Internationally, males from low socio-economic backgrounds remain severely underrepresented in higher education, and significant gaps exist in our knowledge of how they transition to an experience university life. Many who enroll in higher education do not finish which the pressure to earn money and secure employment as soon as possible being a key factor.  Despite an emphasis on widening participation in the Australian university sector, the path to university is still precarious, particularly for first-in-family (FIF) students.  Drawing on longitudinal data, this presentation will provide the first detailed account of how gender, ethnicity and social class impact on Australian males (n = 42) from low socio-economic backgrounds as they transition to university.  The focus is on understanding the role that gender – interacting with low SES status and ethnicity – plays in FIF males who are seeking to become socially mobile through their education.

In terms of a theoretical framework, FIF undergraduates are not only expected to be less primed to take advantage of university resources but also to participate less in university life (Jack 2014).  Research suggests this limits their acquisition of social and cultural capital, which has implications for lifelong consequences regarding family formation, job acquisition, and network development.  Researching how aspirations interact with socioeconomic status in reference to occupational certainty, prestige, choice, and justification, Gore et al. (2015) shows how students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds have stronger financial motivation, indicating their aspirations are for occupational futures that provide financial security. However, according to Gale and Parker (2013) students from low SES backgrounds ‘typically have diminished navigational capacities – the result of their limited archives of experience – with which to negotiate their way towards their aspirations’ (p. 51).

The presentation addresses how FIF males transition to and experience Australian university study in different locales and institutions.  The data analysis captures how experiences at high school, the use of formal and informal support, and geographical locations contribute to FIF males’ transition to university.  We further highlight the role of masculinity (e.g. the breadwinner, etc) and how this informs how FIF males navigate university life.  The project has three sub-aims to probe the nature of FIF male student experience:

• Aim 1: How do experiences at high school, the use of formal and informal support, and geographical locations contribute to FIF males’ transition to university?
• Aim 2: In relation to gender, how does low socio-economic status – shaped through access and operationalisation of different forms of capital (economic, social and cultural) – influence the experiences of FIF young men at university?
• Aim 3: How do cultural beliefs regarding gender influence the transition of FIF males to university and their experiences during the first year at university?

Context The data presented in this paper were drawn from a broader longitudinal study – The First-in-Family Males Project – that sought to document the experiences of working-class (and working poor) young men becoming socially mobile during the time immediately following their secondary schooling (Stahl & McDonald, 2022). All the participants in the study lived at home during this time in their lives. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ SEIFA rankings defines the suburbs where the young men resided as some of the most disadvantaged urban suburbs in Australia. Data Collection After securing ethics permission from the university and from educational authorities along with parental consent we tracked the progress of 42 working-class young men from their last term of secondary school over the course of three years (2017-2020). To be eligible, the young men would have applied for university study and been technically the first in their families to attend higher education. In addition to a resilience survey (25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), we conducted semi-structured interviews every six months; thus, the research documented the lives of participants from age 17/18 to 20/21. Interviews typically ran about an hour with similar types of questions asked each time though as the participants progressed, certain questions were added based on the previous round of data collection. Data Analysis A professional transcription company was used, though we also reviewed the interview audio files several times and checked them against transcripts to ensure accuracy. This was in addition to the extensive field-notes taken during observations and typed up into fuller reports afterwards. Re-listening to the recordings and reading the transcripts facilitated a deeper interpretation of the data. Also, highlighting another dimension of trustworthiness, the research team conferred in regular meetings about the participants and what was featuring prominently in the data after each round of data collection. These discussions were wide-ranging – struggle, self-care, vulnerability – which allowed for deeper analysis and were integral to how we saw the data in light of the existing literature. These meetings, as regular ‘data discussions,’ also led to the creation of thematic codes where each round of interviews had its own codes (see Creswell & Miller, 2000). All data was then thematically coded in the NVivo qualitative software package.

Our main findings were: • FIF male place a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves. In accounting for intersectionality, students from non-White backgrounds who had family members who were recent immigrants often put more pressure on themselves to be successful. • Few of the participants ended in elite university settings and were often ill-informed about their chosen course and institution. Hardly any of the participants had access to effective career counselling and given their families, knew very little about university life, this did put them at a disadvantage. • Many did not form support networks at university often experiencing prolonged experiences of isolation. Their transitional journeys were often shaped by being a small fish in a big pond where in their secondary schools their student identities were constructed as high-flyers. • The pressure to earn money through part-time employment often meant they were not very engaged in university life. They often felt a degree would be enough in the employment market and many did not invest in absorbing the social capital which may have been integral to future employment. • Echoing the role of the breadwinner, many of the participants were eldest in their family and felt a strong responsibility to mentor their younger siblings into university life. They saw themselves as an important capital and part of the social mobility journey of the family. • A significant percentage of the cohort grappled with their mental health during the transition to university life and, for some, these difficulties with mental health contributed to them taking time out of their degrees or not finishing (Stahl, Adams & Wang, 2022). • Many of the participants who remained at university found ways to create Work Integrated Learning (WIL) opportunities for themselves, especially when none were available through their program. They felt these experiences would enhance their employability.

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