experiences at Bunnings, Fred reflected on how he balanced his work commitments with his present and future academic requirements:

So, I work – I’m contracted 10 hours a week. So, they offered me 15, but I said probably I should – yeah, I thought about it and said 10 is probably, really better for Year 12, but once I leave school and stuff, I’d be able to pick that up, and once it comes back to uni, then I’d drop back down to…

In terms of possible selves, Fred was thinking of both the long-term and short-term consequences of his actions. In accepting more work, he could potentially not have enough time to study for exams. During the interview, Fred further mentioned how he had a close relationship with his bosses who were satisfied with the quality of his work and supportive of his plans to attend university. He emphasised how at Bunnings they were ‘so welcoming and stuff like that. So, they’re all – welcome you with open arms and stuff’, highlighting the affective experience of the relationships he was forming with his managers and co-workers. Furthermore, in terms of the possible self of becoming a university student, it was evident in the interviews with Fred that he understood the importance of qualifications. At the end of Year 12, he stated:

If I have a higher qualification – if I have that qualification at the start and people don’t have those qualifications that I have – it’s definitely empowering because I’m deemed a better option for them, if you know what I mean.

Oliver

When the research team first met Oliver in Year 12, he described his weekends as primarily taken up with his part-time job, working approximately 10 hours. Oliver, who was the Head Prefect at his school (a position requiring a certain amount of responsibility), was notably less confident concerning his aspiration to attend university and become a PE teacher. His ‘future desired state’ (Beckert, 2013: 220), his imagined future, was not fixed but rather more porous. Oliver told us that his casual work was important to him and even with his exams coming up he had no plans to alter his schedule, claiming: ‘It’s easier for me to just stay with that routine than to change it’. When asked what informed his aspirations, he explained:

I would say, probably my parents I reckon would have one of the major influences because they want to see me do well. So, that has made me want to do well so they can see me do well – because they didn’t do this, they didn’t do year 12, they didn’t go to uni and stuff. They went straight into work, so this is [university study] new . . .

Considering how people are ‘motivated in their actions by the imagined future state and organise their activities based on these mental representations’ (Beckert, 2013: 220), Oliver is a notable case given his parents’ changing employment status. Where his father at his age worked at Holden – and did so until the recent closure – Oliver was clear that even if the option were available, he would not pursue factory work. What Oliver seemed to aspire to was stability and, to a certain extent, he saw education as tied to stability and increased opportunities. He cited the closure of Holden and what his father was going through in terms of redundancy as influential to his future goals: ‘Yeah like because like it makes me want to do better like to get that education because then it’s more opportunities. Because like schooling is, well you imagine it’s always going to be there, so like that’s a workforce . . .’. As Oliver concluded secondary school, his father’s recent troubles seemed to influence his aspiration to become a PE teacher – not necessarily for a love of working with young people, but a passion for sport and what he perceived to be steady and consistent work.

Post-Year 12: Possible selves and imagined futures in the labour market

Avery

When the research team met with Avery again in the post-school year, he had been accepted by a prestigious university for the course he desired but had deferred his entry for the semester and was managing a Hungry Jack’s full-time, mainly doing ‘money and stock’: ‘I’m taking a bit of a break for at least half a year – maybe the whole year – I haven’t decided yet’. According to Avery, this decision to defer was his own, and he did not seek the advice of his parents. Avery explained how, as a manager, he received a ‘pretty good’ level of training and felt comfortable with the demands of the job. In terms of possible selves, while he was earning a good salary and had ‘achieved’ within the post-industrial climate of the northern suburbs, Avery still seemed certain in his desire to attend university with the possible self of an entrepreneur businessman still holding a certain allure. He admitted that even though he was a reluctant student, he missed the academic challenge: ‘. . . [I want to] start going through uni, that’s my main goal. Because the break is good but it’s getting a little bit boring sometimes, I’ve had a little bit too much downtime maybe.’

