'to Foster the Spirit or to Secure One's Future': Competing Models of Field of Study Choice Among Middle-Class Students

The growing interest in horizontal stratification has led researchers to recognize qualitative differentiation in the choice of academic fields of study (FOS), mainly along the lines of professional and non-professional fields. Still, adopting either rational action theory or Bourdieusian perspective, most researchers still evaluates FOS through their future utility, and accordingly assume a calculative or strategic choice process. This portrayal may reflect the stratifying effect of higher-education, as its ongoing professionalization. Nevertheless, higher-education and choice are associated with autotelic and expressive cultural ideals, such as the ideal of 'pure knowledge', the model of liberal-arts education and models of choice as an expressive action. To date, these ideals and their relationship with FOS choice have been mainly overlooked.

Drawing upon ‘culture as tool-kit’ perspective, I argue that when choosing FOS, students use dominant cultural perception of higher-education, as models through which they make sense and assign value to their choice. Accordingly, I show how the choice of professional or non-professional fields, reflects two distinct cultural models of higher-education and choice.

This paper is based on in-depth interviewssh of middle-class students from professional and non-professional fields. In light of a review of cultural representations of higher-education, two ideal-types of FOS choice are elucidated. The first, draws upon the ideal of acquiring knowledge as a tool for the future; characterized by a calculative FOS choice; and a utilitarian approach towards studying. The second, draws upon the ideal of knowledge for its own sake; characterized by an expressive FOS choice process and an autotelic approach toward studying. Moreover, all students experienced their choice as a tradeoff between the two models - between success and personal authenticity. These findings support recent challenges to current line of explanations, and their implications for present and future research are discussed.