The family choice of a non-state kindergarten to build educational and cultural capital
The article analyzes the reasons behind the choice of non-state preschool education for children by the families of St. Petersburg. The subject area relevance is associated with the need to study family investments in the educational and cultural capital of the younger generation. The main research questions are the advantages of non-state kindergartens education, the influence of the received educational and cultural resources on the further educational path of a person, the relevance of digital methods for collecting sociological information. In the empirical part of the study, we studied the parents' statements on an Internet forum, where the motives behind choosing non-state kindergartens in St. Petersburg were discussed. In addition, an available sociological results analysis and statistical data were used, and expert judgments on the development of the private preschool education sphere in Russia were collected on the Internet. The author presents a parental arguments classification in favor of non-state kindergartens education, developed based on the materials analysis from an Internet forum. The content classification of the unstructured text array was conducted using domestic specialized computer programs. It was found that the main motive for the family choice of non-state preschool education in St. Petersburg is the parents' desire to provide their children with high-quality educational capital. Previously, the most significant reason for preschoolers to turn to private education was the need to place a child at the age of two months in a day nursery. Other advantages of studying in a non-state kindergarten are considered by parents to be an individual approach to children with special needs, care for the student's health, and high-level equipment in private preschool educational institutions. An important condition for choosing a commercial kindergarten is a sufficient family income. Parents see cultural capital as a supplement to the educational resource they receive at an early age, and they also associate education in a private kindergarten with the choice of specialized schools and the high academic performance of the child in primary grades. Research perspective - search and methodological understanding of sociology digital methods to study the long-term effects of the early education stage.