WORKING-CLASS BOYS AT THE MARGINS - ETHNIC PREJUDICE, CULTURAL CAPITAL, AND GENDER

In a population sample of 465 Norwegian adolescents (mean age 19.3 yea rs), the relationship between ethnic prejudice and social class of ori gin, cultural capital, own education/work, and gender was investigated . The findings revealed that a unidimensional perspective on social cl ass does not hold: least prejudice was found among adolescents from pa rts of the intermediate strata. High prejudice scores were found among the traditional elite, but top scores came from working-class adolesc ents. When indicators of parental cultural capital and parental party- political preferences were also introduced, more powerful factors in t he family milieu were identified. It was of particular interest that w hile fathers' socio-economic position was most important, mothers' cul tural capital had the greatest impact. Adolescents from areas with man y immigrants, with whom they did not interact, had particularly high p rejudice scores. Adolescents in theoretical education had scores denot ing less prejudice than those who were part of the manual labour force , while there were no differences between those in vocational training and those who were working or were unemployed. Finally, gender was se en to have one of the largest effects: when controlling for all other factors, girls were much more tolerant than boys. The findings are dis cussed in relation to theories about new class differences, relative d eprivation, cultural capital, youth cultures and the gender gap. (C) S candinavian Sociological Association 1996