Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class? We address this question by drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, 36 of whom are from middle-class backgrounds but identify as working class or long-range upwardly mobile. Our findings indicate that this misidentification is rooted in a self-understanding built on particular ‘origin stories’ which act to downplay interviewees’ own, fairly privileged, upbringings and instead forge affinities to working-class extended family histories. Yet while this ‘intergenerational self’ partially reflects the lived experience of multigenerational upward mobility, it also acts – we argue – as a means of deflecting and obscuring class privilege. By positioning themselves as ascending from humble origins, we show how these interviewees are able to tell an upward story of career success ‘against the odds’ that simultaneously casts their progression as unusually meritocratically legitimate while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their trajectory.

为什么有特权阶级背景的人经常将自己的出身误认为工人阶级？为了解决这个问题，我们对175名来自专业和管理职业的人进行了采访，其中有36名来自中产阶级背景，但被视为工人阶级或长期向上流动的人。我们的发现表明，这种误认根植于对特定“起源故事”的理解，这种理解是对被访者自己的，相当特权的，养育的轻描淡写，而是建立了对工人阶级大家庭历史的亲和力。然而，尽管这种“代际自我”在一定程度上反映了多代人向上流动的生活经验，但我们也认为，它也是一种偏离和掩盖阶级特权的手段。通过将自己定位为从卑微的起点升起，