scholarly journals Faith-Inspired Muslim Parents’ School Choices and Attitudes in the Cultural West and Australia

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 746
Author(s):  
Derya Iner
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
School Setting ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Schooling Experiences ◽  
Muslim Identities ◽  
Type Of School ◽  
Choice Literature

All parents want the best accessible, available and affordable school for their children. Yet, the literature highlights that school choice for middle-class parents in the cultural West is a deliberate decision and a reflection of their salient identities. For racialised middle-class Western parents, school choice is an instrumental investment to secure social upward mobility and minimise the harms of racism for their children. Research focusing on Western middle-class Muslim parents highlights that accommodation of Muslim identities and ethno-religious values is pivotal in parental school choice. This is expected due to the rise of Islamophobia in the cultural West since 9/11. The semi-structured interviews with faith-inspired middle-class Muslim parents in Australia bring a new dimension to the parental school choice literature. Regardless of carrying more or less similar concerns for their children in an Islamophobic climate, middle-class Muslim parents’ school choices vary based on their childhood schooling experiences in the Australian context, diverse parenting styles and mentalities and their children’s varying personalities demanding a particular type of school setting. This article demonstrates there is no one size fits all Muslim parent in terms of deciding which school is the best for their children in an Islamophobic climate.

scholarly journals School Choice, School Culture and Social Justice: A Canadian Case Study

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ball ◽  
Darren Lund
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
School Choice ◽  
School Setting ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Alternative Educational Programs ◽  
The Impact

This paper reports on findings from a case study conducted in a public school offering multiple programs of choice. A guiding purpose of the study was to analyze the impact of operating multiple programs of choice in a single school setting on the organizational and lived culture of the school. The urban Alberta school under study offered alternative educational programs in science, Mandarin Immersion, special education and “regular” programs. Multiple methods of data collection followed an ethnographic approach, and included document and policy analysis, field observations, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with administrators, parents, teachers and students from each of the programs. The results reported here focus on related themes of equity and social justice related to analyses of school choice, attending specifically to participants’ understandings of power and privilege, with policy and practice implications. Themes included social class stratifications, marginalization within advantage, perceptions of disempowerment, fragmented school identity, limitations of choice programs, and perceptions of teaching staff quality.

scholarly journals A parental school choice misery: Middle class parents’ dilemma in choosing a primary school in Berlin’s multi-ethnic neighborhoods

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-57
Author(s):  
Tanja Mayer ◽  
Viktor Geist ◽  
Vera S. Pohl ◽  
Judith Schwarz ◽  
Thomas Koinzer
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Private School ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Migrant Background ◽  
Parental Strategies

AbstractTo follow up on research conducted in several countries, in this paper, we look at the dilemmas middle-class parents face of being “good parents” by choosing the “best” school with a milieu-related environment for their child versus being “good citizens” by choosing a “local” public school with a large proportion of students from a working-class or migrant background. Analyzing semi-structured interviews with parents, the paper explores whether and how parents in Germany’s capital city of Berlin refer to this dilemma concerning primary school choice and how they resolve it and justify their decision. The parents interviewed applied strategies in deciding to be “good parents” or “good citizens” or at least to make it easier to solve the dilemma. All the strategies presented in other studies can be found in our sample as well. In addition, we identified two more parental strategies: the strategy of downward comparison and the strategy of choosing a private school. It is notable that the perceived proportion of children with a migrant background in the neighborhood played a major role in relation to the dilemma and the strategies chosen.

scholarly journals Deflecting Privilege: Class Identity and the Intergenerational Self

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852098222
Author(s):  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Dave O’Brien ◽  
Ian McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Origin Stories ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Privileged Class

Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class? We address this question by drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, 36 of whom are from middle-class backgrounds but identify as working class or long-range upwardly mobile. Our findings indicate that this misidentification is rooted in a self-understanding built on particular ‘origin stories’ which act to downplay interviewees’ own, fairly privileged, upbringings and instead forge affinities to working-class extended family histories. Yet while this ‘intergenerational self’ partially reflects the lived experience of multigenerational upward mobility, it also acts – we argue – as a means of deflecting and obscuring class privilege. By positioning themselves as ascending from humble origins, we show how these interviewees are able to tell an upward story of career success ‘against the odds’ that simultaneously casts their progression as unusually meritocratically legitimate while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their trajectory.

Keeping Up with the (Zh)oneses: Language Immersion and School Choice

2021 ◽  
pp. 001312452110273
Author(s):  
Edward Watson
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
Language Immersion ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Dual Language Immersion ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Immersion Programs ◽  
White Parents

Dual language immersion programs are growing in popularity across America. This article examines the explanations middle-class parents of various racial/ethnic backgrounds give for enrolling their children in Mandarin Immersion Programs. The author addresses the following questions: Why do American parents enroll their children in Mandarin Immersion Programs? How do parents from different racial groups frame the benefits of immersion? The analysis relies on a mixed-method approach using survey data ( N = 500) to highlight motivations of parents without an ethnic background related to the language, supplemented with 15 semi-structured interviews with Black and White parents of children enrolled in schools with Mandarin Immersion Programs. The study finds that parents frame the benefits of an educational investment differently by race. White parents take a pragmatic stance of greater future returns while Black parents hope immersion will help construct a stronger self-identity. These findings show the influence a burgeoning global society has on parental educational choices.