Fixating on a certain conception of an aspirational self, Avery actively positioned himself in reference to long-term aspirations. When asked if he felt he would lose his motivation to attend university through his immersion in full-time service work, Avery firmly responded: ‘It’s something I’ve always wanted to do is go to Uni, so I’m not, I’ve had that motivation for like 19 years now, so I’m not going to lose it in 6 months’. In terms of Avery’s subjectivity, he continued to see himself as more mature than his peers. For example, he described how if he were not working then he would ‘probably just stay at home a little more and do more teenager things – play video games, read, something like that, would go out more’, drawing a contrast between his lifestyle and that of a teenager. He did not see his deferment of one semester as setting himself back; instead, Avery was consistent in the way he described himself from the previous year, valuing his work ethics: ‘I don’t really relax very often, I don’t know, I’m always go, go, go’ and ‘I don’t like to be bored doing nothing. I feel like I should always be doing something and proving myself, making something happen.’ By mid-year, Avery had taken up his offer to study Economics and Finance full-time, reducing his hours at Hungry Jack’s in order to delve into his studies.

Fred

When Fred was interviewed the following year, he had been accepted into university but never attended. Instead, he was working 30 hours a week at Bunnings. When asked about his experience of nearly full-time work, he spoke about how he ‘works as hard as possible’ and wanted to ‘impress his bosses’. Employment had become more central to Fred’s sense of self, leading him to comment on how people thought he was ‘crazy’ when he said he loved his job. However, he insisted this was true because he felt he had found his niche, as working with customers all day allowed him to ‘make other people happy’, which had always been a primary goal. Fred described his parents as supportive of his decision not to attend university. Over the course of the interview, Fred discussed how he assessed his opportunities at Bunnings, specifically in regard to how the company had ‘invested’ in him and other young workers through training and developing their leadership skills. Based on the semi-structured interviews, it was clear he felt valued by the company and thus valued the company in return. In terms of service work as a productive and educative space, Fred talked openly about learning new skills like writing reports and further duties: ‘It makes me feel important because I have responsibilities. I know that they trust me then to have responsibilities.’

However, while there was a certain level of loyalty to Bunnings, Fred did inform us that he had thoughts of going elsewhere and had looked into joining the police force in the years to come. In terms of his long-term aspirations, Fred paints a complex picture. While he emphasised his loyalty to Bunnings, he also articulated how it was ‘good enough for right now’ – demonstrating he could imagine other futures for himself. In conceiving of possible selves, which may motivate youth to pursue a certain line of action, he was beginning to see other viable pathways. Therefore, though he was – to a certain extent – institutionalised by the company ethos of Bunnings, talking proudly of ethical work practices, the collaborative spirit, and how it may ‘lead to better things’ as there is ‘heaps of room for development’, Fred was still able to see other possibilities. Importantly, in terms of his identity resources and possible selves, Fred had kept up with his sporting commitments and experienced this activity as fulfilling part of his aspirations as it seemed likely his team would win state finals.

Oliver

Oliver, who had initially wanted to be a PE teacher, found he was not suited to this university course and, upon reflection, was hesitant to take on the responsibility of working with children. As a result, he transferred into Business Management, Sport and Recreation, and took the first semester off to stock shelves at the winery where he had worked in high school. While this casual labour occupied his time, in terms of spaces of becoming a ‘subject of value’ (Skeggs, 2011), Oliver lacked the deep connection to service work at the winery. Furthermore, he was unable to secure more hours. However, the winery was informative as it allowed Oliver to see the ‘behind the scenes of these places’, enhancing his interest in business. Upon further discussion, Oliver’s aspirations to be a university student were less defined, undergoing some reconsideration over the summer. He explained:

Well, no, actually, during the summer, I think I wasn’t going to actually go to uni, I picked up other work, other work . . . like manual labour work, I was doing some of that, looking for full-time work instead, or like apprenticeships/traineeships, I was looking for them instead of going to uni . . . . And then like two weeks out of uni starting, I decided that I was going to go, so I had to do the mad rush to enrol and do all of that before it all started.

