Interview Structure

As the interviews have been conducted using an in-depth strategy, the questions were open-ended to allow discussion to be as fluid as possible and enable the participants to define and demonstrate their own understanding of the world (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008). Interview questions revolved around

family and educational background, mothering, views on feminism and equal rights, thoughts on the class system and ideas on how the 2012 higher education tuition fee rise will affect future university applications. The responses to the questions determined whether further inquiry was made on a particular point or if the discussion was taken in a different direction.

The interviews were broadly unstructured, to enable the participants to speak openly and without interruption on areas of their education, work and life experiences that were important for them to share with me. All of the interviews started with an ‘ice-breaker’ such as ‘Can you tell me a little about yourself and your family?’ to encourage a comfortable, flowing conversation. Some of the participants were pre-prepared with information prompted by the introductory letter (see Appendix II). This included their views on education, university and family. For instance, in response to the ice-breaker, Victoria’s (daughter) reply was: ‘OK, my name is […], I’m 23 years old, education … I went to a private primary school and an ordinary secondary school. I have a degree in Classics. At the moment I am unemployed and looking for a job. That’s me at the moment’. Victoria’s answer allowed me to respond to her schooling background from the beginning of the interview. In contrast, Suzie (daughter) did not pre-empt any questions and began our discussion with ‘I’m 21 and I’ve got a Mum, Dad, sister and dog’, necessitating a different approach by starting our conversation about her family background.

All interviewees were asked questions covering a range of topics, which kept the process ‘fresh’. The conversations for each participant differed from one interviewee to another, depending on their life experience and subsequent answers. As an example, the women who have worked or who are currently working were able to elaborate on their past and present employment and working conditions. In contrast, the daughters who went to university straight from school and have never worked would have been unable to answer such questions. These daughters needed more nuanced questioning, based on their perception of work in the future. In parallel fashion, women who have children commented on motherhood from experience and from a different

perspective to women without children, some of whom discussed aspects of mothering from a speculative stance.

Not surprisingly, the women who had experience in particular areas of their lives were able to discuss their viewpoints at length. Chris (mother) shared with me her background and the reasons why she was a feminist and her transcript in this area ran into several pages. By contrast, Jenny (mother) did not engage so easily in this area of questioning and her response to the question ‘Would you consider yourself a feminist?’ was ‘No, I wouldn’t consider myself a feminist or I’d be out there making a point, wouldn’t I?’ Although I was able to discuss feminism with all the participants, the questions were posed differently to allow for personalised starting points and importantly, to respect each participants’ individuality. In the introductory letter (see Appendix II) I had stated that I was hoping to address the areas of higher education, family, social class and feminism or equal rights. I went into the interviews with a mental note of those subjects, prepared to prompt a response if the topics were not addressed spontaneously.

Bertaux (1981) suggests a good interview is where the interviewee is able to speak openly and fluently, allowing the respondents as much time and space as possible to reply. This technique avoids leading questions. Bertaux’s approach suggests the respondent should not be led or coerced into giving a particular response. After reading Becker’s Tricks of the Trade (1982), consideration was given as to ‘why’ in a research interview context can appear to prompt the participant into feeling the need to justify their answers and sometimes make them guarded in their replies. My questions subsequently changed from ‘Why would you say that?’ into ‘Can you explain that further to me?’ which was much less confrontational and appeared to make the participants more comfortable in their responses.

All participants, with the exception of three, answered the questions around class and feminism, sometimes with difficulty or great thought. Suzanne, Samantha and Taruh declined to put themselves into a category. Some participants queried the question they were asked, responding with questions

like ‘How do you define middle class?’ [Jenny] or ‘What is a feminist then?’ [Steph]. This enabled me to open up further discussion about what it means to them to identify with a certain class or to be a feminist. It also gave the respondents time to reflect on their answers. Due to the use of an inductive method of analysing and organising the accumulated data (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005), the option was left open to be able to return to the participants for further information or if a new theme emerged that needed further exploration. The participants were also left my full contact details in case they wished to discuss any issues that arose before, during or after the interview. The participants’ knowledge that part of my identity was as a mother meant that the interviews were often informal and conversational and this brought a new perspective to the research when participants regarded me, the interviewer, as a ‘friend’ (Rogers, 2003). This allowed some participants to immerse themselves in a conversation more readily as they knew that my first-hand experience of their role made me receptive to their stories.

During analysis of the data, I recognised that the welcome I received from many of my participants often meant that researcher/participant relationship became a personal one, albeit on a short-lived and superficial level (Rogers, 2003). Rogers (2003) experienced this blurring of the researcher/friend first hand, when a participant from her research called six months after their interview to ‘catch up’. In this way, the participant had re-positioned herself as an insider to the researcher’s life. Such interpretations and understandings are often inherent in qualitative, narrative enquiry (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005).

As discussed in Chapter Two, while I was writing this thesis, Savage et al. (2013) published research findings that identified new class rankings based on economic, social and cultural capital. The new model of class moves away from the widely used National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS- SEC) that had established the most commonly acknowledged groupings of working, middle and upper classes (Atkinson, 2012). Savage et al.’s (2013) new social class model has not been applied to this research for two reasons. Firstly, one of the measures of class under Savage et al.’s (ibid.) ranking

system includes a knowledge of income levels, a question I did not ask my participants. I was interested in their educational outcomes rather than their employment terms. Secondly, as outlined above, the participants self defined their class position, i.e. working or middle class etc., in line with NS-SEC classifications. The notion of class within this research is therefore operationalised using class-based references based on the original NS-SEC bandings, in order that any analyses made are concurrent with the method in which the information was collected. There was insufficient data collected on the participants’ occupation to have accurately used Savage et al.’s (ibid.) seven-tier model.