‘Graduate Blues’: Considering the Effects of Inverted Symbolic Violence on Underemployed Middle Class Graduates

Burke, Ciaran

Abstract

© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. The understanding of social reproduction, from a Bourdieusian perspective, is that the dominant typically reproduce their position in social space through various apparatus, such as the education system, to the detriment of the dominated group, who are unable to leave their own position, characterised by inequality and suffering. A key tool in achieving social reproduction is the process of symbolic violence; however, this article considers the effects of inverted symbolic violence. By following the trajectories of two middle class university graduates, this article will demonstrate the detrimental effect inverted symbolic violence has on their graduate employment trajectories. Respondents are depicted as having inflated subjective expectations incompatible with current objective realities within the labour market, resulting in a relatively downward, or unsuccessful, trajectory.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 24, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Aug 17, 2015
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 23, 2019
• Journal: Sociology
• Print ISSN: 0038-0385
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8684
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 393-409
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515596908
• Keywords: Bourdieu; inverted symbolic violence; graduate underemployment; labour market; middle class Author Name
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/3430061
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038515596908