Based on 20 semi-structured interviews with Russian parents living in Helsinki metropolitan area, this Thesis investigates interrelation of ethnicity and belonging to middle class in the context of free school choice. Using, on the one hand, the theory of social reproduction by Bourdieu, and, on the other, various studies on how immigrant parents cope with school choice, I aim to uncover whether immigrant background of the interviewees undermines the positive effect of their social class on school choice.

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction is a backbone for this study. According to Bourdieu, social class, family environment and education are closely interrelated. In particular, education plays the pivotal role in social position perpetuation and preservation since it shapes the cultural capital which volume reflects the social position of its holder. Furthermore, this reproduction is facilitated in school and during the process of school choice since families with the highest amount of cultural capital can make the most balanced choices whereas those with little volume of cultural capital are not capable to evaluate their choice opportunities properly. In this sense, the middle class families have raised to their social position through cultural capital of which education is an important part. That is why the middle class families are the most interested in making the best possible choices in order to secure their social position. Such theoretical paradigms as habitus, cultural capital, linguistic capital, economic capital and social capital, coined by Bourdieu, are referred to in this Thesis.

On the other side, many scholars argue that free school choice increases the gap in education between social classes, making families with immigrant background especially vulnerable. They emphasize that free school choice can lead to yet another layer of social stratification since white and wealthy try to maintain their status by ignoring or leaving schools with social mix and thus distance themselves from the lower status groups. As a result, immigrant families are concentrated in particular - usually dilapidated - neighborhoods and possess little, if any, knowledge or skills to exercise school choice. Consequently, the so-called 'school segregation' occurs. Additional effects of this school separation are obstacles on the way of establishing daily contacts with the natives which, in its turn, hampers language proficiency necessary for educational progress.

This Thesis is focused on two implications within school choice theory: immigrant background and middle class. The interviewees – Russian immigrants on the school market in Helsinki, belong to both of these groups. The main research question is whether immigrant background undermines the positive effect by middle class created on the school market. A set of sub-questions is developed to make analysis in-depth and coherent. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews, I group the narratives into mutual 'themes'. While developing the analysis, I divide all the themes into factors that have impact on school choice and lay within the families (gender, cultural capital etc.) and those that are inferior to the families (for instance, school reputation, distance from home etc.). In the former case I elaborate if the middle class families of the Russian origin are able to make use of their personal characteristics while carrying out the task of school evaluation. In the latter case I compare the way the parents evaluate the inferior characteristics with previous research on immigrants and social class in the context of free school choice. By this, I am trying to uncover if the reasoning of the interviewees bears the patterns of either immigrants’ or middle class representatives.

According to the findings of this study, Russian middle class families in Helsinki metropolitan area are capable to wisely use their cultural capital in order to make the best possible (in their view) choice on the local school market. Regardless particular constraints that occur due to context-specific knowledge or lack of linguistic capital, the immigrant background of the interviewees does not seriously undermine the privileges created by their middle class position on the local school market. In particular, the interviewees show high level of interest in educational progress of their children, have relatively high educational standards, are trying to be as inclined in school life of their children as they can and generally attribute high level of importance to everything connected with schooling.