The risky business of choosing a high school

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Drawing on literature about risk and individualization, as well as previous studies of quasi‐markets in education, our study focuses on two questions: first, how do middle–class parents and their children respond to the risks associated with choosing a high school? And second, how do they construct their identities through the choice process? Interview findings suggest that pressures on parents and students to individualize risk tend to reinforce socially structured inequalities and encourage the commodification of social relations. Although students and parents resist the individualizing discourse of risk to varying degrees, the dominant tendency is for choosers to attempt to colonize the future by drawing on their social and cultural capital. If more equitable choice processes and outcomes are desired therefore, attempts must be made to collectivize risk.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: