Home and away: risk, familiarity and the multiple geographies of the higher education experience

With reference to an ESRC/TLRP project conducted across two academic years with working-class students in higher education (HE), this paper explores the relationship between geographies of home and those of university at two UK HE institutions. It addresses how social relations inflected by class influence the experience of students as they adapt to new socio-cultural environments and negotiate the terms of their emergent identities. By indicating the ways in which HE experiences are classed, but also situated and connected across geographical locations, this paper examines the ties between forms of working-class identity and the contexts through which they are reproduced. In different ways, the security of locality and of what and who is already known is seen here as critical in dealing with risky and often alien educational environments as a form of social capital.