Introduction

This book is the outcome of a longitudinal qualitative study, the Paired Peers project, which followed the progress of a cohort of young people throughout their undergraduate study and beyond into the labour market and future lives. A key goal of the research was to compare the experiences of young people from workingclass and middle-class backgrounds.

While there have been major quantitative studies of graduate origins and destinations (Brown, 2006; Brown and Tannock, 2009; Purcell et al, 2009, 2013; Brown et al, 2010; Elias et al, 2021), there has been less qualitative work on graduate careers, especially of a longitudinal nature. Burke's (2016) and Tholen's (2017) studies are notable exceptions, along with Lehman's (2019, 2021) work in Canada. Very little is known about the complexity of graduate labour market transitions at the end of the 2010s, beyond the data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) through the former DLHE and the current Graduate Outcomes surveys, which have captured graduate destinations at six and 15 months respectively. Our study affords an opportunity to analyse processes, opportunities and strategies – and to allow individuals to reflect on what they are doing – in a way that no other data can (Corden and Millar, 2007). The existence of a well-motivated cohort of participants provided a unique opportunity to study in real depth the lives and values of a new generation of graduates, as well as their transitions to adult lives in a post-recessionary context, at a time of national and global change in the nature of jobs and occupations.

Participants in the research all studied at either UWE or the UoB in Bristol. Bristol is the largest city in the south-west of England. Located just over 100 miles west of London, Bristol's economy in the 21st century is built on the creative media, technology, electronics and aerospace industries. Like many UK cities, Bristol has two universities: UWE, a modern university and a former polytechnic, with a focus on both teaching and research; and the UoB, a traditional ‘redbrick’ university (that is, one of those founded in the 19th or early 20th centuries in major British cities), which is a member of the ‘elite’ Russell group of universities in the UK. Participants in the research presented in this book studied at one or other of these two universities.