Contextualizing the Case Study

Abstract

Thus far, my analysis has focused on the macro-level. Initially, I explicated the ways social stratification has been theorized and then I shifted my focus onto some empirical applications and explorations of these macro-theories in the field of social mobility. Subsequently, I presented some major aspects of the Greek political economy, through a discussion of some key postwar socio-economic, political, and labor-market trends. I then offered a “dissection” of education, which was described as a pivotal institution in the molding of the postwar consensus that emerged in liberal democracies in the Western world, including Greece. The Greek context that was discussed in the first part of the book has to be viewed as the springboard of my exploration, as the canvas upon which the stories of the participants (chapters 7, 8 and 9) will be projected. However, these stories were collected from a specific community whose most salient characteristics are presented in this chapter. This entails a shift in my level of analysis, from the macro- to the meso-level. This is important in order to allow the reader to connect the discussion about the characteristics of Greece that preceded to those of the empirical research I conducted and I present in the following chapters.