| dc.description.abstract | Purpose
The aim of this Minor Field Study is to investigate how young women in two different South
African schools experience their growing up conditions as well as their future goals and dreams.
I will try to find out if they are experiencing either upward or downward social mobility.
Method
Observations, document studies, informal dialogues and study visits are part of the ethnographic
method which helped me understand and gather information about the South African context.
Semi-structured open-ended interviews were used to gain deeper insight in the girls’ situation,
their opinions and views.
Results
To most of the girls, having a career was important. Having a career means you succeeded in
life. Hence, the girls approached the term career from different angles. The white girls felt they
had to carry out what is expected of them, while as I quite often saw the black girl as more proud
and happy about the situation, being in the ”school with opportunities”.
These girls experienced different kinds of life. The black girls travelled miles back and forth to go
to the school, being laughed about by some people in the townships as well as in the schools.
Some of the white girls had been home schooled by their mothers and were not used to suchnoise.
My results show that many of the white girls in the post-apartheid society experienced downward
mobility, while as many of the black girls experienced upward mobility. | sv |
