Double gamers: academics between fields

The field of academia is frequently associated with traditional norms that aim to regulate scholarly activity, especially research. The social web, as another field, is often viewed as challenging long-established conventions with novel knowledge production practices. Hence, the two fields seem to oppose rather than complement each other. Using a Bourdieuian lens, this research examines research participants’ accounts of their approaches to practice on the social web in relation to academia. The paper reports on the habitus dissonance between the two fields, before discussing the effects of the two fields’ competing doxas on individuals’ habitus.     

Towards a theory of school leadership practice: a Bourdieusian perspective

Despite the ‘practice’ turn in the broader management literature, very little work in educational administration has engaged in a theoretical discussion about what constitutes leadership practice. Theoretically informed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper contributes to the long-established critical tradition in the educational administration literature, to argue that: (i) ‘leadership’ is a label of the managerialist project of the state; (ii) leadership should be thought of as a disruptive practice; and (iii) Bourdieusian theory can enable this thinking, but not as it is frequently mobilised in the educational administration literature. The alternative put forth in this paper is not merely replacing one external narrative (managerialism) with another (Bourdieusian), but rather advancing a theoretical position on what is leadership that paves a way forward for a research programme.     

Reconsidering the technologies of intellectual inquiry in curriculum design

This paper reports on the design and delivery of classroom pedagogies and students’ engagement with it in two different UK universities. Under the banner of curriculum design and Bourdieu's curriculum principles, the study set out to create modules that provided students with an interdisciplinary perspective on how the web is changing the way citizens live, interact and learn. Focusing on the idea that the web is becoming a tool of intellectual inquiry and an instrument of reproduction of knowledge inequality, the goal of this research was to transform knowledge practices by encouraging a learning habitus that relies on knowing how to learn rather than becoming ‘knowledgeable.’

The paper concludes that the Bourdieuian perspective on curriculum design still holds currency in the digital age, given that it shares an epistemology of practice similar to that advocated by a digital participatory culture. We also offer a critique to our approach, using Bourdieu's logic of practice to examine how education as a field displays (hidden) rules that students embody as their learning habitus. As students’ learning practices become doxified through their educational trajectories, learners find it difficult to engage with a curriculum that aims to diversify pedagogical structures and reflect a changing society.     

White working-class male narratives of ‘loyalty to self’ in discourses of aspiration

This paper intends to show the processes and identity negotiations of white working-class boys surrounding their own learner-identity within a ‘raising aspirations’ rhetoric. The current dominant neoliberal discourse, which prioritizes a view of aspiration that is competitive, economic, and status-based, shapes the subjectivities of these young males. Focusing on the deeply engrained values of a group of 23 working-class boys from South London, ages 14–16, this research critically considers the conception of aspiration and persistent ‘educational underachievement’. White working-class boys in the United Kingdom are frequently labelled as having ‘low aspirations’ or, indeed, no aspirations at all. Through the use of habitus as a conceptual tool, the research intends to serve as an exploration of how the aspiration rhetoric influenced the boys’ conception of ‘loyalty to self’ and their sense of average-ness/ordinariness/’middling’. The boys’ habitus undergoes complex ‘identity work’ in order to reconcile competing and contrasting conceptions of aspiration.     

Risking the future: Democratic participation in technological innovation

Drawing on the voices of students, parents and teachers from a secondary school located in a regional area of Australia in a township characterised by its high welfare dependency and Indigenous population, this article explores the tensions between how marginalised students see themselves and how they are seen by their peers, teachers and fellow community members, with reference to Bourdieu's concept of habitus. The article moves towards a theorisation of a reproductive habitus (those who recognise the constraint of social conditions and conditionings and tend to read the future that fits them) and a transformative habitus (those who recognise the capacity for improvisation and tend to generate opportunities for action in the social field). While some teachers appear to be attempting a transformation of students, the article concludes that instead, teachers should value and give voice to who students are, as they identify themselves. They should be more concerned to transform schooling; to provide educational opportunities that transform the life experiences of and open up opportunities for all young people, especially those disadvantaged by poverty and marginalised by difference.     

