‘It’s like two Europes here, the West and the East’. Belonging and fitting in at an elite graduate school

Abstract

While there has been a proliferation of research on the experiences of nonelite students in elite settings, scholarly attention has predominantly focused on institutions like the Ivy League or Oxbridge, leaving other geographical locales, notably in Europe, understudied. Past research has primarily concentrated on the initial entry to higher education, with limited attention given to postgraduate levels, which this study aims to remedy. Through interviews with a cohort of final-year Ph.D. students at a highly prestigious European graduate school, this paper specifically delves into the social integration of Eastern European students navigating their fit among a predominantly Western European, elite- university-educated student body. Employing the concept of 'segregated inclusion,’ the study illustrates how cultural and socio-economic differences contribute to stratified social relationships, ultimately impacting the extent to which Eastern European students can leverage their membership in an elite university.