Alireza Behtoui

Studies of educational stratification show that children from advantaged backgrounds (more economic and cultural capital) attain higher educational merits than others. Recent research in educational stratification incorporates social capital as an additional factor with a significant impact on school achievement. The aim of this project is to examine, in a Swedish context, how access to social capital affects the educational performance of young people from different backgrounds (class, gender, and ethnicity), through the following research questions: Which characteristics of young people affect their access to social capital? Does social capital offset limited access to economic and cultural capital and contribute to better educational outcomes for young people of lower socioeconomic and/or immigrant origin? By what mechanisms does social capital improve individuals educational achievements?

Young people with the same educational qualifications do not reach the same place in the social hierarchy, because educational credentials are never separable from the individuals that hold them. The economic and social return of educational credentials (in terms of salary and the status of the job) depends mainly on the social capital of their holders. How much social capital an individual has access to, depends, among other things, on her socio-economic background, gender and ethnicity.

The aim of this project is to examine: 1) what is the impact of social capital (compared with socio-economic background and education) on labour market outcomes of young people in obtaining their first jobs, and 2), is there any differences between young natives and children of immigrants in regard to their access to and return from social capital when they get their first employment?

In order to achieve the aim of the project, we will examine the labour market outcomes (salary and the work's status) of young people with the same education, three years after completed studies from universities and secondary schools.

The method design of the project combines quantitative and qualitative method (questionnaire - and interview studies).

The project aimed to explore the role of various recruitment practices and unequal access to social networks has for the employment of people with foreign and Swedish background respectively. The study was based in two general perspectives on how inequality is created and recreated: theories on social capital and institutional selection / sorting. The project has studied the recruitment practices and career with an empirical focus on HR staff and, the people who have sought and obtained work. Methodologically, the project used both quantitative and qualitative analysis of questionnaires and interviews. The analysis focused on two issues: differences between persons with foreign and Swedish background in the access of so-called social capital and the importance of this social capital on individuals opportunity for employment; institutional mechanisms of selection. What are the effects of employers choice of recruitment channels (formal and informal) for employment? How are applicants ranked and sorted?