Capturing habitus: theory,method and reflexivity

Bourdieu’s career long endeavour was to devise both theoretical and methodological tools that could apprehend and explain the social world and its mechanisms of cultural (re)production and related forms of domination. Amongst the several key concepts developed by Bourdieu, habitus has gained prominence as both a research lens and a research instrument useful to enter individuals’ trajectories and ‘histories’ of practices. While much attention has been paid to the theoretical significance of habitus, less emphasis has been placed on its methodological implications. This paper explores the application of the concept of habitus as both theory and method across two sub-fields of educational research: graduate employment and digital scholarship practices. The findings of this reflexive testing of habitus suggest that bridging the theory-method comes with its own set of challenges for the researcher; challenges which reveal the importance of taking the work of application seriously in research settings.     

名牌大学与权力场域再生产机制的联系与互动——解读布尔迪厄《国家精英——名牌大学与群体精神》

布尔迪厄是法国当代著名的思想家和社会学家,其著作<国家精英——名牌大学与群体精神>以文化再生产理论为基础,阐述了法国教育精英体制化的过程,深入展示了作为法国精英教育的名牌大学如何与国家的权力场域联系和互动从而促进教育和权力机构本身的再生产,在揭开了法国大学校神秘面纱的同时,对法国精英教育与权力场域合谋打造的森严壁垒进行了无情的揭露和嘲讽.布尔迪厄严谨的研究方法和深邃的批判精神不仅对我国学术界而且对我国高等教育的一些不正常现象都具有重要的警示意义.     

It is changed beyond all recognition: exploring the evolving habitus of assistants in special schools

The assistant workforce is a constituent presence in all schools. Progressive reconfiguration of the role has resulted in a hybrid position, with assistants customarily navigating power relationships in the hierarchy of the school. This paper employs Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, in particular, his system of relations, as a means to consider the intersection of habitus and capital amongst assistants in special schools in Northern Ireland. Using this analytic approach, focus group interviews with Classroom Assistants and Health Assistants explored their current deployment, their interaction with each other and with teachers. Data was collected from 47 participants across 7 special schools, with interviews transcribed and thematically analysed. Findings revealed assistants as a workforce in transition, whose conventional habitus has been steadily disrupted by a supply and demand culture often at variance with the origins of the post. Whilst such divergence has the potential to create a site of struggle, the burgeoning social and cultural capital held by assistants has, instead, re-configured their perceived position within the special school environment, creating more porous professional boundaries and an increasingly fluid professional identity. These explanatory insights offer a fresh perspective for further research into this pivotal yet under-researched group in Northern Ireland.     

Looking Chinese and Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language: The Role of Habitus

The identity-language link has been widely recognised. In Heritage Language research, the complex entanglement between Chinese ethnic identity and Chinese Heritage Language has gained increasing attention in recent decades. Both social psychological and poststructural schools have offered meaningful insights into this field, but have also received criticism from other perspectives. To think through these two camps of scholarship, this paper draws on Bourdieu’s sociological notion of habitus and zooms in on the visible racial identity of Chinese looks. To unveil the dynamics and nature of this particular form of Chinese identity in relation to Chinese Heritage Language learning, the author first surveyed 230 young Chinese Australian adults and then interviewed five of them. The survey result indicated that perceptions of Chinese looks were significantly related to Chinese Heritage Language proficiency. In addition, the theme of looking Chinese repeatedly emerged from the interview data. Participants considered looking Chinese as an integral part of their Chinese identity, reported powerful others’ stereotypical perception that looking Chinese necessarily meant being able to speak Chinese, and indicated that these internal and external understandings of looking Chinese came to shape their Chinese Heritage Language learning.     

