Terminology and concepts Glossary
Working-class child
Working-class children is a collective term for students who are the first in their families to study. The term is often associated with low social status, fewer educational opportunities and financial resources. The historically evolved term is not uncontroversial, which is why it is now often used to refer to first-generation students, students from non-academic families or students from non-academic homes.
Educational success
Educational success refers to the acquisition of certain formal educational qualifications in the school and vocational education system. In the educational hierarchy, completing a doctorate at a university is considered the highest level of education. There are many factors that influence educational success, but family conditions (e.g. origin, socio-economic status, parents' educational status), school conditions (e.g. school structures, etc.) and/or political conditions (e.g. the country's social and educational system) are often mentioned in this context.
Educational distance
In connection with non-academic parental homes, the term ‘educationally disadvantaged’ or ‘educationally poor’ is sometimes used. These descriptions should be avoided. They are problematic because they imply that only higher education has meaning as education. Furthermore, these descriptions have negative connotations, evoke associations of self-inflicted guilt or "natural circumstances" and ignore the structural social inequality structures that make it difficult for those affected to participate and advance in education.
Habitus
In the discourse on social origin, the term ‘habitus’ is often used. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu uses this term to describe certain patterns of perception, thought and action in connection with the socialisation of an individual. In this context, he also speaks of different forms of capital (financial, cultural and social capital) that determine one's own position and opportunities in society. If a person is familiar with a certain habitus through their own socialisation in their family and environment, they move more easily in social spaces in which this habitus plays a role. A particular habitus can also have an excluding effect on people who are not familiar with the rhetoric, behaviour and codes of a group. This results in different opportunities for realisation and unequal opportunities for participation in social and professional life. The university is also a social space that is characterised by university/academic habitus. First-generation students are often unfamiliar with the academic habitus, which can affect their well-being and academic success.
Classism
Classism describes the discrimination of people on the basis of their social origin or position. Like other forms of discrimination, classism works on an individual level (insulting comments, degradation, etc.) as well as on a structural level (limited access to housing, educational qualifications, healthcare). Social origin as an essential characteristic of multiple discrimination (‘gender, race, class’) was first formulated at the end of the 1970s by a group of Black lesbian feminists. In Germany, ‘social origin’ is not (yet) listed as a characteristic worthy of protection in the General Equal Treatment Act. However, according to the third anti-discrimination report by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency, ‘social origin’ is a powerful cross-cutting category.
Non-traditional students
This includes students who did not complete the first educational pathway and therefore obtained their university entrance qualification via the second or third educational pathway. Second-chance education refers to catching up on school-leaving qualifications outside the traditional educational pathway, e.g. by attending an evening school. The third educational pathway refers to people with completed vocational training and practical experience taking up a course of study without a (specialised) university entrance qualification.