Learning to Stay? Mobile Modernity and the Sociology of Choice

Abstract

Linking physical and social mobilities to a modernity typified by increased foci on individualization, consumption, workplace flexibilization and the need for further (and further) education, this paper argues the need for mobility scholars to pay greater attention to the role played by educational institutions in family formation and the decisions associated with where to locate oneself in relation to these institutions. The research project under consideration took place in a remote Australian resource boomtown, an epicentre of global capital concentration and a concomitant mobile modernity. It focuses on educational decision-making that absorbs increasing amounts of energy among middle-class families in various parts of the globe, exploring the sociological implications of this and the links with physical and social mobilities.

Key Words:

• Second modernity
• School choice
• Resource boomtowns
• Practice theory
• Agency
• Social class
• Modern spacialization
• Middling mobilities

Notes

1. The project was commissioned by one the Catholic High school and called on me to document the successes and challenges of a significant programme of supplementary education instigated through a partnership between a key industry body in the area and the two schools, which is discussed further later in the paper.

2. See Nowicka (2006) for a discussion of the closely related idea of social structuration ‘in the second modernity and beyond’.