Studying up also manifests differently in different contexts. It can also be an experience that makes one more deeply aware of one’s position as a researcher. Being an urban-educated, English-speaking woman, my habitus and my cultural, social, and linguistic capitals facilitated easier access to upper-class parents, some of whom were part of my social circle. In some sense and at least superficially, I functioned as an ‘insider’ to the class I was attempting to research. It is vital to acknowledge that the very ability to study elites at times rests on this positionality of the researcher. (Gaztambide-Fernández & Howard, 2012).

Gaztambide-Fernández and Howard (2012) also assert that the hierarchical relationship between the researcher and the participants is not distinct as the ‘outsider’ or ‘insider’. Instead, it is complex, and always  shifting based on various factors. Interviewing parents whom I knew personally for instance, was a far more comfortable experience than interviewing those I got to know through snowballing. In the latter instances, I became more of an ‘outsider’. It was in this second category that the upper-classness of participants weighed heavily on me. Fixing times to speak or meet, for instance, was hard as ‘potential informants are too busy to chat’ (Gusterson, 1997, p. 116). In fact, the literature on studying up came as a huge relief to me when I realised that my experience was the standard rite of passage when studying up. 

There were also other aspects of interviewing upper-class parents that stood out, such as their drawing boundaries or crossing them. For instance, to circumvent the discomfort of asking incomes to upper-class parents, I sent Google forms asking parents for biographical details and income ranges. However, the parents did not fill in information that seemed accurate, indicating that they were not comfortable revealing their incomes. The parents also clearly drew their boundaries and restricted my access to this information and I had to accept this limited access to data, as a feature of studying up. On the other hand, given their socio-economic status and educational background, most parents had at least a general sense—accurate or otherwise—of what research involves. As a result, some parents began the interviews by directing my attention to particular issues, offering suggestions such as, “You must write about this,” or “Do include this in your research.” It was also common for participants to question the focus of my research and offer their own ideas about what I should be studying.