Indigenous and Immigrant Students in Transition to Higher Education and Perceptions of Parental Influence: A Bourdieusian Perspective

Abstract

This article aims to compare and contrast the perceptions of parental influence of indigenous middle-class students and immigrant students in Cyprus, and to investigate how their family's capital mediates students' educational choices for studies in higher education. This study draws on interview data with two students and their parents and discusses the findings from a Bourdieusian theoretical perspective. It was noted in the data that indigenous middle-class students have a ‘feel for the game’ when they come to make their choices for future studies in higher education. Indigenous middle-class students often ‘misrecognise’ parental influence on their educational choices; this is conceptualised as a form of symbolic violence after Bourdieu. On the contrary, immigrant students explicitly refer to their parents' influence on their educational choices and they usually mention the devaluation of their parents' cultural capital. Arguably, while immigrant students try to adapt their habitus to the new educational field, they become more conscious of their parents' influence on their educational choices. This finding is interpreted as a reflexive process of the ‘hysteresis effect’ (after Bourdieu) which immigrant families are experiencing. It is argued that social inequalities are still experienced by immigrant students in transition to higher education and this is interpreted drawing on Bourdieu's theory.