Educational mobility of Hungarian firstand multi-generational young intellectuals in four countries

Abstract

The study examines the characteristics of intergenerational educational mobility among minority Hungarian youth living in Slovakia (Felvidék), Ukraine (Transcarpathia), Romania (Transylvania), Serbia (Vojvodina). The topic is important because in Hungary there is a paucity of studies that systematically analyse the challenges and coping strategies of first-generation students in general, or which go beyond minority aspects within social structures. The paper seeks to fill this gap by exploring first-generation intellectuals’ social structure and specific attitudes, based on real life Hungarian-minority experience. Based on a literature review, the authors set up four hypotheses: hypotheses related to social and cultural reproduction, a hypothesis concerning the political consequences of mobility, and assumptions related to minority identity. After testing the hypotheses and comparing the first- generation and multigenerational students’ characteristics, the authors conclude that in the minority context there took place a social and status culture reproduction, and mobility increases the likelihood of conservative political attitudes. The immobile stratum of minority multigenerational intellectuals tends to be much more liberal and transnational, using Hungarian citizenship as a new pragmatic opportunity.