Teachers’ racialised habitus in school knowledge construction: a Bourdieusian analysis of social inequality beyond class

This article examines the school experiences of Chinese Canadian youth, a population often ignored by the academy under the model minority discourse. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical insights, I raise and discuss the concept of teachers’ racialised habitus. I explore how teachers’ racialised habitus structures their practices of knowledge construction via formal and hidden curricula, and how it consequently affects Chinese Canadian youth’s identity construction. I argue that habitus, as an important theoretical tool that links the social and the individual as well as past, present and future, can also be used to study other forms of social inequality beyond class. This article makes both theoretical and empirical contributions to the research on habitus by highlighting teachers’ racialised habitus in relation to the perpetuation of racism in the educational field.     

The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and researching education policy

Bourdieu did not write anything explicitly about education policy. Despite this neglect, we agree with van Zanten that his theoretical concepts and methodological approaches can contribute to researching and understanding education policy in the context of globalisation and the economising of it. In applying Bourdieu’s theory and methodology to research in education policy, we focus on developing his work to understand what we call ‘cross‐field effects’ and for exploring the emergence of a ‘global education policy field’. These concepts are derived from some of our recent research concerning globalisation and mediatisation of education policy. The paper considers three separate issues. The first deals with Bourdieu’s primary ‘thinking tools’, namely practice, habitus, capitals and fields and their application to policy studies. The second and third sections consider two additions to Bourdieu’s thinking tools, as a way to reconceptualise the functioning of policy if considered as a social field. More specifically, the second section develops an argument around cross‐field effects, as a way to group together, research and describe policy effects. The third section develops an argument about an emergent global education policy field, and considers ways that such a field affects national education policy fields.     

A Bourdieusian rebuttal to Bourdieu’s rebuttal: social network analysis,regression, and methodological breakthroughs

Abstract

Bourdieu carved out a distinctive analytical niche for his reflexive sociology. His epistemological tool of field analysis, sometimes coupled with statistical correspondence analysis, is particularly powerful when deciphering the matrix of objective structures and subjective structures within social spaces (field) where agents vie for positions (capital), strategise dispositions (habitus), and negotiate practices. When grappling with the inner workings of the social world and the logic of practice within the social world, Bourdieu favours his field theory over network theory and considers correspondence analysis to be superior to regression analysis. In this paper, I argue that Bourdieu’s canonical theory-laden analytical framework does not exclude other methodological approaches. Indeed, Bourdieu himself argues against ‘methodological monotheism’. I therefore make an attempt to develop a Bourdieusian approach to Social Network Analysis (SNA) and regression analysis, despite Bourdieu’s explicit rebuttal to these methodological schools. To this end, I first review Bourdieu’s rebuttal to network analysis and regression analysis. I then tentatively incorporate SNA and regression into Bourdieu’s analytical framework. This is followed by an example of using SNA and regression in Bourdieusian research conducted in a Chinese educational context. In this vein, I engage with a Bourdieusian rebuttal to Bourdieu’s rebuttal.     

Mentor,colleague, co-learner and judge: using Bourdieu to evaluate the motivations of mentors of Newly Qualified Teachers

This study uses Bourdieu’s interconnected notions of fields, habitus and capital as a theoretical template to analyse the responses of eight mentors of Newly Qualified Teachers with regard to the motivations and challenges of their role. The data reveal that each mentor was a highly committed re-creator of the fields and habitus in which they operated, although this was not consciously done. They were each also committed to helping the NQTs develop professional cultural capital. Although Bourdieu famously referred to education as ‘symbolic violence’ the data from this study give no indication that the recreation of fields through the mentoring of professional practice was viewed as an act of dominion on the part of the mentors. Rather, these mentors saw their role as an empowering aspect of professional agency in which both parties shared in a co-authoring of a (usually) positive and mutually-affirming outcome.     

