It is a common understanding in academic literature on educational inequality that educational transitions and choices are considerably affected by one’s socio-economic background. Empirical research demonstrates that less privileged students in various national contexts tend to make less successful choices regarding their education and career [Mocca, Rojon, Hernández, 2019; Giudici, Pallas, 2014]. Numerous symbolic and structural barriers hinder their ability to choose the options that would best suit their ambitions and abilities [Ball et al., 2002].

Despite persistent inequality affecting lower-status students’ entering higher education, a considerable number of individuals aspire for and later follows an academic pathway, successfully entering higher education. Within this study, I explore the narratives of Russian first-generation students that reveal complex relationships between their socio-economic background and choice to enter higher education. In particular, the research is guided by the following research question: which narratives of the self support the decision to enter university among first-generation students?

While research in higher education and mobility has tended to focus on the reproduction of inequalities, few studies have examined the cultural mechanisms responsible for upward mobility of working-class individuals [Streib, 2016]. This research aims at enriching this line of academic discussion by uncovering the symbolic dimension of educational choice and demonstrating specific constellations of one’s identity project and supporting infrastructure leading youth to pursue higher education first in their family.

I take a culturally sensitive approach towards the concept of educational choice, considering it from a symbolic perspective. Rather than being a completely rational process, choice is thought as symbolically constructed and results from a complex relationship between one’s circumstances, attainment, institutions and meanings regarding education [Ball et al., 2002]. Within the paper, I intend to demonstrate that educational choice should not be considered as unified and monolithic, but rather as guided by different cultural logics.

The research employs the concept of “agentic self” elaborated by Silva and Corse [2018] that considers three elements of personal agency responsible for upward mobility, namely – feeling of control over one’s life, orientations towards the future, and persistence. To build on the conceptual intuition that the particular self is being developed through ongoing social interactions with person’s immediate environment and institutions [Mead, 1934], I incorporate the concept of cultural guides [Lareau, 2015] to capture the role of a student’s network in making choices within educational field.

The research is empirically based on a series of biographical interviews with Russian first-generation students (sample size is 35 interviews) collected during May, 2023. Geography of the sample covers one region (Chelyabinskaya oblast’) characterized by industrial and innovative economy and highly educated population. According to the national statistics, the region in question is reckoned as a “student” region, taking the 9th place in number of higher education students. In terms of analytical procedures, the research is guided by structural hermeneutics that aims at uncovering deep cultural structures – frames, narratives and schemas – that lay the ground for meaning-making processes [Alexander, Smith, 2002].

I uncover three narratives of the self that allow for a successful transition to higher education among working-class students: self-realization, incident and pragmatic narratives, each providing individuals with different explanatory frameworks behind their choice. Each narrative is characterized by different nature of student’s agency, as well as interpretations of higher education and its role for success on the labor market. I also find that developing and performing a particular narrative is supported by symbolic and social resources, namely, students’ high performance at school and support by parents and teachers. High achievements along with the help of cultural guides serve to construct the effective narrative of the self that allows first to consider the option of entering higher education and later to elaborate a strategy for a successful enrollment. I thus show that a deficit-based approach to explore first-generation students’ educational pathways provides only a limited understanding of their life choices and fails to fully explain the cultural mechanisms that enact upward mobility.

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