Markets, schools and the convertibility of economic capital: The complex dynamics of class choice

Abstract

While economic capital is not synonymous with cultural, social or symbolic capital in either its constitutional or organizational form, it nevertheless remains the more flexible and convertible form of capital. The convertibility of economic capital has particular resonance within 'Celtic Tiger' Ireland. The state's reluctance to fully endorse an internal market between schools has resulted in middle-class parents using their private wealth to create an educational market in the private sector to help secure the class futures of their children. Using data from recent studies of second-level education in Ireland, and data compiled on the newly emerging 'grind' schools (private tuition centres), we outline how the availability of economic capital allows middle-class parents to choose fee-paying schooling or to opt out of the formal school sector entirely to employ market solutions to their class ambitions. The data also show that schools actively collude in the class project to their own survival advantage.