Middle class parents in reproducing their children’s middle classness face a complex web of paths to navigate towards a future that seems less controllable. Education is the primary means of the reproduction of class positions and hence education is the field that unravels both modern parenting and class inequalities. What happens when class gets entangled with the place of religion in a society that is politically, socially and culturally crackling along the religious and the secular divide? This presentation explored how middle class parents in Istanbul juggle their religiosity and secularity in their anxious saga of giving their children a life like theirs. The presentation invited us to think about the global implications of the relationship between the making of cultural cleavages and the role of class practices through their manifestations in the field of education.
Biray Kolluoglu is Professor of Sociology at Bogazici University Istanbul. From December 2019–April 2020 she was a Visiting Fellow at the IWM.
