Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5673/sip.55.2.2
Different Residential Origin of Students and their Intention to Study - Capital and the Symbolic Value of the Family and the Community where One Grew Up
Olgica Klepač
Abstract
Education is one of the main mechanisms for upward social and geographical mobility for
students from rural areas. Studies in the countries with great rural areas recorded dynamic
educational trends along with the demographic and economic ones. The comparison of students
from rural/urban areas on different educational outcomes indicate that students from
rural areas have lower aspirations and test scores, and in smaller numbers start the four-year
study and graduate. However, the question of whether and how rurality contributes to unequal
educational opportunities remains open. The main objective of the paper is to examine
the differences in educational outcomes and orientation for students of different residential
origin in the Croatian context. Furthermore, the role of rurality is discussed in search of
possible explanations for found differences. The frame of Bourdieu’s theory of practice,
consisting of concepts of cultural, social, economic capital, habitus and field, is expanded by
the interest in spatial inequalities of educational opportunities with respect to the students’
residential origin. The particular emphasis is placed on examining the symbolic value that
the family, school and the growing up community contexts have for students. The work includes
a descriptive and comparative analysis (chi-square, t-test) of the survey data collected
in the spring of 2014 on a representative sample of the graduates of three- and four-year high
schools in the region of Slavonia (N=439). The analysis confirms the assumed urban-rural
differences in the students’ intention to study, their educational orientation as well as various
levels of available cultural and economic capital. It also confirms the importance of the growing
up and schooling context for students of different residential origin.
Keywords
residential origin; educational opportunities; urban-rural differences; the students’ capital; the symbolic value of the family/community of growing up
Hrčak ID:
159888
URI
Publication date:
13.6.2016.
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