A relevant subject in our globalized world concerns the relationship between language and identity, specifically amongst migrant youngsters’ experience of group belonging. This study therefore focused on how adolescents born to foreign parents in Sweden, perceived their multilingualism as part of their identity formation. I also aimed to include how socio-economic aspects could affect the process of identity construction. Thus, the investigation was performed with seventh grade students at a primary school located in the Stockholm suburb Bredäng. The methods consisted of a questionnaire, which was completed by the entire class and a group interview where six students participated. The results revealed that students adapted their language use based on the context, but Swedish was used most habitually. The informants viewed their multilingualism as beneficial but yet fully aware of the linguistic ideologies functioning in society. By combining their minority and majority language, the students were left with different ethnic identities and had diverse interpretations of what it meant to be Swedish. Even though all of them perceived themselves to have multiple ethnic identities, this was not solely seen positively. The issue of belonging was raised and the students claimed to be outcasts everywhere. However, the results differed depending on whether the students were born in Sweden or not. Also, most of them struggled with the process of assumed and ascribed identities, since they perceived themselves to be Swedish but experienced that society valued them as immigrants. Lastly, the study revealed that there were connections between their multilingualism and social mobility as the relationship towards the motherland was highly prioritized even with low levels of economic capital.

This thesis addresses UK students’ university choice using discrete choice methods and micro-data obtained from Higher Education Statistical Agency for graduates between 2006 and 2010. The thesis consists of three chapters with each addressing a different aspect of students’ choice. The studies are intended to provide policy-makers and other decision-makers with valuable information that will help them to implement strategies and policies for better higher education. Some work in the literature has been dedicated to students’ university choice. This thesis explores this body of work and builds on it, extends it and improves what is previously known in the literature. The aim of the first chapter is to investigate what affects students’ university choice. It contributes to the literature by establishing the best method to do so. Two models are used: the standard conditional logit and conditional logit with, what is called in this paper, alternative specific constants. Conditional logit with alternative specific constants improves on conditional logit twofold: it deals with unobserved university characteristics and improves the model fit. The results show that the probability of attending a university decreases with an increase in tuition fees and distance between students’ home and the university, and decreases in students’ socio-economic status. The second chapter further investigates the importance of distance on students’ university choice and it contributes to the literature by calculating the willingness to pay of students for distance to university. The chosen models are estimated for different socio-economic group of students separately. This methodology allows for meaningful comparison between socio-economic groups and produces more reliable estimates due to the fact that it accommodates for different unobserved characteristics of universities for different groups of students. The results show that students with the highest socio-economic status are not affected or have a positive utility of distance. The willingness to pay of other socio-economic groups are mixed and depend on the university characteristics used in the model. The third chapter focuses on students’ attitudes towards costs and benefits of university degree by calculating the discount rate of future income using marginal utility of graduate income and tuition fees. In addition, the chapter shows how use of consideration sets of universities for each student improves the model fit. The results show that students have a normal discount rate around 1% without consideration sets. The discount rate becomes negative in all models apart from one, when consideration sets are used.

This study examines the probabilities of attaining the highest level of education depending on parental education, and probabilities of reproducing parental education depending on parental separation. The theoretical starting point concerns social origin and social mobility. How parental separation affects educational reproduction among Swedish birth cohorts from 1905-1980 is investigated. Linear Probability Model (LPM) is used to analyze data from The Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU). The results show that the probability of reproducing parental education is higher for those from intact families compared to those who experienced parental separation. However, the differences in probabilities between groups are small, and after controlling for a number of demographic traits, the correlation weakens. Furthermore, differences in the effect of parental separation for groups of different parental education is shown, although this is confounded by the educational expansion that took place in Sweden during the 20th century. The conclusion of this paper is that parental separation has a negative effect on the reproduction of parental education, and that the experience affects groups of different social origin differently.

