"Är det så här vi är": Om utbildning som normalitet och om produktionen av studenter

This thesis addresses what students describe as their reasons for attending university, their descriptions of their encounters with the university milieu, and what significance they believe the existence of a local university such as Halmstad in south-west Sweden may have had in this. The empirical basis of the study consists of interviews with 58 students taking one of three courses at Halmstad University. Despite considerable efforts being made in the twentieth century, socially uneven recruitment to higher education remained largely unaltered between the 1960s and the 1990s. During the 1990s there was some evening out, but in 1999 it was still the case that only 24 per cent of university and college students came from working-class homes, which at that point made up 35 per cent of the population as a whole. Students with highly educated parents describe how they have not in fact made an active decision to go to university. Instead, they hold to the notion that going to university or college is a natural part of growing up. For children of poorly educated parents things are different. They describe how university is one alternative among many, and list the ways in which their parents have supported and encouraged them, regardless of the choices they have made For the children of poorly educated people, there was often one significant event that prompted them to choose to go to university. In the present study it has been possible to compare how both inheritors and the upwardly mobile describe their first experiences of university and their lives there. It transpired that both groups experienced confusion and indecision, but inheritors develop strategies to handle the ambiguity of the situation, while the upwardly mobile often find it more difficult to deal with the uncertainties. The inheritors outline in broad terms how satisfied they are with their educational situation. This can be seen as a natural part of their habitus. The upwardly mobile, on the other hand, sense to varying degrees that they have changed during their time at university. They remark on how their language, manner, and general attitude have changed