The Sociology and Legal Studies Winter Speaker Series presents: Dr. Wolfgang Lehmann

Abstract: Although class has remained a relatively stubborn predictor of educational and occupational attainment, the number of students at university from working-class backgrounds has also grown significantly. This has led to a substantial body of scholarship that has documented and analyzed the experiences of working-class students. Most commonly these studies are cross-sectional and focus on either access to university, experiences in university, or transitions out of university. In contrast, this presentation is based on a 16-year qualitative longitudinal study of first-in-family, working-class students in Canada in which I have followed students from their first days at university in their late teens, to adulthood in their mid-30s.

Starting university in 2005 with very high ambitions and aspirations for substantial mobility, I will show how they engaged in a range of strategies to negotiate their potential working-class disadvantages to find educational and occupational success. Most, however, also revised their goals over time, evoking a broader notion of mobility beyond career achievement. In their last interview, they emphasised personal/intellectual growth through education and their ability to develop and accumulate middle-class cultural capital, while not abandoning their working-class roots. The presentation concludes by examining the benefits and challenges of long‑term qualitative research. 

Biographical Statement: Wolfgang Lehmann is Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean, Undergraduate Students and Programs in the Faculty of Social Science at Western University. His research focuses on the role of social class in education and school-work transitions. His work has been published in diverse journals, including Sociology of Education, the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and Work, Education and Society. His book Choosing to Labour? School-work transitions and social class was published in 2007 by McGill-Queen's University Press. He edited Education and Society: Canadian Perspectives, published by Oxford University Press in 2016, and co-authored Story of a Generation (2025), recently released by University of Toronto Press.