Familiers kosmopolitiske uddannelsesstrategier - et spørgsmål om migration og investering i distinktiv kapital

Abstract

The Cosmopolitan Educational Strategies of Families. A Question of Migration and Investment in Distinctive Capital This paper shows that there is a strong correlation between social origin and attaining non-élite and especially élite education abroad for a group of long-term emigrants from Denmark. We suggest acquisition of distinctive educational capital abroad as a new investment and reconversion strategy that supplements the portfolio of (national) strategies developed by Bourdieu in La Noblesse d’État. In particular, people with highly educated parents have a greater tendency to obtain university education from an élite institution abroad, especially in ”zones of prestige”. Because England and the US have the greatest number of distinctive institutions of higher education, these countries are attracting the majority of Danes who emigrate for at least five years and obtain university education abroad. We suggest that the weaker selection into non-élite institutions reflects a sort of compensational strategy which leads to upward social educational mobility. Parents of children who migrate and undertake university education abroad have often studied or worked abroad themselves, so the intergenerational transmission of cosmopolitan capital follows the same pattern as the intergenerational transmission of the educational level. Furthermore, we find strong gender differences for instance with respect to motivations for studying abroad and the relative importance of father and mother with regard to educational achievement of the child.

Publication
Dansk Sociologi (Danish Sociology) 22 (3)