Reproduction and transformation of inequalities in schooling: the transformative potential of the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu

This article is concerned with the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu and their contribution to understanding the reproduction of social and cultural inequalities in schooling. While Bourdieu has been criticised for his reproductive emphasis, this article proposes that there is transformative potential in his theoretical constructs and that these suggest possibilities for schools and teachers to improve the educational outcomes of marginalised students. The article draws together three areas of contribution to this theme of transformation; beginning by characterising habitus as constituted by reproductive and transformative traits and considering the possibilities for the restructuring of students’ habitus. This is followed by a discussion of cultural capital and the way that teachers can draw upon a variety of cultural capitals to act as agents of transformation rather than reproduction. The article concludes by considering the necessity of a transformation of the field to improve the educational outcomes of marginalised students.     

Fish-out-of-office: How managerialised university conditions make administrative knowledge inaccessible to academics

Academics report feeling unable to cope in the managerialised university. To confirm these feelings are symptoms of managerialism's tightening grip, we use Bourdieusian concepts of field and capital to compare academics and professional staff experiential statements in an Australian university. We compare their field conditions and examine how their differences enable or hinder the accumulation of capital that defines their field. Findings show that managerialism requires professional staff to share work tasks and be on-campus, which enables them to accumulate the capital they require. Managerialism also permits and resources academics to working out-of-office to accumulate their required capital. Consequentially though, university operational knowledge becomes informal and only accessible to professional staff who accumulate the required social capital to access it. Professional staff are thus fish-in-water; easily accumulating social capital through day-to-day activities. But academics become fish-out-of-water (office); they flounder to access operational knowledge, which leads to feelings of not coping.     

布迪厄的教育社会学思想除魅——作为符号权力的文化

布迪厄的教育社会学试图洞察日常生活中个体心智结构和社会结构之间的对应关系。揭示其生成和运作的规律。文章通过分析布迪厄社会学中的三个核心概念：惯习、场域和资本，揭示出现代等级社会中阶级、文化和权力的联系方式，以及教育如何起着维护和再生产社会等级和结构的文化作用。     

Bourdieu,Practice and Change: Beyond the criticism of determinism

This article sets out to go beyond those criticisms that claim Bourdieu’s theory is structuralist determinism and identifies how change can be realized within a Bourdieusian framework. Starting with Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the first part of this article aims to develop an understanding of the interlocking relationship between capital, habitus and field. The review shows that the inability to anticipate change is arguably the most crucial weakness of the Bourdieusian framework. The second part examines Bourdieu’s attempts that seemingly challenge the determinist criticism: ‘reproduction strategy’, ‘reflexivity’ and ‘hysteresis effect’. By relocating these concepts in Bourdieu's grand social theory, it then becomes clear that change is attainable in Bourdieusian theory if we can successfully identify the ‘mismatch’ between the field and habitus that can trigger the awakening of consciousness, fully recognize the neglected, but equally important, methodical mode of habitus formation, which is ‘explicit pedagogy’, and strategically engage with an open system that provides new possibilities. By scrutinizing Bourdieu in his original texts, with an eye to finding the ‘hidden essence’, this article hopes to show the need to take a certain theoretical innovation, one that is clearly outside the habitual use of Bourdieu’s theory.     

The scholarship of teaching and learning: challenges for Malaysian academics

This paper explores the adoption of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) by 10 Malaysian university academics. SoTL was part of a pioneering sector-wide initiative for improving teaching and learning. The qualitative study showed that there had been no true learning phase for SoTL because academics had high expectations of rapid success in their new research area, including journal publication. Most of their peers did not understand or value SoTL and so SoTL researchers established minority self-sustaining groups across disciplines and universities. SoTL brought new ways of thinking about teaching that were transformational for the teacher but not necessarily welcomed by the students. Students resisted radical change, and teachers were drawn back to educational practices they no longer valued. SoTL was experienced in a hierarchical educational culture where questioning of self and others was difficult and this hindered teacher development. We conclude with recommendations about realistic expectations and the importance of social learning for those considering SoTL for academic development.     

Senior female academics in the UK academy: theoretical perspectives for understanding the impact of education and familial influences on career success

This paper examines the theoretical perspectives I utilised in my doctoral research to uncover the role of class and gender in my respondents’ stories and experiences of their career success. I argue that adopting an economic model for conceptualising the influence of social class and gender in the respondents’ stories and experiences of their career success is inadequate because it has historically neglected to take account of women’s position in the labour market. Drawing on an example from my data examining the influence of the respondents’ familial attitudes and dispositions towards education, the paper contends that Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is an invaluable tool for theorising senior female academics’ pathways to career success by bringing together a cultural, social and economic understanding of social class and gender.     