For Oliver, whose aspirations for higher education were informed by his father’s redundancy during his Year 12 year, it is surprising that at the commencement of the summer – when he was no longer in contact with his school environment – he actively pursued manual labour with the lingering possibility of doing it full-time. If possible selves is theorised as a ‘connection between young people’s imagined futures and their perceived, structured positions in society’ (Hardgrove et al., 2015: 164), Oliver’s possible selves highlight how he may have seen society and his future differently when outside the routines and discourses of high school.

Adding another dimension to how his aspirations are shaped, Oliver commented on how it was his dad who was his primary support when deciding to leave the teaching degree and pursue business: ‘he looks out for me in terms of career-wise’ and ‘he looks for opportunities future-wise, like where I can set myself up and what’s going and what’s not and stuff’. However, these seemed rather conflicted conversations. When Oliver was looking for a second job (in addition to the winery) to hold him over until he could start university mid-year, he said:

I don’t know . . . like my dad keeps finding these full-time work ones, I’m like ‘I don’t want to do that because I plan to go to uni’; he’s like ‘Well you can still do it and you never know, you might like it, you might stay and not go’. . .

Murphy (2018: 88) has emphasised the role of family in terms of surveillance and pressuring students in the ‘types of employment judged suitable’. While it is difficult to discern the significance of Oliver’s father’s advice on Oliver’s possible selves, it would appear that their dialogues, which were future-focused and wide-ranging, contributed to validating Oliver’s wish to keep his options open but also valuing secure, stable employment.

Discussion

Service work for young people carries with it a sense of achievement, security and maturity; it is something of a source of pride intertwined with a feeling of having ‘reached’ adulthood. It can also be an integral part of the puzzle of moving beyond one’s class status. The conceptual frameworks of possible selves and imagined futures allow for an exploration of how the experiences of the participants inform their aspirations during the liminal time between adolescence and adulthood. The frameworks provide insights regarding how they come to see themselves in different or, sometimes, similar ways, emphasising how the self can be both continuous and discontinuous (Davies and Harre, 1990). Furthermore, such frameworks compel us to consider aspirations as not only dynamic, temporal and adaptable but significantly influenced through relationships and social validation, as part of ‘regimes of value’ (Skeggs, 2011: 496). Upon leaving school, a powerful source of validation for certain selves loses salience and, in the case of these young men, service work becomes a key source of both valuation and responsibilisation. Depending on their circumstances, the data suggest the relationships present in the sites of employment, and to a lesser extent family, are the primary sources informing their possible selves during a time of transition.

Avery, who asserted he did not have a close relationship with either of his parents, found himself valued at Hungry Jack’s where he was relatively content gaining managerial experience and forging close relationships with his co-workers; however, the possible self of a university student appeared to trump his current circumstance. Therefore, Avery modelled a provisional self (Ibarra, 1999), learning skills and characteristics he felt complemented his aspiration for the future beyond the service sector. In contrast, Fred, who was always hesitant about university study, appeared more inculcated by the ethos of Bunnings, where he highlighted how he identified with the values of the organisation. Fred’s aspirations appeared to be more focused on a close connection to family and a sense of security as opposed to aspiring to a university-related career, despite being labelled by his school as ‘university ready’. However, while Fred described himself as loyal to his employer – wanting to invest himself and be invested in – he entertained other trajectories (e.g. the police force), indicating how aspirations are subject to influence, although it would appear there are certain limits. For Oliver, not finding a sense of fit during the first few weeks of university and not being able to pick up more hours or a second job, meant he had time to reflect upon the uncertainty of his future. Furthermore, Oliver’s conversations with his father, with whom he has a close relationship, centred upon risk and security in regard to his future. This appeared to have given these talks a conflicted nature around both a pressure to go to university and, at the same time, to secure gainful employment.

