Lätt räknat : En utbildningssociologisk studie av matematiklärarstudenters sociala ursprung och utbildningskapital

Sammanfattning: A change has occurred in terms of recruitment to teacher education. From having been an educationof high status and reputation, a reduced application rate has led to lower admission requirementsand thus that students with much lower educational qualifications entering, which in turn means thatthe education status and reputation have been reduced significantly. Mathematics, on the other hand,has always been a topic of high status and reputation. Although there are few students who chooseto study to be a mathematics teacher. By conducting a survey of students on teacher educationtoday, both with mathematics and other approaches, I wanted to get answers to my questions aboutwhat influences students' choice of education: who are the students studying to be teachers inmathematics? Do they distinguish themselves from the student teachers who studies to be teachersin other subject specializations? Pierre Bourdieu's sociological ideas about cultural capitaltransmitted from parent to child constitute the theoretical framework of the study. Early in the study, I noticed that there is a difference between students studying to be a teacher inpreschool, primary or middle school and them studying to be a teacher in secondary and highschool, especially in terms of the mathematics student teachers. The result shows agreed withBourdieu and earlier studies regarding a kind of elite group that could be distinguished amongmathematics student teachers specializing in secondary school and high school, where the highestproportion of them among all student teachers came from homes with higher education (culturecapital) and careers in the higher classes, had higher average grades from high school, had highereducational qualifications and so on. These students were found to be more devoted to education,research notwithstanding. They spent more time on their studies, both on weekdays and weekends,they wanted more compulsory education, more textbooks and seemed in general to be moreinterested in the subject they will actually teach: mathematics.