The concept of social mobility places great emphasis on individual effort- being told that if you work hard then you will earn more money and thus ‘climb up’ the social ladder. ‘You’ not ‘we’, and this is the problem. In our efforts to move up in society, we neglect our roots, we neglect each other. You might go to university and land a graduate role that sees you moving out of your small working-class town into a bustling city in which Pret is the new Cooplands, Harrods the new Debenhams, oat milk lattes the new builders brew (i.e., middle-class)… But, what about all the kids who don’t ‘make it?’
While you’re making Oxbridge ‘look good’, the tokenistic working-class student serving to ease their conscience regarding accusations of being elitist — ‘Look, we are inclusive! Here is one working-class lesbian girl in this room of 100 upper class cis-het men’ — what about all the people who are left behind because they couldn’t afford to move away?