Effetti di campo. Spazio scolastico e riproduzione delle diseguaglianze.

Field effect. School space and the reproduction of inequalities Abstract in English This essay deals with the debate on school choice and the reproduction of inequalities. We’ll discuss here the most noticeable results of an ensemble of qualitative and quantitative researches on school choice and guidance. In a theoretical standpoint, we wish to conciliate a structural approach (P. Bourdieu) with the interpretative approach (H. Mehan). In our hypothesis, school choice is made in a structural dimension and it’s determined by constraints of spatial distribution of schools and by their differential social connotation. A survey – on a sample of 18 schools in Sardinia (n 1035) – bring out the structure of the school social space. Schools are differentiate by their different student’s social qualities and educational skills. Our case studies, carried out with qualitative methods, investigate the process of the choice (in the family, in the school class, ecc.). Students’ choice of secondary school appears as largely consistent with their previous school experience mediated by their social environment and family. Conversely, every school has its own ‘model of suitable student’ and its ‘model of acceptable teacher’ consistent with its organizational and institutional culture and tradition - unacceptable or unprecedented in other contexts. So, a ‘phenomenological’ and interactionist perspective is integrated in a structural frame. Keywords: School choice, school guidance, school market, social inequalities, spatial segregation, family, social reproduction, education, socialization.