Balancing Acts

Abstract

Term-time paid employment and caring responsibilities are ubiquitous amongst working-class undergraduates and have a detrimental impact on the time available to devote to studying. The dedication phase of internal conversation focused on this balancing act. The employed working-class students did not exhibit the visible studying behaviours of the Mobility-Maintainers. Instead, an ‘ethics of accommodation’ was adopted, in which inconspicuous studying was a strategic approach to prioritising performative achievement, against the constraints of living expense pressures/familial commitments. Rather than a lack of commitment to studying, it was a central preoccupation in order to achieve the ‘life project’, but this needs to be understood as an ‘abstract’, rather than as a ‘practical’ prioritisation.