Getting Ahead? New Perspectives on Class and Social Mobility for Young People

As class inequality rages throughout the world, realities of class have come to structure young people’s lives in new and transforming ways. Yet the ubiquitous nature of these unequal conditions, and the relational premise of class itself, means these effects are felt most viscerally in relationships with the people, places and practices of everyday life. This session calls for papers that explore new and emerging forms of class inequality in global and transnational contexts and how these are reshaping and challenging young adult and intergenerational projects of social mobility in different places and conditions. This may include (but is not limited to) themes such as:

• Intersections between migration and social mobility and young people’s projects of class (im)mobility and desire across borders.
• The role of family and/or asset wealth in reshaping class relations and trajectories and how these interact with traditional class markers for young people. (This may include intersections of family wealth with migration trajectories, such as the role of family financial support in youth transnational mobilities).
• Youth engagement with new global forms and infrastructures of finance technologies, assets and wealth (e.g. fintech practices; influencer economies) and the promises of class mobility they offer.
• Young adults’ social or intimate relationships across class difference and how these are navigated and sustained to manage class inequality at the interpersonal level (e.g. cross-class friendships formed at university; in the workplace; in expat communities).