The ideal subject within the neoliberal narrative will invest in themselves and their futures; are adept at being flexible and making calculated choices; and are individually responsible for the consequences of those choice, whether good or ill. Mirowski in describing the ideal neoliberal subject paints a picture of an individual who is not simply
…an employee or student, but also simultaneously a product to be sold, a walking advertisement, a manager of [their] résumé, a biographer of
[their] rationales, and an entrepreneur of [their] possibilities […] provisionally buying the person [they] must soon become. (Mirowski, 2013: 108)
For the enterprising subject, almost every act becomes a sellable advantage in a competitive world. Neoliberal competition is increasingly enacted within higher education not just between institutions, but also students. For example, the student who plays for their university football team may begin doing so simply because they enjoy playing the sport and like the social aspect of being in a team, however those intrinsic reasons are placed in the background
(though they do not disappear) when the student is encouraged to think about how they may ‘stand out’ in a competitive job market: suddenly playing on the football team becomes an investment in their human capital, an experience of gaining employable skills such as leadership, team work and the ability to cope under pressure.
How students understand and enact this competition will be affected by their social context. Students’ social worlds are varied, drawing on experiences from university and from their lives before they entered higher education. Some students find that their previous experience and their university experiences complement each other well, while for others the difference seem vast, as various studies have illustrated (Bourdieu, 1988; Bradley et al., 2013; Reay, Crozier and Clayton, 2009; Reay, David and Bell, 2005). Such studies suggest that students with a habitus more acquiescent to the expectations of higher education enter it with an inherent advantage over those whose previous frame of reference has not encouraged study and contemplation. As Diane Reay (2012: 592) has argued, ‘educational inequalities are inextricably bound
up with social inequalities’. The neoliberal narrative conceals these structural inequalities. In unearthing them, it is useful to apply Bourdieu’s theory of
capitals.
Bourdieu’s capitals extend beyond monetary values, and include ‘all forms of power, whether material, cultural, social or symbolic’ (Swartz, 1997: 73). Capitals are in some respects akin to material goods, possessing exchange- and use-values, but instead of generating economic capital they also generate prestige and status (Sayer, 1999). Andrew Sayer (2005a: 142) observes that this status can be both non-instrumental – a genuine belief that their goods are better – and instrumental, ‘because the more these goods are desired by others the greater the profit that the dominant can derive from monopolising them’. It is a flaw in Bourdieu’s theory that he suggests almost every action taken by individuals is calculated in relation to these capitals and how best to use them to gain advantage (Sayer, 1999). While the use of these capitals may not always be so calculated, what is of interest when conceptualising the ideal neoliberal subject is discovering whether, and if so how, individuals may actively attempt to increase their various capital, in order to give themselves a competitive edge, particularly through higher education. Young people from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds face more obstacles in higher education, and certain institutions are still seen as beyond the reach of such students (Basit and Tomlinson, 2014; Bradley et al, 2013; De Vries, 2014; Savage, 2015). While the narrative of widening participation focuses on
getting disadvantaged students into higher education, there has been less emphasis on where they study, and the type of experience they have while at university (Reay, Crozier and Clayton, 2009). As university degrees become
more commonplace, the focus has shifted to where a student studied, with
graduates of so-called prestigious universities – such as those in the Russell
Group – have an advantage in the graduate job market.
The prestige of these institutions is based on measures other universities cannot compete with, such as an institutional culture orientated towards research, nurtured over decades that generates an international reputation; a network of alumni who, having graduated from such universities, look on applicants from them more favourably (De Vries, 2014); and finally a higher entry grade tariff, justified by the reputation of being academic, research-led institutions. In comparison other universities, particularly those that received
university status after 1992, do not have the same prestige and may be
perceived to offer ‘devalued degrees’ (Bourdieu et al, 1999).
The point of entry grades is important. It not only means that students from disadvantaged backgrounds need to work harder to get into these universities (Jerrim, 2013; Reay, Crozier and Clayton, 2009), but it also reinforces the idea
that students with higher grades are better than other students. As Bourdieu
(2008: 72) observes, education as a social mechanism derives ‘a large part of [its] effectiveness to the fact that [achievement is] misunderstood.
[…F]amilies believe […] that personal gifts and merit, rather than
environment, are solely responsible for educational success’. The result of this misunderstanding is that, as Jay MacLeod (2009: 14) comments, ‘schools serve as the trading post where socially valued cultural capital is parlayed into superior academic performance’. This is likewise true of universities, though we may now argue that ‘superior academic performance’ is then parlayed into
higher human capital. This shift comes as universities become sites of enterprise as well as academia. As Paul Verhaeghe (2014: 163) suggests, if ‘young people must regard themselves as enterprises, and see knowledge and skills above all in economic terms – that is, as something they can use to
increase their market value’, the cultural capital once associated with
education, becomes diluted into another aspect of Becker’s human capital. If we take it from Bourdieu (1986) that practices and goods that are valued have
to be rare or difficult to acquire, it follows that a degree from a high tariff
university9 would be seen as having more worth than a degree from a
university that could be branded as ‘easier’. The test of this would be how far the choice of applying to a prestigious university was based predominantly on the hope of expanding one’s knowledge and critical thinking skills, and how far it was based on gaining an edge in the job market. The ideal neoliberal student would arguably follow the latter reasoning.
Implied in this description of the ideal neoliberal subject is the implication of
a neoliberal Other: an unideal subject. The existence of a student Other is
important: as Hall (1996: 4) notes, identities are constructed ‘through, not outside, difference’. The easy explanation of who the student Other is would be someone who has not been to university and can be found in the
villainisation of sections of the working class (Jones, 2011; Tyler, 2013). Skivers, teenage mums, unaspirational NEETs, and chavs might seem a world away from university students, but the stark dichotomy between these two types of subject offers an interesting insight into why some students –
9 The sector term for such institutions are ‘highly selective universities’, which itself implies a competitive element.
especially those from a lower socio-economic background – might construct themselves into neoliberal students. We may expect to see a level of value judgement attached to these student Others. As Sayer (2005a: 123) suggests: ‘“the construction of identities” is not merely about the aesthetics of lifestyle but about moral worth and recognition,’ and so it may be that the Other are
looked on as being somehow less than those students who have pulled
themselves up.