This qualitative case study utilized interviews with community college students enrolled in at least one developmental course to describe how students accessed college information and used this information to solidify or adjust their educational aspirations. College information sources included relatives, friends, classmates, professors, advisors, and other college personnel. Bourdieu's cultural capital and Tinto's integration frameworks were used as guiding theories. This study utilized semi-structured interviews with 15 first-time, full-time, remedial students at a suburban community college in the northeastern United States. Interviews conducted in the fall and spring semesters explored students' perceptions of college information sources in order to gain insight into how students viewed information and its implications over time. This study identified four categories that broadly characterize students' information seeking and application behavior: students were classified as dreamers, drifters, passengers, or planners. Students classified as dreamers had difficulty aligning their career and educational goals. While college information was an issue for dreamers, they required more intensive guidance about their larger educational picture before information about intermediary steps would be meaningful for them. Drifters had informed educational goals, but possessed incomplete information or had difficulty applying strategies to reach these goals. Passengers and planners were well-informed and had specific strategies to accomplish their educational aspirations. Planners actively sought out information. Passengers benefited from a guide, such as a dedicated advisor or mentor, who helped them to interpret and apply the information. This study suggests that just presenting students with information is insufficient; to get students on surer footing, colleges should explore both decreasing the need for information in the first place and providing students assistance with applying information to their unique situations. / Educational Administration

In this study I explore boundary work processes that older adults do which influences friendships among residents of a progressive care retirement community. Accounts of boundary work as mechanisms for including some and excluding other residents as potential friends were collected by using a combination of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews from residents (age 65+) of a progressive care retirement community in the United States. First, a survey explored symbolic boundaries related to cultural capital, defined as music and leisure interest and participation, as well as structural and social aspects of friendships among residents (N=66). Second, in-depth interviews of a sub-sample of residents of an assisted living facility within the community (N=15), were conducted to examine older adults' narratives of how they use cultural capital as a mechanism of symbolic boundary work that influences their friendships with others in the retirement community. The administrator of the assisted living facility (N=1) was also interviewed. Findings from this study suggested that cultural capital was associated with sociability which offers some support for the relational "tool kit" model of the theory. However, findings from in-depth interviews suggested that while music and leisure interests and participation may be important, valuations of bodies were more likely to influence "othering" of residents, although the two are related. This study enriches our understanding of how symbolic boundary use varies by group and context, as well as makes theoretical contributions to the literature on symbolic boundaries by exploring the ways in which aging may alter the use of boundaries. / Ph. D.

No / Introduction. Recent research on health inequalities moves beyond illustrating the importance of psychosocial factors for health to a more in-depth study of the specific psychosocial pathways involved. Social capital is a concept that captures both a buffer function of the social environment on health, as well as potential negative effects arising from social inequality and exclusion. This systematic review assesses the current evidence, and identifies gaps in knowledge, on the associations and interactions between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health. Methods. Through this systematic review we identified studies on the interactions between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health published before July 2012. Results: The literature search resulted in 618 studies after removal of duplicates, of which 60 studies were eligible for analysis. Self-reported measures of health were most frequently used, together with different bonding, bridging and linking components of social capital. A large majority, 56 studies, confirmed a correlation between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health. Twelve studies reported that social capital might buffer negative health effects of low socioeconomic status and five studies concluded that social capital has a stronger positive effect on health for people with a lower socioeconomic status. Conclusions: There is evidence for both a buffer effect and a dependency effect of social capital on socioeconomic inequalities in health, although the studies that assess these interactions are limited in number. More evidence is needed, as identified hypotheses have implications for community action and for action on the structural causes of social inequalities.

In the aftermath of the global pandemic, it is important to investigate its effects. Previous research suggests that the pandemic has negatively affected students’ school performance and that students with low-educated parents are more disadvantaged than their highly educated counterparts. In this field of research, previous Swedish studies on the pandemic effect are rare. To evaluate the effect of different strategies during the pandemic a comparative design is applied in the present study, where two countries with different strategies are compared. This thesis aims to investigate the effects of the pandemic strategies on educational performance, more specifically math scores, in Germany and Sweden, and whether the effect differed between levels of cultural capital. To reach the aim, a difference-in-differences approach is conducted, using interaction terms between year and country. The data are from the OECD’s PISA tests from 2018 and 2022, where 15-year-olds’ knowledge is assessed. The results show that both countries’ test scores were negatively affected during the pandemic, but no general difference between the countries was found. When analyzing the score changes over time within groups of parental educational level the change was larger for the students with medium relative to highly educated parents in both Sweden and Germany. There was no change for the loweducated group in Sweden, and it was small in Germany. There was no significant difference in test scores between the years and countries depending on the level of parental education. In conclusion, the pandemic effect on educational performance did not statistically differ between the countries. The scores of the children with medium-educated parents had the largest drop, and the children with low-educated parents had the smallest drop in score, if any.

