Lower classes

In addition to access to university, it is important to consider the conditions that can guarantee the retention of students from low-income backgrounds in public higher education, especially in highly selective courses with high academic standards. It is not enough to think of higher education as a possible gateway to less precarious social and economic positions; it is also necessary to understand the relationship between the university world and the world of work, the formal and informal ways of incorporating professional culture, as well as the socialisation processes of social actors in spaces other than those they occupied before long-term schooling. Contrary to what liberal and media ideology proclaims, young people from lower social classes who, due to a number of factors, have achieved a certain degree of social success through school and entry into prominent professions do not live only for joy and achievement. The case study presented in this book, which is empirically and theoretically grounded, although far from claiming to be generalisable, addresses sociological problems that cannot be ignored when dealing with education, work and culture at the micro and macro social levels.