This article explores a widening participation programme for adolescents, aged 12–16, living in territorially stigmatised communities. The study focuses on a programme component in which university student ambassadors offer homework support. Drawing on Noddings’ ethics of care, Biesta’s concept of subjectification, and Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction, the study examines how such programmes can foster motivation, self-efficacy, and well-being beyond simply increasing interest in higher education, while identifying challenges in sustaining motivation for continued studies. Based on field observations, interviews and focus groups, the analysis highlights that caring relationships, role models and locally anchored practices can play a central role in creating supportive spaces where students feel seen, safe and encouraged to engage academically. The findings also indicate that for encounters to develop into meaningful connections, both time and sustained engagement are essential. Student ambassadors play a crucial role in fostering trust-based interactions and opportunities for identification, which can strengthen aspirations and empower students. However, the study identifies two critical limitations: voluntary participation primarily engages already motivated students, while structural inequalities significantly constrain the programme’s transformative capacity. In conclusion, widening programmes can expand students’ horizons and support holistic development but their impact depends on the interplay of relational qualities, local anchoring and broader structural conditions, and the time needed for such relations to grow. The article concludes with recommendations for enhancing future programmes through culturally responsive practices, stronger community partnerships, and strategies to engage less motivated students.

Previous research has examined how mismatched dispositions within a divided or ?cleft? habitus are subjectively experienced but has not adequately explored nor theorized the variety of ways in which the dispositional disjunctures that progressively give rise to a cleft habitus are initially generated. Combining recent sociological work on ontological ruptures with an affective reading of Bourdieu?s social theory, we use an empirical case to illustrate how subtle processes of social influence set in motion by affective ties can come to sever the ontological bond between the habitus and the social space that initially shaped it, setting an affectively driven and reflexively negotiated process of habitus change in motion. By shedding light upon some of the sufficient conditions underpinning the development of dispositional disjunctures and the psychosocial forces that mediate this process, we extend the literature on habitus change and conflict in several ways.

Reflektionstexten utgår från ett undervisningsexempel där studenter engageras i undervisningen och kursens tematik via minnen och därmed övas i att utveckla ett professionellt omdöme. Det är ett undervisningsexempel hämtad från den egna undervisningspraktiken vid lärarutbildningen där värderingsövningar används som ett verktyg för att reflektera kring kursers tematik, närma sig litteraturen för kursen och fördjupa ett professionsomdöme. Även om reflektionen tar sin utgångspunkt i ett konkret undervisningsexempel hämtat från en specifik undervisningskontext, en kurs som ges inom lärarutbildningens utbildningsvetenskapliga kärna, kan övningen med stor sannolikhet och en smula fantasi anpassas för att kunna användas inom ett flertal andra professionsprogram vilket även diskuteras i textens avslutande del.

This reflective text explores the importance of providing opportunities for students to develop a professional judgement and reflect on the theme of a course. Drawing on a teaching example from teacher education, the text discusses how using value- based exercises can become a tool to reflect on a theme and as an introduction to the literature in a course. These value-based exercises can also serve to develop a professional judgement.While the reflection is based on a specific teaching context, the final section of the text suggests that this exercise easily can be adapted for a use in a variety of other professional programs.

In recent years, research has brought attention to the heterogeneity of resources that first-generation students bring with them to higher education and the factors that assist in these students’ social and academic adjustment to university life. However, few studies have focused on how these students’ early socialization and experiences over the life course influence their adjustment experiences to university. Drawing on Bourdieu’s habitus concept to explore the life histories of first-generation students at a midranked Swedish university, we identify three types of adjustment profiles—Adjusters, Strangers, and Outsiders—and highlight five key factors over the life course that explain why they differ: family resources, early social environment, educational experiences and opportunities, peers, and partners. Our findings suggest that class-related adjustment challenges in college can be traced to different levels of cultural capital acquired during first-generation students’ early socialization but also to capital acquired through sustained contact with cultural capital–abundant social environments throughout their life course, resulting in subtle but consequential habitus adaptations. This study extends previous research in the field by exploring a broader set of social contexts that can spur first-generation students’ cultural capital acquisition before college and facilitate their adjustment to higher education.

The chapter focuses on how feelings of belonging are enacted with place, residential, and school segregation. Furthermore, it focuses on how these feelings are negotiated in daily school practice and how they affect thoughts around school choices. The study is situated in one of Sweden’s bigger cities, at a school located in a territorially stigmatized suburb. Data was collected using ethnographical methods, and the theoretical inspiration for the chapter was drawn from the concepts of belonging, non-belonging, and constructions of symbolic boundaries. The study shows that thoughts around school choice are relational, and furthermore that it is important to understand where students feel they belong in order to fully understand the logics and practices behind school choice.

This thesis explores and analyses how school choices are made and perceived in an urban local school market. The thesis uses concepts from the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and theories working with the concept of place and space. Using ethnographical methods, it explores the geography of school choice, while the empirical material describes and analyses school choices in a local school market structured by socio-economic as well as symbolic boundaries. The five empirical chapters discuss and analyse imaginary geographies, school habitus, hot and cold knowledge, and symbolic boundaries. The concluding chapter discusses the main findings and addresses some questions regarding how to make the educational system more equitable. 

Avhandlingen beskriver och analyserar hur skolvalfriheten som policy, det vill säga uppfattad möjlighet och hot tar sig i uttryck i vardaglig praktik. Aspekter av diskurser, praktiker analyseras i avhandlingen utifrån olika aktörers handlingshorisonter. Avhandlingens kontext består av en urbant belägen lokal skolmarknad, inom vilken aktörers praktiker och strategier undersöks. Avhandlingen behandlas således hur ungdomar, familjer och skolprofessionella navigerar skolvalfriheten i en alltmer polariserad och storstadsregion. Teoretiskt ramas studien in av Pierre Bourdieu sociologi samt koncept från det kulturgeografiska fältet. Metodeoliskt bygger avhandlingen på empiri insamlat med etnografiska metoder under läsåret 2012-2013. I de fem empiriska kapitlen diskuteras hur föreställda geografier, skolhabitus, rykten och symboliska gränser förhandlas av studiens aktörer. I det avslutande kapitlet diskuteras och analyseras avhandlingens främsta bidrag. Kapitlet lyfter också några frågeställningar som måste adresseras för ett mer jämlikt utbildningssystem.