Les valeurs culturelles et leur impact sur les attitudes et les comportements ont longtemps été un objet de débat. La mondialisation, la migration et l'expatriation ont contribué au conflit provoqué par l'interaction entre les multiples identités culturelles, en particulier lorsqu’il s’agit d'organisations constituées de personnel diversifié. La France est un cas singulier, offrant un contexte historique et culturel particulièrement intéressant pour l’étude de ce sujet. En effet, la culture dominante en France prône l'égalitarisme et la laïcité. Parallèlement, une grande partie de la population française a adopté des valeurs culturelles issues de ses croyances religieuses. De plus, les perceptions au sujet de «l'égalité des chances» offerte par la société varient considérablement selon les cultures. Cette question est particulièrement importante dans un environnement de travail où les individus ayant des croyances diverses et complexes participent à des activités collectives. L'objectif de cette thèse est de découvrir les mécanismes par lesquels les attributs culturels déterminent une éthique de travail - premièrement, à travers leur interaction avec les croyances religieuses; et deuxièmement, à travers les croyances implicites sur la structure de la société. Les résultats révèlent que les pensées religieuses influencent positivement l’éthique de travail et le niveau de l’effort quand une culture de la religiosité est proéminente et négativement lorsque la culture laïque est saillante. Par ailleurs, cette recherche éclaircit les différentes perceptions de l'égalité des chances dans la société. Les attitudes méritocratiques sont directement influencées par la façon dont les gens distinguent la structure sociale : selon qu’elle soit perçue comme rigide ou malléable. Sur trois essais, cette thèse soulève une problématique particulièrement importante à laquelle font face les employeurs et les décideurs politiques, en particulier en France. Elle fournit une explication quant à l'impact des valeurs culturelles et religieuses, des perceptions sur la malléabilité de la structure sociale, et des mentalités, sur la prévision de l’éthique de travail et la motivation. / Cultural values and their impact on people’s attitudes and behavior have long been a place for debate. Globalization, migration and expatriation have contributed to the conflict caused by the interaction among multiple cultural identities, particularly when it comes to organizations with diverse workforce. Specifically, France is a unique case that provides a historically and culturally rich, yet very ambiguous context for studying this topic. The dominant culture in France emphasizes on egalitarianism and secularism. However, a great part of the population has adopted distinct cultural values with regard to their religious beliefs. Moreover, the perception about ‘equal opportunities’ provided by the society varies considerably across the cultures. The topic is specifically important at workplace, where individuals with diverse and sometimes divergent beliefs take part in collective activities. The objective of this dissertation is to discover the mechanisms by which cultural attributes predict work ethic and productivity- first, through their interaction with religious beliefs; and second through the implicit theories about the societal structure. The findings reveal that religious thoughts positively influence work ethic and level effort when a culture of religiosity is prominent and negatively when the laïc culture is salient. Furthermore, this research sheds light to the different perceptions about equal opportunities in the society. The meritocratic attitudes are directly influenced by the extent to which people perceive the social structure to be malleable vs. fixed. Across three essays, this dissertation addresses a particularly important issue as faced by employers and policy makers, specifically in France. It provides a compelling understanding about a number of antecedents of work ethic and work behavior; namely, the cultural and religious values, perceptions about malleability of the social structure, and mindsets.

