ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how two first-in-family young women from the southern suburbs of Adelaide, Australia incorporate the classed and gendered experiences of their mothers into their subjectivities as they transition from secondary school into their first year of university. Research has documented how the ‘successful’ working-class university experience often requires students to undergo substantial identity work to guard against feeling socially dislocated and excluded. However, these findings tend to discuss the work that happens within educational spaces which are viewed as transformative and do not document the aspects of identity work that takes place within the familial structure. The analysis in this chapter is focused on comparing the case studies of two young women, Chloe and Ella, who are the first in their family to attend university. Central to the analysis is an exploration of how mother–daughter relationships influence the construction of learner identities and university transitions including the ways these relationships contribute to how young women make sense of their subjective and social positionings as they transition into ‘becoming’ university students.