Table 1 captures the participants’ backgrounds, their pathways and their experiences with employment during compulsory schooling and beyond. For Hardgrove et al. (2015: 165), possible selves ‘can encompass any aspect of envisioned future identity or experience’ and are often interwoven with interpersonal relationships and their immediate sociocultural contexts. In drawing on possible selves to nuance an understanding of aspirations, Avery appeared to have a more defined concept of the kind of career he desired, and this influenced how he navigated his work at Hungry Jack’s. While agents can and do hold a wide arrangement of potential future projections and self-conceptions, for Avery, who was keen to make money in business, his selves were not wide-ranging; he remained focused on casual employment (albeit at a managerial level), seeing it as a stepping stone to a better career. In contrast, for Fred and Oliver, whose aspirations were less defined and more subject to family influence, the possible selves they saw for themselves – their sense of futurity – were subject to a wide variety of influences, each requiring validation. This echoes the work of Markus and Ruvolo (1989), who contend possible selves is contingent on the ways in which such selves are validated by the social milieu (e.g. family, peers, schooling and employment).

Table 1.

Year 12 and post-school year labour and education transitions.

Participant	Family life	Year 12 aspiration	Year 12 labour experience	Post-school year labour experience	Post-school year education and training	Overview of possible selves
Avery	Mum – librarian Dad – unemployed	Economics and Business double-degree	Hungry Jack’s: 30 hours/week	Hungry Jack’s: full-time manager	Begins mid-way through the year studying Economics and Business double-degree	Hungry Jack’s manager; successful entrepreneur in business; university student
Fred	Mum – HP supervisor Dad – building grounds manager	Bachelor of Sports Science	Bunnings: approximately 10 hours/week	Bunnings: just under full-time employment status	Accepted at university in Sports Science degree but never begins	Student; Bunnings employee; athlete; family figure; caregiver; police officer
Oliver	Mum – unemployed (Holden) Dad – unemployed (Holden)	Bachelor of Education	Winery: 10 hours/week	Casual manual labour Winery: 15 hours/week	Begins an Education degree but drops the course; officially starts half-way through the year on a Business degree	Student; PE teacher; learner of business; manual labourer

Connell (1989, 2005) asserts that masculine identities are actively constructed and performed through everyday actions within institutions as part of a wider process of understanding one’s identity, individually and in relation to others’ identities as ‘social practice’. Masculinity, therefore, is not a fixed thing; instead, masculinity is constantly in flux (being formed and reformed), constantly the subject of influence. Masculinities are formed in a model of pluralised power relations where, as Aboim (2010: 3) argues, plurality and masculinity are always linked as masculinities are developed through tension and conflict. As working-class masculinities experience economic and social change (post-industrialisation), there is a need to revisit the relationship between gendered labour, aspirations and risk/uncertainty. While performances of working-class masculinities have been documented to be in stark contrast with the attributes required in low-level service jobs (McDowell, 2003; Nayak, 2003), these case studies suggest working-class masculinities are not only adaptable to the post-industrial landscape (Nixon, 2009; Stahl, 2020), but how both employment, and to a lesser extent family, are the primary spaces which inform their possible selves and, by implication, their upwardly mobile masculinities. Also, while there may be pluralisation and flexibility in terms of their masculinities (Abiom, 2010), all three of these young men voiced an attachment to a certain respectability generated by a ‘hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay’ – a foundation of a traditional working-class masculinity (Choi, 2018; Stahl, 2015; Willis, 1977). In his work on possible selves and aspiration, Harrison (2018: 14) writes of ‘normative elements that work to assert what selves might be acceptable’ within the social context. The data suggest the respectability associated with employment is still an integral part of working-class masculinity.

Addressing the three participants’ experiences with securing and maintaining employment, the article has explored their changing sense of self and the ongoing development of their aspirations. Regardless of their aspirations, the three young men appear to engage in ‘trying on possible selves’ (Burack et al., 1997: 534), which can, it seems, be a process of self-identity protection as they negotiate their sense of precarity and upward mobility. Intertwined with the social – specifically employment and family – some selves become foregrounded during the process of transition, while others may lose salience dependent on where the selves are validated. Furthermore, two of the three case studies presented suggest that experiences with the service sector can develop what could be considered an entrepreneurial drive. Managerial work at Hungry Jack’s only enhanced Avery’s ambition toward business and finance, while Oliver became significantly more interested in business when he picked up more hours (and responsibilities) at the winery. Thus, for both Avery and Oliver, their experiences in the service sector did influence how they traversed university study, which consequently, has implications for their social mobility trajectories.

Conclusion

In terms of current post-industrial societies, Francis (2006: 190) writes that young males ‘can no longer expect “a job for life”, but rather must expect to “upskill” and remake themselves for a succession of jobs in an insecure market-place’, which can present significant struggles for young men, especially as they experience forms of schooling which increasingly seek to align learning with the aspiration to be an ‘entrepreneur of the self’ (Davies and Bansel, 2007: 252). This article has focused on the positionings of three young men within a time and place of economic and social change. Each has encountered the realities of post-industrialisation in their community throughout their secondary school years and some have been privy to redundancies and precarity within their family units. The research questions focused on their experiences with service sector employment during a period of transition beyond post-compulsory schooling and how such experiences influence their aspirations.

In researching how marginalised men, living in one of the poorest post-industrial urban regions in Australia, experience service sector employment, the primary contribution is in documenting the ways in which they come to see themselves as ‘subjects of value’ and how this shifts over time in reference to employment and, to a lesser extent, family. As a secondary contribution, the article works across the frameworks of selfhood, possible selves and imagined futures to consider how the various selves of upwardly mobile working-class young men become validated through the social milieu, specifically through experiences with service sector employment. In furthering an understanding of the changes in post-industrial working-class masculinities, specifically upwardly mobile working-class masculinities, the three participants both accrue value and become valued as they imagine futures for themselves over an important transitional time where the self, subjectivity and the temporality (and fragility) of selves are vacillating. In considering the participants’ journeys in terms of selfhood as the product of discursive practices leading to a multiplicity of selves, this contrasts with previous work on upward mobility – for example, Bourdieusian scholarship, which accounts heavily for primary socialisation (Stahl, 2015). Based on these three case studies, it is not primary socialisation which informs their transition beyond compulsory schooling. Instead, the data suggest these service sector positions are spaces with enriching resources which contribute significantly to their aspirations. However, while they entertain possible selves – which inform their adaptability and are integral to their upwardly mobile masculinities – they often feel a certain sense of security in service level positions which, at times, seems to contribute to a hesitancy to take the risk of pursuing higher education.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Australian Research Council (DE170100510).

ORCID iDs

Garth Stahl

Sarah McDonald

Notes

Garth Stahl (@GarthStahl) is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland and Research Fellow, Australian Research Council (DECRA). His research interests lie on the nexus of neoliberalism and sociocultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality and social change. Currently, his research projects and publications encompass theoretical and empirical studies of learner identities, gender and youth, sociology of schooling in a neoliberal age, gendered subjectivities, equity and difference, and educational reform.

Sarah McDonald (@Sarah_McDonald_) is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. Her doctoral research focuses on how the intersection between gender and class interacts with higher education, and how this interaction impacts upon the construction of feminine identities for young women transitioning into university. She is interested in gendered subjectivities, social mobility, social barriers and inequalities in education.

John Young is affiliated with the University of South Australia. Previous to this he spent two years working as a teacher in complex communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in the Far North of South Australia. The work involved considering trauma-informed practice in the classroom and working with community members to co-design education programs.

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