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Taste and the conditions for its fulfillment: the choice for pedagogy by students with higher social and educational profiles

This study sociologically examines the processes related to the undergraduate students' choices for the Pedagogy course at the Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG. The participants are female students whose social and educational profiles would allow for a choice of courses that are seen as more exclusive and with higher economic and symbolic gains. Through in-depth interviews, the author analyzes the different aspects of the participants' social and academic trajectories that may have led to their final decision for Pedagogy. The discussion focuses on the extent to whether the choice for Pedagogy is the result of a particularly strong preference for this field and how the manifestation and fulfillment of this preference has been favored by specific circumstances related to different life background. It is believed that the work has contributed to a relativization of sociological explanations for the choice of undergraduate courses, which tend to consider individual taste or preferences simply as results of the agents adaptation to their past social conditions or to their current social situation.

Choice for Higher Education; Taste; Pedagogy


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