Rationalizing sociology as an educational strategy : Plurality of convictions and position-takings of sociology students in Swedish higher education

Abstract: The present study examines the choice for sociology as a subfield in Swedish higher education. In the Bourdieusian tradition, the theory of social practices – with its relational concepts of field, habitus and capital – was the sociological lens for constructing the object and instruments for tackling it. The emphasis was given to the subjective dimension: how students rationalize and strategize the decision for studying sociology, as a course or a program, in an educational choice that entails a mobilization of resources acquired in the past for anticipating the future. For this, qualitative interviewing enabled the production of narratives of 21 students at different Swedish universities, exploring assumptions and presuppositions deployed in their choice. Results suggest a complex construction of the choice for sociology as a meaningful and suitable decision, producing varied degrees of conviction in the subfield and position-takings in relation to its practice and representations. Different positions can be outlined depending on how sociology is understood: as a capital for a subsequent entry to different fields, a distinction emerges in the mode of appropriation between ‘specialization’ of those investing in programs and ‘generalization’ of those taking freestanding courses combined with other investments; a difference indicating a different degree of belief in the discipline and its inculcation translated into the time devoted for it. When sociology becomes a field, a distinction refers to the practice of sociology between an ‘academically oriented sociology’ concerned with research and teaching, and a ‘socially oriented sociology’ concerned with an engagement and contribution to people outside the academic space. Since sociology is a scientific field with relatively weak autonomy to external forces, a plurality of hierarchies characterizes a stake for defining its ultimate and legitimate value, offering multiple satisfactions according to varied strategies and aspirations. However, this should not conceal the academic roots of a discipline precisely institutionalized at universities and that may influence a hierarchical relation between the social and the academic in the sociological field.