Abstract
If asked to quote one sentence which highlights for me the importance of Alan France and Steven Roberts’ book, it would be a concise sentence written to explain a much broader concept: ‘Australians know class when they see it’ (p. 15). As I read their book on the inequalities experienced by young people in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, I came to understand that class is not only known in terms of what we see but also known in terms of how it is felt. And I have felt class.
France and Roberts’ book was among the first I read as a PhD student new to studying the theoretical concepts of class. As I read, I found myself, somewhat painfully, reframing some of my earlier life experiences as particularly classed experiences. I recognised that growing up in government housing, being in debt at 18 to pay for textbooks and having the parents of friends tell me their taxes should not have to pay for me to attend university as classed experiences that were specific to people like me. I remember how in that first year of university it seemed like everyone else knew something I did not; it is a feeling that has never entirely gone away. The way I have internalised class as part of my subjectivity in many ways goes to the heart of this book.
France and Roberts’ book is organised into six chapters, which move from a conceptual understanding of class through to examining the historical basis in each country before looking at the ways class interacts with education, social mobility, and employment for young people. It is written in an accessible style, although a minor criticism is the way it occasionally assumes knowledge of ideas that would be easy to explain, such as the use of the acronym NEET to refer to young people not in education, employment, or training – this is not a term I have heard used in Australia.
The authors use Bourdieu’s concept of classed habitus as a theoretical basis for arguing that class is not only relevant but also central to the experiences of young people in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. The way the authors juxtapose the British class system as an accepted concept against the authors’ experiences in Australia and New Zealand, where class is not only misrecognised but routinely denied and rejected, is particularly compelling. The authors problematise the way the national character of Australia and New Zealand, forged out of admiration of the underdog and ‘mateship’, has made class less visible in these countries and arguably difficult to contest. With these concepts problematised, the authors then show how class, while not always recognised, remains a determining factor in young people’s lives. For example, France and Roberts argue that normalised ‘successful’ working-class experiences in education and employment often requires substantial identity work in order to ‘fit in’, where one can feel socially dislocated and excluded in transformative spaces.
This book is useful as an introduction to a theoretical understanding of class, particularly as underpinned by Bourdieu. Furthermore, it is an important text for anyone hoping to gain an understanding of the specific social processes which shape experiences of class for young people in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. I have certainly been inspired by France and Roberts’ appeal for a more critical class analysis of youth experience.