Abstract

The modest educational outcomes of working-class youth in part derive from receiving lower grades on average in school but also from making less prestigious educational choices when they perform at the same level as their middle-class peers.

While working-class youth from most immigrant backgrounds similarly tend to perform less well in school than their majority peers, they paradoxically tend to make more ambitious educational choices, often even before controlling for their social background. One of the most well-supported explanations for these high ambitions is the typical above-average parental educational level in the country of origin at time of emigration, which children of immigrants are thought to be primed to reproduce. However, exactly how this reproduction process plays out in the educational trajectories and experiences of children of immigrants remains insufficiently understood.

The study presented in this seminar draws upon Bourdieu’s conceptualization of conflicting symbolic inheritance to analyze the life histories of 34 students from Swedish and immigrant backgrounds who are the first in their family to access higher education. It shows how the different socio-cultural environments in which these students were socialized impacted their educational aspirations and choices, as well as how they retrospectively assess their educational experiences and trajectories.

By comparing students from immigrant and native backgrounds and by focusing on early socialization and parental expectations, the study contributes to a more fine-grained sociological knowledge about the underlying mechanisms that this process of reproduction hinges upon, as well as a more nuanced understanding of the variety of factors that can come to mediate the effects of class on educational decisions and experiences.

For more information, contact Martin Hällsten, martin.hallsten@sociology.su.se