Although research has been burgeoning on the experience of nonelite students in elite settings, most scholars focus on the Ivy League or Oxbridge, neglecting some of the most prestigious universities in Europe. With past research mainly focused on initial entry to HE, little attention has been paid to postgraduate levels, which this study aims to remedy. Using interviews with a cohort of final-year doctoral students at a highly prestigious European graduate school, the paper specifically focuses on the social integration of Eastern European (EE) students who struggle to fit in among the elite-university-educated, mostly Western European student body. By considering "fitting in" as an interactional process, the paper aims to examine the experiences of EE students’ vis-a-vis their peers and faculty, and the ways in which this varies by social class.

Researchers have looked into the ways in which nonelite students felt excluded in elite HE settings, resulting in a growing body of scholarship investigating the experiences of working class, black, and ethnic minority students who successfully penetrated the class ceiling (see e.g. Friedman and Laurison 2019). Yet, scholars often studied race and class independently, with separate streams of scholarship tackling the ‘black student experience’ (e.g. Carter 2005) or the ‘working class experience’ (e.g. Reay et al. 2009). Although American scholarship was keen to place race at the centre stage, British scholars posited that ‘class differences are more apparent and significant than minority ethnic similarities’ (Ball et al., 2002).  But with neither of these groups being monolithic, it is often the interaction of race/ethnicity and class that provokes ‘a sense of cultural alienation’ among nonelite students in elite settings (Torres 2009: 888).

Despite the EU enlargement occurring some decades ago, the increasing number of EE students studying at Western European (WE) universities has received limited attention. Overall, there has been negligible research specifically dedicated to EEs as a student group (see, e.g., Chankseliani 2016, Genova 2016, Ginnerskov-Dahlberg 2021, Marcu 2015), and, to my knowledge, none has delved into their social integration within elite settings. This study significantly contributes to the literature through the exploration of the experiences of EE students at an elite WE campus where all students share the same social milieu throughout their studies and all benefit from scholarships that enable them to access high quality education regardless of their social origin. 

The study utilises in-depth interviews conducted with doctoral students from post-socialist countries (EE nationality). A total of 20 students were interviewed, reflecting their proportion within an admitted cohort/year group. Potential interviewees were identified through the university website and contacted via email to request their participation. The approached students were all in their final year and part of a specific cohort. The interviews took (on average) an hour and were conducted in English. The interview data have been anonymised and some personal details have been removed to ensure confidentiality. Following transcription, the data were analysed using thematic analysis that focused on the students' experiences of fitting in among the student body and their relationships with peers and faculty.

Elite universities offer a prime opportunity to explore long-range social mobility from the perspective of a two-way process that considers not only the experiences of non-elite students, but also how others relate to them and the emotional impact such interactions leave behind. EE students looking for authenticity and meaningful connections with peers and instructors were taken aback by the superficial nature of social connections on this elite campus. Microaggressions, the (not so) subtle ways in which various stereotypes can play out, were employed as tools of exclusion practised by elite students towards EEs who reported several incidents in which their peers and faculty made them feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, and misunderstood. While the interviewed EE students were all accepted into an elite doctoral programme, fully accepted they were not, since neither their peers nor the university welcomed them with open arms. Drawing on Accominotti's (et al. 2018) notion of ‘segregated inclusion,' the study will demonstrate the ways in which cultural and socio-economic differences can lead onto stratified social relationships among the student body which ultimately affect the degree to which EE students can take advantage of being a member of an elite university.

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