This article investigates the situation of Swedish upper secondary school students who have been subject to distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. We understand the transition from onsite education to distance education as a recontextualization of pedagogical practice, our framing follows loosely concepts from Bernstein. Given that the field of upper secondary education is highly socially structured it is relevant to enquire into the social dimensions of distance education. For this purpose, we have analysed answers to an open-ended question in a survey answered by 3,726 students, and related them to a cluster analysis distinguishing three main clusters of students: urban upper-middle-class, immigrant working-class, and rural working-class. The urban upper-middle-class students experienced problems decoding new requirements and were troubled by blurred boundaries between school and home. This group invests the most in schooling, and therefore expresses comparatively more anxiety for reaching anticipated achievements. Immigrant working-class students were comparatively more discontented by a lack of school support | 551 LIDEGRAN Et AL.
We seek to consider the use of Pierre Bourdieu's 'cultural capital' within Swedish sociology of education focusing on the adoption of the term and asking how the 'cultural capital' is related to the specific context in Sweden. Here we consider the historical context and disciplinary route through which the concept travelled. The Swedish educational system promoted the ideal of meritocracy: everyone had an equal chance to access education, which in turn should facilitate social mobility. Even if the economic barriers to accessing education had been removed and higher education was available, social equality had not been achieved. The concept of cultural capital allowed for precise analyses of social groups' use of the education system. The studies were able to show that the meritocratic ideal also concealed an inequality, where the school's embrace of culture was something different from, and more than, what the teaching was supposed to convey.
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