What makes a good education? Transitional value patterns of educational preferences in Estonian Middle class families

Abstract

The competitiveness of middle-class parents’ educational strategies has been researched extensively across differing institutional contexts, but evidence from Eastern Europe is lacking. This article examines how Estonian middle-class parents with differing amounts of economic and cultural capital harbour contrasting understandings of good education and good parenting, adopting different expectations to the school system characterised by moderate processes of marketization. 36 in-depth interviews with families from varying middle-class backgrounds expose different enclaves of privilege, created by parents’ strong preferences and values. Discourses expressing the importance of a ‘natural childhood’ and supportive schooling are contrasted with elitist approaches to education and a stark separation between the roles of parents and educators. A Bourdieusian framework suggests that these divergent preferences and choices correspond to the predominance of either cultural or economic capitals that different parents have acquired. It is argued that these areas of ‘educational specialisation’ enable middle-class parents to divide and conquer the field of education, ensuring the success of their children no matter what.