Abstract
M.A. (Sociology)
South African research has shown that only a few students who go to university graduate in record time. The Department of Higher Education released a report in 2015 which indicates that 47.9% of university students did not complete their degrees and that the highest dropout rates were amongst black students, with 32.1% leaving in their first year. For that reason, this study seeks to investigate how the social biographies of young black men from Soweto implicate on their academic success. The theoretical framework of this study is Pierre Bourdieu’s Cultural Capital theory. It is used to argue that working class students do not complete university because they do not possess the necessary knowledge, experiences and practices that are required in university. As a result, academic success or failure is attributed to native characteristics which are embedded in the social biographies of the individual. Data was collected using qualitatively using social biographies. The participants that were used in this study were four young black men from Soweto. The participants were between the ages of 25 and 27, living in different parts of Soweto and had dropped out of university within the last five years.