ERIC Number: EJ1110446
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Sep
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0141-8211
EISSN: N/A
The Embodiment of Class in the Croatian VET School System
Doolan, Karin; Lukic, Natalija; Bukovic, Nikola
European Journal of Education, v51 n3 p345-359 Sep 2016
This article engages with the notion that schools embody social class in their structures and practices. We draw on Bourdieu's critical concept of "field" to describe the larger landscape of Croatian secondary schooling: a stratified system whose routes serve, and have served, to reinforce the maintenance of class (under)privilege. We also draw on the concept of "institutional habitus", an analytical extension of Bourdieu's concept of "habitus" to school settings, in order to capture how schools produce and reproduce class distinctions through their status, expressive order, curriculum and organisational characteristics. We "load" these concepts with empirical meaning based on interview and focus group data we collected from students, teachers and parents in three, three-year vocational schools in Croatia, finding that these schools embody a working-class "habitus". Students in these schools tend to come from less privileged family backgrounds than students in four-year schools, practical subjects are prioritised over the academic, on-the-job training over school work and the schools are fairly under-resourced.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Social Class, Social Capital, Institutional Characteristics, Secondary Schools, Vocational Education, Student Attitudes, Teacher Attitudes, Parent Attitudes, Working Class, Interviews, Focus Groups, On the Job Training, Educational Resources
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Croatia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A