Despite that higher education (HE) has been accessible to most social classes in society, HE continues to be a propellor for reproduction of social inequality. Numerous studies have demonstrated how social differentiation, whose previous demarcation line was whether to pursue HE or not, has penetrated into the HE system (Bathmaker et al., 2016; Ingram, 2023; Persson, 2022). This study (Persson, 2022) explored how a group of novice students navigated through an academic professional program positioned in the social mid-level of the Swedish HE hierarchy at one of the post99 universities. The students had different class backgrounds and different acquired educational capital (grades, SweSAT-results), which reflected the fragility of their positions as university students. In empirical terms, this meant that the students experienced social frictions both in relation to the HE field they entered and in relation to their social background. Four different combinations of frictions crystallized. Firstly, students who didn’t experienced any social frictions (Fish in Water), secondly, students who experienced social frictions both in relation to HE and social background (Two-Front Battle), thirdly, students who experienced social friction regarding their social background but not in relation to HE (Voluntary Exile), and fourthly, students who experienced social friction in relation to HE but not in relation to their social background (Behind Enemy Lines). The study demonstrates how social frictions can be traced back to the chosen educational program and university’s social position in the Swedish HE field, a field that is not as overtly hierarchically organized as, for example, the British (Bathmaker et al., 2016) or French (Winkler & Sackmann). The results of the study show how social class differences are reproduced through the HE, even when formal barriers of a social nature have been eliminated. The study’s panel design further illustrates how class-related frictions and conflicts change as students gain experiences from university life. This involves both social frictions that are eliminated as well as amplified. The observed social frictions and how they change can be understood as an expression of what Bourdieu has presented as hysteresis (e.g. Bourdieu, 1977[1972]; Bourdieu, 2000[1997]; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), a concept borrowed from physics that describes how individuals continue to act as if they are living in a past social condition despite entering a new one. This type of behavior generates friction and conflict because the individual’s actions do not align with the social expectations and norms surrounding the individual. Bourdieu (2008[2004]) has described this state as the individual being equipped with a cleft habitus and which has since been used and developed within the sociology of education (e.g., Abrahams & Ingram, 2013; Decoteau, 2016; Friedman, 2014; Ingram, 2011; Persson, 2022; 2024).  The study also makes a scholarly contribution to how habitus can be used in empirical research without disregarding its inherent inertia or changing potential. Social frictions related to the social fields that individuals move between and how these changes over time are a promising avenue in understanding how students approach an expanded and socially differentiated HE field.   

Abrahams, J. & Ingram, N. (2013). The Chameleon Habitus: Exploring Local Students’ Negotiations of Multiple Fields. Sociological Research Online, 18(4), 1–14 

Bathmaker, A-M., Ingram, N., Abrahams, J., Hoare, A., Waller, R. & Bradley, H. (2016). Higher Education, Social Class and Class Mobility. The Degree Generation. London: Palgrave Macmillan 

Bourdieu, P. (1977[1972]). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 

Bourdieu, P. (2000[1997]). Pascalian Mediations. Cambridge: Polity Press Bourdieu, P. (2008[2004]). Sketch for a Self-Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press 

Bourdieu, P. & Wacquant, L. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 

Decoteau, C.L. (2016). The reflexive habitus: Critical realist and Bourdieusian social action. European Journal of Social Theory, 19(3), 303–321 

Friedman, S. (2014). The Price of the Ticket: Rethinking the Experience of Social Mobility. Sociology, 48(2), 352–368 

Ingram, N. (2011). Within School and Beyond the Gate: The Complexities of Being Educationally Successful and Working Class, Sociology, 45(2), 287–302 

Ingram, N., Bathmaker, A-M., Abrahams, J., Bentley, L., Bradley, H., Hoare, T., Papafilippou, V. & Waller, R. (2023). The Degree Generation. The Making of Unequal Graduate Lives. Bristol: Bristol University Press 

Persson, M. (2022). Crossing a social demarcation line: Students experience friction in the transformed Swedish higher education system. International Studies in Sociology of Education 

Persson, M. (2024, forthcoming). What about Hysteresis? An Empirical Approach to the Sluggish Nature and the Changing Potential of Habitus 

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Winkler, O. & Sackmann, R. (2020). Degrees of ’elitness’ in higher education systems: A comparison between Germany and France. Higher Education Quarterly, 74, pp. 353–372