Indledning
One would think that willpower, motivation and hard work would be the key to improving one’s life with regard to education, jobs and living opportunities.
That is, the ones who most wanted to succeed would be the ones who would achieve it. But no. To cut a long story short: in countless countries, it is simply not the case.
One of these countries is Britain. In Britain, children’s chances in life do not depend on their willpower and motivation. It depends on where they live.
Uddrag
Your background locks you up. Either you can live on the minimum wage from the first job opportunity that arrives or take up unpaid internships.
According to one of the very few from the working class who made it into Oxbridge, living socially mobile is not as one expects:
”I thought the mantra was that if we worked hard, we would get ahead. I never thought that getting ahead would mean walking across London to work for free in restaurants and bars in my late twenties, to do the career that I love”.
So what are the working-class left with? First, the opportunity to keep living a life in the working class as a ”treadmill family”. Lastly, to be socially mobile while living a backbreaking life in transit.