The Social Construction of the Individual’s Culture of Giving for Education
The Social Construction of the Individual’s Culture of Giving for Education

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at understanding charity as an individual life strategy and identifying the factors that stimulate or hamper its practice, by studying the individual’s culture of giving for education among people belonging to different social classes. We combine insights from two major theoretical traditions: understanding the syncretism of the gift and the view on education as a relatively autonomous area. The analysis is based on data from a representative sociological survey designed in accordance with the Theory of planned behaviour. The results obtained show that the personal strategy for giving for education is a cultural phenomenon and is embedded in people’s social environment. The individual’s culture of giving is socially constructed by the influences of the social surroundings on the individual. Thus, the representatives of different social classes differ in their intention to donate for education. The middle class (especially the lower middle class) shows stronger readiness to donate as compared with others. The middle class is also the most sensitive towards the expectations of others regarding donation for education. Our study provides arguments for the validity and the heuristic potential of specifying gift and giving in the sphere of education as a new interdisciplinary scientific field.

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