Effet de la classe ou expériences scolaires? : étude sur l'élaboration et la variation des aspirations scolaires réalistes des étudiant(e)s canadien(ne)s au regard des études universitaires
This thesis investigates the social phenomenon of the elaboration and adjustment of realistic educational aspirations for high school graduates during the ten-year period preceding graduation. Its aim is to determine which factors most affect realistic edu-cational aspirations in the light of two major sociological concepts: Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Raymond Boudon’s concept of rationality. In short, this thesis explores the manner in which factors linked to educational experience (the baseline for rational calculating) and to sociocultural heritage (habitus) may affect the cons-truction of so-called realistic educational aspirations and their adjustment The analyses are done in two distinct parts. The first part consists of logistic regres-sion analysis using cross-sectional data drawn from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS). The aim of this analysis is to identify the main factors that enter into consid-eration during the construction of educational aspirations for Canadian students ap-proaching high school graduation. The second part, also using YITS data, examines this phenomenon with a longitudinal perspective in order to identify which factors affect aspirations throughout Canadian students’ educational experience. This is done using generalized estimating equations (GEE) regression.  The results show that young students, predictably, use rational calculation when con-structing and adjusting realistic educational aspirations, but also that such a calcula-tion is highly influenced by the habitus, especially by the parents’ education level (institutionalized cultural capital). Moreover, the students’ calculation proves to be significantly constrained, when assessing the risks of following different educational aspirations, by the self-reported overall high school average and additional grades in the first years of a postsecondary studies.
Habitus Capital social Habitus rationality Educational aspiration Realistic educational aspiration Cultural capital Economic capital Social capital Rationality Educational experience Cost-benefit calculation