A BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD? A social anthropological study of occupational aspirations among Swedish senior high school students

Abstract

This study seeks to examine the future occupational aspirations of Swedish senior high school students and their possible interest in social mobility. Further, it explores the factors and strategies that these students find important when they are trying to reach their occupational aspirations. Finally, the study investigates how the students evaluate their possibilities to pursue their strategies and achieve their future occupational desires. The findings reveal that there were aspirations of both vertical and horizontal social mobility and that the main strategy of the students to move on the social class spectrum is further education. Furthermore, the students perceived that they have good possibilities to pursue their strategies and reach their future occupational aspirations. The central theoretical terms drawn on to examine the future plans, desires, and decisions of these students are social, cultural, and economic capital, agency as well as do-it-yourself biography. Data were obtained by conducting fieldwork in a public high school in Region Västra Götaland where participant observation and semi-structured in depth interviews were carried out.