The transmission of capital and a feel for the game.

We examine parental choice in the context of lower secondary schools in urban Finland by means of qualitative content analysis of interviews conducted with upper-class parents (n=33). The analysis concentrates on the social construction of selective school choice within a public education system. The families in question were willing and able to choose their selective classes in schools in which intake is based on aptitude tests. This practice was justified on meritocratic grounds and was therefore not considered a class practice in the parental discourse. We argue that the capacity of upper-class families to transform economic capital into embodied cultural capital becomes an asset in the competition over study positions. The process includes the transfer of trump cards acquired in the field of culture – such as via music or sports, with their acknowledged interconnectedness with social position – to the field of public comprehensive education, despite the fact that social background should not define the allocation of pupils to schools in Finland. The role of the transmission of capital in this process is misrecognised, despite the fact that the result is social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]