Instrumental or Expressive? The Role of Parents' Cultural Logics in Shaping Their Opportunity-Hoarding Practices

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Educational Inequities Abroad: Policy, Parental Influence, and Student Background (Table 1)

Abstract

This study sought to expand understanding of how parental cultural logics shape opportunity-hoarding deliberations in a context of diverse local structures of opportunity. The literature on parents’ opportunity hoarding focuses on race and class and their intersection with context, paying less attention to parents’ cultural logics and how they shape parents' social reproduction practices. Drawing on observations and interviews of middle- and upper middle-class parents in three locations, we explored parents' considerations for sending their children to selective Advance Placement (AP) programs in Israel’s middle schools. We found parents expressed both instrumental and expressive logics, but their decision on whether to enroll their children stemmed from their interpretation of the nature of the policy at the specific locality.

Authors

• Shira Klimor Maman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Idit Fast, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Yariv Feniger, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev