Working-class fractions and practical rationalities in the choice of upper secondary education

Abstract

This chapter explores how working-class students make sense of their upper secondary educational transitions. By means of in-depth qualitative interviews with students in Barcelona and Madrid, it identifies different working-class fractions, or sub-groups, with different amounts of economic, social and cultural capital to support their choices and transitions. It explores the classed nature of young people’s educational trajectories and demonstrates the effects of the multiple forms of school (dis)engagement on working-class students’ upper secondary choices. The chapter also inquires into the classed nature of educational aspirations by examining the internal heterogeneity among working-class students in how they imagine and enact their future prospects. Overall, the chapter contributes to understand the complexity and diversity within the working class and to identify the multiple, contradictory and non-linear ways in which it affects young people’s rationalities in their choice of upper secondary education.