When negotiation fails. Private education as a disciplinary strategy

The pressure on children to stay in education for an extended period of their lives is high. Such protracted school careers require a large amount of self-control and the ability to defer gratification. Students who lack the necessary discipline to do so may become school dropouts. For upper-middle-class parents, class reproduction demands the transmittance of their cultural capital, resulting in a level of schooling at least similar to their own. However, parents can never be sure they will succeed. If educational success is lacking, the danger of their childrens future downward mobility is real. At the same time, parents feel they cannot force their children to work for school if these are not motivated, especially so because middle-class child-rearing practices have changed in the direction of negotiation instead of command. When regular schools, too, are unable to discipline the students sufficiently, parents may resort to private education. Private schools, characterised by strict rules and permanent supervision, take over the discipline parents nor regular schools can provide.