Cette thèse porte sur le processus de construction des inégalités sociales à travers le système éducatif dans le contexte libanais. Elle met en évidence la place occupée par différents types d'appartenances et de contextes sociaux dans l'accès à l’école et certains enjeux spécifiques à la société libanaise.À partir de l’étude d'un dispositif de bourses, financé par une agence internationale d’aide au développement, qui sélectionne des étudiants de milieu modeste et leur permet de les inscrire dans une université privée, cette recherche s’intéresse à la construction des dispositions à la « réussite » à travers diverses instances de socialisation à l'école et à l'université, qui déterminent la manière dont les étudiants boursiers se saisissent de la chance qui leur est offerte pour s'élever sur l'échelle sociale. Des entretiens semi-directifs auprès des étudiants, enseignants et responsables, des analyses de documents et des observations participantes ont été réalisées pendant quatre années au sein de l'université d'accueil.Nos résultats montrent que les dispositions construites avant l’accès à l’université sont le produit des trajectoires différenciées par le volume de capital scolaire ou culturel détenu par la famille, la stabilité financière de la famille, le rapport aux valeurs traditionnelles ou religieuses et l'origine géographique. Les pratiques et les dispositions familiales, socialement et culturellement situées, transmises à l’individu, sont confrontées à l’université à d’autres modes de socialisation. Une fois à l'université, ces dispositions se transforment en inégalités dans la manière dont les individus répondent aux attentes normatives du dispositif de bourses. Il ressort de ces vagues consécutives de socialisations, différents profils de boursiers mettant en lien le contexte dans lequel l'individu a grandi et été socialisé et la manière de vivre le parcours universitaire et de se construire des projets d'avenir.L’intérêt du cas étudié est de mettre en lumière certains enjeux spécifiques à la société libanaise, tout en déconstruisant quelques idées préconçues sur les déterminismes religieux ou communautaires entre autres. / This thesis explores the construction process of social inequalities through Lebanese education system and demonstrates the role of different social affiliations or contexts in access to education within the Lebanese society. Through the case study of a scholarship program, financed by an international development agency which selects students from underprivileged backgrounds and gives them access to a private university, it looks into the ways in which individuals construct dispositions to "success" through several instances of socialization at school and at university which in turn determines the way they seize this opportunity to climb the social ladder. The results of this study are based on data obtained through semi-structured interviews with students, teachers and supervisors, student files and participant observations within the host university over four academic years.My results show that dispositions constructed before entering university are the product of trajectories differentiated by volume of family’s cultural capital, its financial stability, its relation to traditional or religious values and its geographical origin. The practices and dispositions of families appear to be socially and culturally centered, transmitted to the individual, and followed by other types of socializations at university. Once at university, these dispositions were transformed into inequalities through individuals’ reactions to normative expectations of the scholarship program. Different profiles of students emerge from these consecutive waves of socializations, linking the context in which an individual was socialized to the way he/she experiences university and constructs future plans.The key contribution of this study is to shed light on certain challenges specific to the Lebanese society, whilst deconstructing preconceived ideas on determinisms based on religious and confessional belonging among others.

The city, since the industrialization period, is no longer the product of a single mind. With bold and massive investment in infrastructure networks that followed this period, engineering professions gained unparallel social status and gained importance in municipality ranks. In parallel to this, social sciences have been very slow to pick up on the issue of mobility. The global neoliberal environment and more competitive one in which cities are confronted today, has resulted with local governments, public-private partnerships and new ways of augmenting chances of economical investments. Municipality documents used as a basis for the production and construction of urban environments are not equipped to deal with commercial and political motivated drawings and plans. There is a lack of communication between both languages that result in an unfiltered ‘laissez faire’ of aesthetics. Spatial design fields are capable of creating terminology that can properly address the serious issues concerning our networks of flows but are not enough by themselves considering the economical environment and the following self-generated urbanity inflicting our cities. Landscape architecture offers an open-ended perspective on small to large scale networks of infrastructures, thus possibly being able to bridge the gap between institutional planning mechanisms and actual design. The theoretical background generated from this research will be applied to a case scenario. Boulevard Taschereau (also called provincial road 134 at some parts) is among the most important and used arteries of the South Shore of Montréal, Québec (Canada). A contextual solution to boulevard Taschereau’s congestion issues will have to be generated in order for it to meet the expectations and social needs of its current and future users.

In this study I explore how intergenerational social mobility varies between subnational regions across Europe and whether any contextual factors are associated with levels of mobility. Support is found for subnational variation in class and occupational rank mobility within 24 European countries using the European Social Survey. Two theoretical frameworks are applied, the industrialization thesis (more economic development leads to more mobility) and an inequality framework (more inequality leads to less mobility). A bivariate association is shown between higher levels of economic development and higher levels of mobility on a regional level. Support for the inequality framework is seen in that a higher at-risk-of-poverty-rate is associated with lower levels of absolute class mobility, which was found to be a result of within-country variation. Between-country variation is seen concerning the association between both lower rates of absolute class mobility and higher rates of people living in low work intensity-households and severe material deprivation. Further, a higher rate of workers in the primary sector is found to be associated with lower mobility rates. In conclusion, this study shows that local economic factors, and not only national, contribute to explaining variation in intergenerational mobility.

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