DELIGHTFUL COXCOMBS TO INDUSTRIOUS MEN: FASHIONABLE POLITICS IN CECIL AND PENDENNIS

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 289-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Nicolay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Class A ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
Trade Office

THOMAS CARLYLE’S CONTEMPTUOUS DESCRIPTION of the dandy as “a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes” (313) has survived as the best-known definition of dandyism, which is generally equated with the foppery of eighteenth-century beaux and late nineteenth-century aesthetes. Actually, however, George Brummell (1778–1840), the primary architect of dandyism, developed not only a style of dress, but also a mode of behavior and style of wit that opposed ostentation. Brummell insisted that he was completely self-made, and his audacious self-transformation served as an example for both parvenus and dissatisfied nobles: the bourgeois might achieve upward mobility by distinguishing himself from his peers, and the noble could bolster his faltering status while retaining illusions of exclusivity. Aristocrats like Byron, Bulwer, and Wellington might effortlessly cultivate themselves and indulge their taste for luxury, while at the same time ambitious social climbers like Brummell, Disraeli, and Dickens might employ the codes of dandyism in order to establish places for themselves in the urban world. Thus, dandyism served as a nexus for the declining aristocratic elite and the rising middle class, a site where each was transformed by the dialectic interplay of aristocratic and individualistic ideals.

Infaq In Times Of Pandemic: The New Norm Of Islamic Eschatology

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-150
Author(s):  
Abdul Mutalib Embong ◽  
Azelin Mohamed Noor ◽  
Hezlina Mohd Hashim ◽  
Syahrul Alim Baharuddin ◽  
Norasyikin Binti Abdul Malik
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Hard Time ◽  
Control Order ◽  
The Needy

This study reveals the currents social welfare which includes the uprising practice of Islamic charity, namely Infaq (voluntary alms giving), an instrument to help the unfortunate people (asnaf). It used qualitative approach involving semi-structured interviews focusing on six themes with six respondents. They engage in Infaq during the MCO or Movement Control Order. The results showed that there was a rise of contemporary fame of Infaq among Malaysian middle-class Muslims and charity body or organisation that specialise in sedekah/Infaq programmes . These parties make use of the platform of social media to record their activities and raise funds activity to help the needy who demand immediate and non-bureaucratic donations especially in a form of material help like food and daily necessities. This indeed has changed the course of how sedekah or Infaq used to be done back then. More Muslims who perform these Islamic charities display their efficiency and transparency in their donations as in Islam, sedekah is as a spiritual ‘investment’ to the donors despite the hard time people face during pandemic. 

scholarly journals Religious Jewish Mothers’ Perspective of Their Daughters’ Continuing Singlehood

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Asnat Dor
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Expectation

This qualitative study is an examination of the attitudes of national religious Jewish Israeli mothers toward their daughters’ singlehood. The daughters were in their mid to late twenties, when the religious and social expectation is that they be married. The study is designed to explore the main issues faced by the mothers, including perceived difficulties and advantages of their daughters' unmarried status. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 middle-class mothers, whose responses underwent content analysis and revealed a combination of traditional ideas with modern, liberal, and feminist values: internal and external concerns on behalf of the mothers, together with listing advantages and mothers supporting the daughters not to rush into marriage. The findings reveal that confronting social expectations means coping with the old norms while being aware of new possibilities and opportunities. Limitations of the study are discussed.

scholarly journals Contradictory and Intersecting Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion of Street Youth in Salvador, Brazil

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Ursin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Homeless Persons ◽  
Street Youth ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Longitudinal Qualitative Research

Drawing on longitudinal qualitative research in Brazil involving participant observation and narrative interviews with young homeless persons, and semi-structured interviews with middle class residents, local businesses, and patrolling police officers, three overlapping yet contradictory dimensions of inclusion and exclusion are developed. First the hegemonic exclusionary discourse that tends to produce stigmatizing labels on poor people in general, and boys and young men on the street in particular, is mapped out. Second, socio-spatial exclusionary mechanisms involving architectural measures, surveillance cameras and violent policing, guarding the neighbourhood from stigmatised ‘others’ are examined. Third, the less recognised but equally important inclusionary mechanisms, facilitating street life and enabling a sense of belonging among young homeless people are explored. A simplistic and unidimensional conceptualisation of social exclusion is critiqued while demonstrating the multifaceted, intertwined, and contradictory character of homeless people’s social relationships with middle class residents, businesses, and police. Furthermore, the exclusion/inclusion dualism that is vivid in the existing literature is questioned. It is suggested that a nuanced picture is vital to increasing our understanding of the everyday lives of homeless populations and that further investigation and theorization of their exclusion as well as inclusion is needed.

Structural constraints and the school choice strategies of black American middle-class parents

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-505
Author(s):  
Annette Lareau ◽  
Elliot B. Weininger ◽  
Catharine Warner-Griffin
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Black American ◽  
Structural Constraints

Self-segregation strategies through school choice in Chile: A middle-class domain?

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110365
Author(s):  
Alejandro Carrasco ◽  
Manuela Mendoza ◽  
Carolina Flores
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Middle Class Families

Sociological research has shown that marketized educational systems favour middle-class families’ self-segregation strategies through school choice and, consequently, the reproduction of their social advantage over poorer families. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of capitals, habitus and strategy, we analyse quantitative and ethnographic data on parents’ school choice from Chile to introduce nuances to this argument, evincing more extended and complex mechanisms of self-segregation in the Chilean marketized educational system. We found that not only middle-class parents but also parents from different socioeconomic groups displayed self-segregating school choice strategies. We also found that these strategies were performed both vertically (in relation to other social classes) and horizontally (in relation to other groups within the same social class). These findings unwrap a possible stronger effect of the Chilean school choice system over segregation.

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