‘Making their Minds Up’: family dynamics of school choice

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Using data from a study of parental choice of secondary education, this paper reports and analyses the dynamics of choice‐making within families. Bernstein's work on positional and person‐oriented family types is deployed to illuminate some social class differences in choice‐making which are identified in the research sample. Some paradoxes are identified in the ‘control’ of choice within families which are related to more general processes of class socialisation and class power. The role of gender in the dynamics of choice is also discussed. The analysis highlights different forms of class engagement with the education market.