Schools, choice and reputation: Local school markets and the distribution of symbolic capital in segregated cities

Abstract

An exploration is presented of how urban spaces, polarized by class and ethnicity, structure the basic conditions of emerging local school markets. The authors investigate how the distribution of symbolic capital, or ‘hot knowledge’ of the market, affects schools, the market, and the urban spaces themselves. The study is guided by theoretical notions involving lived local school markets, competitive spaces and symbolic capital. Methodologically, the study is based on ethnographic fieldwork at three compulsory schools in Stockholm. Analytically, the ways in which relations among urban spaces and school choice, and actors’ perceptions of these relations, affect the actors’ subsequent positioning in the local market, are illustrated. The authors’ main conclusion is that despite nationally defining principles mandating fairness, transparency and integration, school choice policy is being implemented on an uneven playing field, aggravating current patterns of segregation in education and even housing. Consequently, a call is made for an urgent reframing of some of the policy’s nationally defining principles.

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