布迪厄语言交换市场理论对教育交往史研究的启示

为摆脱理论理性的缺陷,冲出结构主义的语言牢笼,布迪厄开始关注语言与符号权力间的亲密关系,将语言分析还原到具体生动的生活实践中,使语言规则与语言实践耦合,建构了独特的实践语言学理论———语言交换市场理论。布迪厄的语言交换市场理论对于教育交往史研究具有重要的启示和借鉴价值:重视对教育交往中话语的还原与解读,重视对教育交往中实践者的标示与体认,重视对教育交往语言市场的塑造。此外,教育交往史在研究焦点上,应着眼“语言的符号权力”与“符号权力下的语言”,在研究视角上,应聚焦“语言市场中的教育交往”与“教育交往背后的语言市场”,在研究方法上,应创造性应用“参与性对象化”与“对应分析法”。     

EMOTIONAL CAPITAL AND EDUCATION: THEORETICAL INSIGHTS FROM BOURDIEU

ABSTRACT:  This article seeks to explore existing conceptualisations of emotional capital in educational research, and to undertake a critical analysis of these conceptualisations, including a reflection on my own explorations of teachers' and students' emotional practices. Drawing from Bourdieu's work, I offer a theoretical discussion of how emotional capital as a conceptual tool suggests a historically situated analysis of the often unrecognised mechanisms and emotion norms serving to maintain certain 'affective economies'. This point is made in reference to a brief discussion of my ongoing ethnographic work over the last ten years. I conclude the article with outlining some new possibilities of theorising the potentiality and usefulness of the concept of emotional capital in the field of educational research.     

“中国大学评价”：基于布尔迪厄“场域”理论的考察

根据布尔迪厄"场域"理论,对武书连的"中国大学评价"进行了深入考察,分析了其具有较高权威性的原因,对其指标体系、权重设置进行了全面诠释,对这样的高等教育评估模式的价值作出了独立判断,并提出了相关的改进建议.     

The geography of school choice in a city with growing inequality: the case of Vancouver

This analysis aims to measure the impact of school choice policy on secondary school students’ enrolment patterns within the social geography of Vancouver, an increasingly polarized global city. The rationale for the study is to examine the impact of ‘education market’ reforms on the socio-economic composition of schools in a Canadian context, where a social welfare commitment to educational equality is being replaced by market-oriented policies and increasing social inequality. Our study is guided by Bourdieu’s theory of site in considering whether growing inequality and polarization of wealth in a city are correlated with the ways families choose schools. We apply a geographical methodology (Geographic Information System) to delineate spatial patterns of choosing schools. Our analysis shows that those who opt out of the under-subscribed schools come from the neighborhoods with relatively higher capital than those who remain in their assigned schools. Also, those who opt into the over-subscribed schools in the affluent areas come from the neighborhoods with above-average levels of capital in Vancouver. Overall, we find that the spatial inequality in school choice generally follows the uneven distribution of capital/wealth across the city. The pattern of student mobility indicates an increasing level of segregation.     

Working-class students,habitus, and the development of student roles: a Canadian case study

As their numbers at university grow, we need to gain a better understanding of the different ways in which working-class students negotiate their potential outsider status in what is often considered an essential middle-class institution. Based on data from a four-year longitudinal, qualitative study of working-class students at a Canadian university, I argue that their acceptance of the ends and means of both the academic and social demands of university contributes to the development of different student roles, which in turn affects their likelihood to succeed academically. Drawing on works by Bourdieu and Bernstein, I present four case studies of students who lived through university committed, alienated or in transition toward either commitment or alienation. I show that despite similar working-class backgrounds, study participants’ reaction to university was anything but predictable. Instead, prior socialization, clear and realistic career goals, and chance encounters at university played an important role in their approach to university life.