Seminar with Prof. Ábel Bereményi on Wednesday, March 12th, from 12:30 to 14:00!
Date: Wednesday , March 12th Time: 12:30 - 14:00
Location: Room SM 101, Faculty of Social Sciences, Sint-Jacobstraat 2, 2000 Antwerpen
This presentation examined the school choices of families who had recently experienced downward mobility during the economic crisis in Spain. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we analysed the families’ educational strategies within a Bourdieusian framework, focusing on how they coped with the loss of their perceived social status. Before the 2008 global crisis, these families—originally from working-class backgrounds—had improved their social position by accumulating economic capital, while only modestly increasing their social and cultural capital. When confronted with downward social mobility, the families’ concerns became evident in the tensions surrounding their school choices, as they resisted and negotiated over a school’s ownership, social composition and perceived quality. For them, school symbolically represented a last resort—an indispensable investment in their own futures and that of the next generation.
