Överinvesterarna : En studie av avancerade språkelever i gymnasieskolan

Sammanfattning: Over-investors – a study of advanced language pupils in the upper secondary school.  The thesis examines the advanced study of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) from a sociological point of view, inspired by Bourdieu.  Founded in official statistics and a specially designed survey its main findings can be said to be that it is mainly pupils with a high amount of acquired educational capital from higher social backgrounds who avail themselves of this opportunity, predominantly girls. The amount of inherited language and transnational capital in the family seems to be of particular importance for the pupils’ choice of advanced language studies. French, German and Spanish are the predominant languages of study. Advanced courses in MFL are almost exclusively taught at elite schools, rich in symbolic capital.