Social Reproduction Strategies and Participation in Higher Education during the Economic Recession

The current economic crisis in many Southern European countries has inevitably affected the number of students (male and female) progressing to higher education. The way young individuals and their families make their choices for the future is connected to the new social realities that this crisis has created. New inequalities are expected to take shape; such inequalities for example seem to arise from the unequal horizons for choice making. Middle class students and their families engage in choice-making in higher education with broader options while lower classes have restricted horizons often stemming from mechanisms of self-selection and self-exclusion. These eventually produce stratification in the educational system due to factors that are not always educationally related or connected to individual characteristics. The decision making process needs to be located in macro sociological factors that relate to the structure of available opportunities on offer.