Idolized or spurned, the "elites" are a prominent talking point in political debates. Their advocates claim they have rare, exceptional qualities; meanwhile, their foes deem them guilty of everything wrong with the world. The social sciences, free of such extreme passions, have connected the study of elites with the study of power. Like all other social groups, the elites may be subject to multiple investigations, drawing on tried and tested methods (archival research, interviews, observations, statistical analysis, etc.). As Shamus Kahn puts it, "Being an elite is not a mere possession or something 'within' an actor (skills, talents, and human capital); it is an embodied performative act enabled by both possessions and the inscriptions that accompany experiences within elite institutions (schools, clubs, families, networks, etc.)" (Khan 2011, p. 136). However, the elites are not only characterized by their exclusive social circles: their power is related to institutions and pre-exists them. Access to dominant positions requires a set of dedicated properties and a constant effort to conform to expected standards, values and behaviors. Whether power is political, economic, familial, military or religious in nature, the social sciences analyze an unequal distribution of resources legitimated by institutions (the Firm, the Church, the State, the School, the Party, etc.) and highlight two key processes: differentiation and hierarchization. On the one hand, we have societies where an increasingly pronounced division of labor results in distinct
Drawing on empirical data regarding educational strategies among internationally mobile families in the Stockholm-Uppsala region, this study questions the notion of a global middle class. First, a quantitative analysis shows that immigrating middle class professionals and their children are few, having marginal impact on the demand for international education. Furthermore, they far from constitute a homogeneous class, instead comprising of fractions opting for different types of schools. A second, qualitative study on capital conversion among mobile families illustrates that even well-educated international movers face serious challenges converting their existing knowledge, skills and contacts into well-informed social, professional and educational strategies in their new context. This suggests the limitations of concepts such as international capital. It is argued that the GMC concept overshadows the fact that social groups within the middle classes have varying degrees of international mobility that constitutes just one dimension of what separates them from each other.
What were the main reasons behind deciding to carry out research on elites? There were three main factors influencing the direction that my research took. The first one can be found in my family origin; the second is related to my political orientation that was formed during the time of the leftist student movement in Germany in the 60s and 70s; and the last one is what you can call chance, circumstances that very well could have turned out differently from what they did. Starting with chance, my early career went very fast. At the age of 30, I got my habilitation, the dozentur; at 32, I had my first university position as a guest professor. You can be fortunate, even if you have no bonds to an academic network that protects you and even if you, being a leftist as myself, are an outsider. However, my luck ended. So, I suddenly found myself unemployed for almost one year, without having any plan B. Then the employment office suddenly offered me a position at the Law Faculty in Bochum, which I accepted. I had two small children to take care of and made a deal with the faculty: since I lived 130 kilometres from Bochum, I could work from home two or three days a week on two conditions. I had to lecture about the sociology of law, and I had to raise research funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG). At that time, two big databases had newly been created comprising court cases, Juris and Solis. There was an interest in knowing to what extent they were actually consulted by lawyers in their practice. I made a research project funded by the DFG that showed that no lawyers outside the insurance branch ever used them. I did interviews, about 100, all in very big corporations. I had to do a sample, so in the major branches of the German economy, I selected two of the three leading companies; for example, BMW in the auto industry, Bayer in the chemical industry, the
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