Educational attainment and social inequality: the power of subjective capital

Abstract

This article points out the contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, which are the starting point for problematizing the way social and cultural inequality has repercussions for the higher education context in Brazil. This article is divided into three parts. In the first part, the authors' reflections on the reproduction of social and cultural structures in school and university are discussed, as well as the articulation of the concepts of habitus and field, which help to specify the object of this research. In the second part, a contrast between the mentioned authors and Bernard Lahire’s work is presented. His work is based on the theory of the plural actor and focused on Bourdieu's concepts and on the analysis of educational attainment. In the third part, there is a comparison between those reflections and the data collected through some qualitative research carried out with public school students who have managed to achieve higher education and are now enrolled in prestigious courses. Thus, aiming at contributing to the understanding of how groups of disadvantaged young students achieve educational attainment, this work shows elements that can be a reference for the development of lasting, inclusive and consequent policies for public education.