The class-related educational strategies and national capital of Polish migrants in the UK (England)

Abstract

Following Bourdieu’s tradition of examining the reproduction of the class structure, this article seeks to fill gaps in research on the class differentiation and educational situation of Polish communities in the UK. The article treats Polish post-accession migration to the UK as a social laboratory. Such an approach facilitates examination of class attitudes toward the education and educational practices of Polish migrants, whose prior experiences with the Polish educational system came to be re-evaluated in a differing national context. The article explains how Polish communities in the UK develop mechanisms for validating their cultural capital and negotiating migrant institutions and networks. The article argues that such processes are able to reorganize the class differentiations of migrant communities and to recontextualize their ‘national capital’ (e.g. Catholicism) within the framework of the receiving society’s educational system. The article is based on forty-five interviews with Polish parents and teachers in the UK.

Keywords:

• School choice
• migration
• education market
• national capital
• class habitus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 All the above relevant information is indicated by codes assigned to the interviewees. Apart from the information on the interviewee’s gender (‘W/M’) and age, the codes also signify the interviewee’s class position in Poland (Working Class/(Upper)Middle Class) and their current employment, or position, in the UK.

2 Only two parents declared that their children attend private schools.