Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyses the role that strategies rooted in family-based capital, largely under-researched, have played in shaping the respondents’ educational pathways. It sheds light on the ways in which the informants have responded to the cost of mobility. The book suggests that, along with creating conditions favouring school success, this family-based capital has significantly shaped the meanings the respondents attribute to educational, and ultimately, social success. It examines the various socio-professional aspirations through which respondents hope to circumvent the weight of anticipated barriers in the labour market and complete their social ascension. Racial and ethnic studies, and race critical approaches in particular, are forced again and again to contend with the mainstream assumption that a focus on race derails ‘serious’ sociological analysis.