Dec 15: “Dismantling working-class imposterism within the academy”

Dec 15: “Dismantling working-class imposterism within the academy.” 2PM UK/9AM US EST

Join the Working-Class Studies Association in welcoming Rachael O'Connor for a free webinar. O’Connor is an Associate Professor, Legal Education, University Lead for Academic Personal Tutoring and Academic Lead for Reverse Mentoring at the University of Leeds, UK

In this virtual session, Rachael O’Connor will build on recent collaborative research and publications exploring the concept of ‘imposter syndrome’ in the context of UK law school settings and higher education more broadly. Raised in Hull, a port city in England’s North, O’Connor thought she knew nearby Leeds from teen excursions. She met Leeds’s other side at university, where she encountered a degree of privilege and wealth that her state school education had not familiarized her with. Attending law school heightened her awareness of class and her working-class status, as she says: “It seemed to me as a junior lawyer that everyone around me was made for that shiny corporate, international legal world and yet again – I was the imposter.”