Published Article / Why do African learners continue to be underrepresented in the top 20 positions of the Grade 12 examination results, and what can be done to remedy the situation? Yosso's notion of community cultural wealth shows that it is because our education continues to exclude the African learners' ways of knowing and being that the situation remains as it is. Analysing discourses of top performing white former Grade 12 learners, their teachers, their parents and their former African classmates, indicate that including modes of knowing of all learners in the curriculum irrespective of their race, class, disability or gender may help to create more socially just schooling, which is reflective of sustainable learning environments.

Since the 1990’s the Swedish school system has undergone major and recurring structural reforms. Two of the most comprehensive changes has been the shift of primary schools as an integral part of the welfare state to the responsibility of the municipalities as well as the introduction of free school choice for the students. Through two months of participant observations and semi-structured interviews this thesis seeks to answer the question of how these reforms has come to effect the work of teachers in a medium sized public school in a small municipality in the outskirts of Stockholm. Earlier research has shown that public schools in socio-economically vulnerable areas are disadvantaged due to the reformation of the school system (Beach & Sernhede, 2011; Östh, Andersson, & Malmberg, 2013).  This thesis is thus seeking to find the vantage point of primary school teachers in one such school, in order to grasp how these policy changes has come to impact their perceptions of a professional self and the amount of professional autonomy in their work.     Through the theoretical concept of audit culture (Shore & Wright, 1999) I show that these reforms have changed not only the structure of the school system but also how actors within the school setting relate to their work and professional role. On the basis of my fieldwork and previous research in the topic (Apple, 2005; Shore, 2008; Karlefjärd, 2011), I argue that the reformation of the school system has brought a shift in the relations of trust within the system, where the growing amount of confidence in measurement, optimization techniques and control has resulted in a lack of trust in teachers as professionals. The voices of teachers, as actors in the educational environment, has to a great extent been missing in the public debate surrounding the Swedish schools as well as overlooked by research in the field. This thesis therefore calls for a growing anthropological attention to primary school teachers and the workings of audit culture in the lower levels of the educational system.

Anne Lareau (2003) argues that parents' child-rearing practices have a profound effect on academic and later occupational success for children, even holding constant such important factors as gender, race and school effects. She says that social class impacts these child-rearing practices and that middle-class families use a specific type of practice called concerted cultivation. Concerted cultivation involves parents organizing children's daily activities, using reasoning skills in talking with children, and teaching them how to interact with the institutions around them. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988, the current study tests the theoretical validity of concerted cultivation. Results show that concerted cultivation significantly predicts both student GPA and standardized test scores. Amongst the elements of concerted cultivation, parent and student habitus, in the form of expectations, play the largest roles.

This thesis examines the emergence of the organization, the Glasgow UNESCO City of Music, following the award of the title UNESCO City of music to Glasgow in 2008 from a Bourdieusian perspective. Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, and particularly capital are used to interrogate the negotiation of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1986) in the field of music in Glasgow. The thesis examines how the members of the organization–viewed their organization's position in the field of music in Glasgow and their attempts to secure its legitimacy in a field with established players. It shows how agents ‘work' to negotiate for the positions they want, or need, in order to establish the legitimacy, and thus the position, of an organization through the acquisition and use of capital. Although cultural capital is a core constituent of an organization's original position in the field of music the dominant and influential position of economic capital means that it is the symbolic capital associated with being granted funding rather than cultural capital, which influences and thus legitimate organizations in the cultural field. In its discussion of capital the thesis contributes to the literature on institutional work and organizational legitimacy.

A tecnologia digital cria espaços diferenciados para a informação e coloca a Ciência da Informação frente a novas questões. O objetivo deste estudo exploratório e descritivo é abordar questões sobre o papel dos blogs, a influência da blogosfera na conformação das trocas de informações, relacionando novos formatos culturais e o estatuto do autor na blogosfera, assim como as questões de visibilidade e legitimidade que permeiam as relações mediadas pelas tecnologias de informação e comunicação. Toma-se como ponto de partida o estudo de caso da campanha Usura não!, criada em 2007, que incentivava o uso do link como uma netiqueta para blogs. Buscou-se acompanhar os desdobramentos da campanha e as proposições de seus participantes, formulando questões e elencando referenciais teóricos capazes de explicar tais manifestações e as possibilidades de encontro com os interesses da Ciência da Informação. Estabelece-se uma relação entre as dinâmicas presentes na blogosfera e as teorias de campo e habitus de Pierre Bourdieu, indicando as correlações da campanha na incorporação do habitus para mudar a situação dos agentes dentro do campo da blogosfera de entretenimento brasileira. Estas reflexões remetem a questões como a legitimação e a apropriação da informação por parte dos atores (navegadores/usuários), trazendo subsídios para se refletir acerca dos processos de circulação da informação na internet. / Digital technology creates differentiated spaces for information, and puts the \"Information Science\" in the face of new issues. The aim of this exploratory and descriptive study is to address questions about the role of blogs and the blogosphere\'s influence in the configuration of information exchange, linking new formats and cultural status of the author in the blogosphere, as well as issues of visibility and legitimacy that permeate the relations mediated by information technology and communication. Take as a starting point of this case study the campaign \"Usura não!\", created in 2007, which encouraged the use of the link as a blogging netiquette. We tried to follow the developments of the campaign and the propositions of the participants, asking questions and selecting theoretical references able to explain these events and the possibilities of meeting the interests of the Information Science. Is established a link between dynamics present in blogosphere, and theories of field and habitus of Pierre Bourdieu, indicating the correlation of the campaign in the incorporation of habitus to change the situation of workers in the field of entertainment Brazilian blogosphere. These considerations refer issues such as legitimacy and appropriation of information by the actors (browsers/users), providing subsidies to reflect upon the process of circulating information in the Internet.

