Family History, Class Practices and Habitus

Abstract

Given the dominance of ideas like ‘choice’, ‘diversity’ and ‘the market’ in educational policy and implementation, it is perhaps tempting to see secondary school choice through the most apparently simplistic of economic perspectives, as if it was best understood through choices made by rational, calculating individuals in an increasingly information-rich environment. Yet even the most casual of conversations with parents making such choices, or with school head teachers, or with young people, will quickly expose other kinds of consideration, and indicate that school choice is much more than a sum of intelligent use of market data and the odd pragmatic consideration. For this reason, we cannot begin to understand it unless we bring to bear some appropriate tools.