The Experience of Class

Why is class still so central to the experience of living in Britain?

Entwined with class is the idea of aspiration, of social mobility, which is perceived as an unequivocally positive phenomenon for individuals and for society as a whole. Yet for the many who experience it, changing class is like emigrating from one side of the world to the other, a disruptive process that can leave people divided between the place they left and the place they have to inhabit in order to get on.

At the RSA, writer and journalist Lynsey Hanley explores the idea of class in Britain today, examining how people are kept apart, and keep themselves apart, and the costs involved in the journey from ‘there’ to ‘here’.