Ao se deparar com a temática divulgação científica, observa-se um multifacetado olhar sobre seus sentidos. No desenvolvimento do presente trabalho, identificou-se que tal aspecto pode estar relacionado com a diversidade de atividades que cercam as ações de divulgar. Optou-se, então, por um olhar particular, focado na divulgação científica desenvolvida por cientistas, em seus espaços próprios de produção, buscando compreender os anseios desses atores sociais ao tratarem de temáticas contemporâneas da física para o público geral. Tal processo de reflexão se deu na dimensão sociológica dos estudos de Pierre Bourdieu, com a preocupação do desvelamento das percepções simbólicas e objetivas que permeiam os discursos e as ações práticas desses profissionais no campo científico. Para além dessa dimensão, acrescentaram-se, também, as dimensões educacionais que são negociadas nessas interações e que se relacionam a novas abordagens da ciência no espaço escolar. Desenvolveu-se uma prática reflexiva de pesquisa, cuja ação metodológica pautou-se na condução de ação direta no campo estudado, de modo, a fazer dialogar ou confrontar os dados empíricos com a teoria. Nesse sentido, foi analisado um Masterclasses, da Organização Europeia de Pesquisa Nuclear (CERN) e alunos participantes do evento produzido em colaboração com essa mesma instituição no Brasil. Para a análise dos dados, adotou-se a perspectiva das aproximações entre cientista e escola, para além do um olhar distanciado, a partir de um dado campo social. Identificaram-se os deslocamentos simbólicos entre os diálogos dos atores do campo científico e do campo escolar como indicações da criação do novo, imposição das concepções do espaço social de origem e dimensões de expansão simbólica. Esse lugar de troca, ataque e defesa entre campos, denominado fronteira, parece indicar um instrumental capaz de contemplar a pluralidade da divulgação científica. Reserva-se, portanto, o direito de entender as ações dos cientistas como atividades que ultrapassam o mundo social científico para, no encontro com o campo escolar, reconhecer o espaço de possíveis. E foi a partir dessas concepções que se chega ao entendimento nascente de uma divulgação científica, em que a aquisição de capital cultural associado à ciência ultrapassa a dimensão das regras estabelecidas pelos campos de origem, seja para unicamente a aquisição do conhecimento científico específico, seja para aquisição apenas de aspectos culturais. São, em partes, aquisições provindas da interação com o mundo do outro e que se caracterizam pela perspectiva de aprender e apoderar-se de um saber reconhecido como parte da humanidade e da dignidade científica dos investigados, e que, ao mesmo tempo, adquire valor social como capital cultural. / It is common to note inconsistent point of views when one comes across the scientific dissemination thematic. During the development of this work, it was observed that this aspect may be related to the multifaceted activity surrounding the science divulgation. It was from a particular point of view of the scientific dissemination produced by scientists in their work environment that we sought to understand the concerns of those social actors when addressing contemporary issues of physics to the general public. This reflection process took place in the sociological dimension of Pierre Bourdieu studies that led to the revelation of subjective and objective structures that are present in the speeches and practical actions of these professionals in the scientific field. Besides the sociological studies of science, educational dimensions are negotiated in these interactions and they are related to new scientific approaches at school. Scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and students that participated in the event produced by the same institution in Brazil were analyzed using a research methodology based on the direct action in the studied field in order to promote a close connection between data and theory. As a result of the data analysis, it was created a perspective of approximation between scientists and school that are not limited by the distance between their social fields, but made possible to understand that the symbolic distance between the scientific field and the school actors may be a space where new ideas can be created, imposition of the conceptions of the original social space and the dimensions of the symbolic expansion. This place of exchange, attack and defense, which is called boundary, seems to indicate that the demand for a categorical definition of a plural concept, such as science communication, seems to have no rewarding results. Therefore, we take the right to understand the actions of scientists as activities that go beyond the scientific social world recognizing the potentiality of such approximation with the school field. It is from these conceptions that one comes to the understanding of a new scientific dissemination where the acquisition of cultural capital associated with science exceeds the rules in the original fields, i.e., acquisition of specific knowledge only or acquisition of cultural aspects only. They are, in part, acquisitions that come from the interaction with the world of the other and characterized by the prospect of learning a knowledge that is part of humanity and of the scientific dignity of the investigated ones.