Forming a respectable self in high school

In our post-modern societies social mobility is one of the grounding principles of meritocracy along with neo-liberal imaginaries emphasizing individual responsibilities of future possibilities. The education system in the Nordic countries is a field where everyone should enjoy their merits and reac...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Magnúsdóttir, Berglind Rós, Garðarsdóttir, Unnur Edda
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: School of Social Sciences 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/tf/article/view/3867
Description
Summary:In our post-modern societies social mobility is one of the grounding principles of meritocracy along with neo-liberal imaginaries emphasizing individual responsibilities of future possibilities. The education system in the Nordic countries is a field where everyone should enjoy their merits and reach their potential regardless of their origin. As Bourdieu and other critical scholars have pointed out, this elite educational process seems more complicated for the students who have not been raised in a bourgeois middle-class family. The analysis presented here reveals that Iceland is no exemption from that. The article is based on a qualitative dataset of 48 students from 10 upper-secondary schools. Half of the schools are highly selective schools in urban areas and a quarter of the participating students happened to have blue-collar and/or rural backgrounds. The analysis focuses on the interplay between habitus and field, with a focus on the habitus that is not like ‘fish in the water’; how it is transformed in a field of education that is expected to be empowering in terms of access to capitals of the ruling classes. The research shows that this process was full of contradictive emotions, such as shame, guilt, pride and relief, when the students found ways to distance themselves from their roots and form the respectable self. Í greininni eru greind þau félagslegu og tilfinningalegu átök sem framhaldsskólanemendur upplifa þegar þau ganga í menntaskóla sem þau hafa lært að sé bæði merkilegri og fínni en þeir staðir sem þau hafa fram að því alið manninn á. Þetta eru nemendur sem eiga ekki uppruna sinn í táknrænum heimi borgaralega hvítflibbans heldur koma úr þorpinu eða sveitinni eða eiga sér bláflibbabakgrunn. Nýtt er hugtakalíkan Bourdieu til að greina þá hvata sem verða til þegar veruhátt og vettvang skortir samhljóm og það þykir virðingarvert að laga sig að vettvangi. Gagnasöfnun fór fram á árunum 2017-2019 og voru tekin djúpviðtöl við 48 stúdentsefni í 10 framhaldsskólum, þar af fjórir landsbyggðarskólar. ...