The purpose of our research is to gain a better insight into what encourages young adults, in particular young women, to enter the teaching profession. The empirical part of the article is based on a pilot study including 132 students, with data collection being based on a survey approach using a questionnaire. The research attempts to address the context from whichthe desired characteristics of pre-service teachers with regard to their future employment arise. We have therefore tried to single out factors influencing the choice of teaching as a career, and to examine pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards the reputation of female and male teachers. The data obtained confirm the thesis that the predominance of women  in the teaching profession(s) is an effect of the harmonisation of the female respondents’ habitus and their perception of the field they are entering. The perception of the teaching profession as a vocation (calling) that can be linked to the concepts of caring, giving and helping also proves to be very important. The data also confirms the thesis that the orientation towards life and work balance is important to our respondents of both genders.

Meritocracy is a rationality that has significantly shaped the lives of people in modern societies, and today we all more or less believe that those who are smart, capable and hardworking will succeed in life. This seems to be a rule that applies in more or less all areas of public life. In the Western world, evaluating and judging ourselves and others based on meritocracy has become an imperative that we rarely question and despite the problems associated with meritocracy, politicians, parents and teachers continue to promote it. In The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, Prof. Sandel lays out the genealogy of the aforementioned prevailing rationality and, in particular, highlights the limits and problems of meritocracy that are often overlooked. However, he does not leave it at a mere critique, but also offers a reflection on ways out of the problems of meritocracy. We continue along the path taken by the professor. The first part of our article highlights the critique as reconsiderations of the concept, then continues with reflections on the future of education, merit and wage labour, and concludes with thoughts on the possibility of creating a new meritocracy.

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The present paper draws on fostering sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 2000) and contemporary possibilities in teaching and learning sociological concepts in relation to education. The authors present a method of reading films as a didactic tool in connection to selected sociological texts in order to better understand theory and praxis in the educational field and beyond. The film Billy Elliot was chosen as a didactic tool for presenting how Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and forms of capital, as well as Bernstein's conceptualisations of language codes, can be used in the pedagogical process. Emphasis is placed on education and the ways in which it contributes to shifting or reproducing social inequalities, class inequalities and gender. Palabras clave: habitus; forms of capital; language; codes; teaching and learning; sociology Resum. Relacions exigents: la imaginació sociològica, l'educació, la utilitat dels conceptes i el món que ens envolta El present treball es basa en els fonaments de la imaginació sociològica (Wright Mills, 2000) i en les possibilitats contemporànies d'ensenyar i aprendre conceptes sociològics en relació amb l'educació. Els autors presenten un mètode de lectura de pel•lícules com a eina didàctica en relació amb textos sociològics seleccionats per entendre millor la teoria i la praxi en l'àmbit educatiu i més enllà. La pel•lícula Billy Elliot va ser escollida com a eina didàctica per presentar com es poden utilitzar en el procés pedagògic els conceptes d'habitus i les formes de capital de Bourdieu, així com les conceptualitzacions de Bernstein dels codis lingüístics. Es posa l'èmfasi en l'educació i les formes que contribueixen a canviar o reproduir les desigualtats socials, les desigualtats de classe i el gènere.