Outcasts on the inside: academics reinventing themselves online

Recent developments in digital scholarship point out that academic practices supported by technologies may not only be transformed through the obvious process of digitization, but also renovated through distributed knowledge networks that digital technologies enable, and the practices of openness that such networks develop. Yet, this apparent freedom for individuals to re-invent the logic of academic practice comes at a price, as it tends to clash with the conventions of a rather conservative academic world. In other words, it may still take some time until academia and the participatory web can fully identify themselves with one another as spaces of ‘public intellectualism’, scholarly debate and engagement. Through a narrative inquiry approach, this research explores how academic researchers engaged in digital scholarship practices perceive the effects of their activity on their professional identity. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is used as a theoretical construct and method to capture and understand the professional trajectories of the research participants and the significance of their digital practices on their perceived academic identity. The research suggests that academics engaged in digital practices experience a disjointed sense of identity. The findings presented in this article illustrate how experiences with and on the participatory web inform a new habitus which is at odds with a habitus that is traditionally expected in academia.     

From sociological fictions to social fictions: some Bourdieusian reflections on the concepts of ‘institutional habitus’ and ‘family habitus’

This paper expresses serious reservations regarding the increasingly popular Bourdieu‐inspired notions of ‘institutional habitus’ and ‘family habitus’ in education research. Although sympathetic to the overall theoretical approach and persuaded of the veracity and importance of the empirical findings they are used to illuminate, it argues that, from a Bourdieusian point of view, they actually present several difficulties that threaten not only to overstretch and reduce the explanatory power of the French thinker’s concepts but to stifle analysis of the kinds of struggles and complexities that both he and, somewhat contradictorily, the researchers in question spotlight. Bourdieu had his own ways of making sense of the themes raised, and although there is indeed a need to push him further than he went, to say what he did not and to emphasise what he would not, this has to be guided by consistent logic and not simply pragmatic empiricism.     

Evoking and provoking Bourdieu in educational research

This paper provides an introduction to this special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education on ‘Evoking and provoking Bourdieu in educational research’. In the course of providing a critical synopsis of each paper, we consider how and why the authors work with and after Bourdieu, both evoking and provoking his thinking tools (particularly field, capital and habitus, but also doxa, misrecognition and illusio) and his methodological disposition that rejects ‘epistemological innocence’. We note that Bourdieu himself invited such provocation and that this is especially needed as the social continues to change, given the new spatialities of globalisation and growing social and economic inequalities. That is, we acknowledge that the empirical and the theoretical are always imbricated in each other, a theme pursued throughout the collection.     

Conceptualising technology practice in education using Bourdieu's sociology

Evidence from large-scale studies of primary and secondary students’ technology practices at school over the last decade show disparities in student practices and suggest that schools need to do more to cater for all students. Research that explores the influence of social and cultural factors may be useful for understanding such inequality in student practice. Bourdieu’s theory of practice [(1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. London: Cambridge University Press] is proposed as an example of a sociological theory that can be adopted in educational technology research to move towards understanding the wider complexities of technology practice. To encourage discourse and application of Bourdieu’s sociology in the field of educational technology research, this paper provides an introduction to the theory, a review of its application in research of primary and secondary students’ technology practice and relevant conceptual work. The paper presents a conceptual framework based on Bourdieu’s theory that has been developed through two recent studies, and review of empirical and conceptual works and invites its application in future research so that it can be critiqued and further developed.     

Researching the habitus of global policy actors in education

This paper reprises the argument for the emergence of a global education policy field and then focuses on the shared habitus of global and national policy actors and technicians. It is argued that this shared habitus is constituted as a reflection of and a contribution to the creation of the global education policy field. Bourdieu’s approach to habitus as both methodological tool and concept is used and the significance of the interview encounter to understanding habitus is argued. The authors also draw on the content of interviews with five elite policy-makers and technicians. It was found that the policy actors and technicians shared a similar middle-class embodied habitus; in terms of schemes of perception, they identified with a high-modernist confidence in both science and technology; they identified with a cosmopolitan outlook and sensibility; and demonstrated scientistic approaches that held real confidence in understanding the social through quantitative social science methods.     

‘They Employ Cleaners to Do that’: habitus in the primary classroom

Pierre Bourdieu suggests that his concept of habitus should be seen as a method; a way of thinking about the social world which invites an understanding of everyday practices as constitutive of social differences. The appeal of habitus lies in its ability to uncover social inequalities in a way that keeps agency and structure simultaneously in focus. However, there are also problems in operationalising habitus, chiefly because of the indeterminacy of the concept. In order to overcome these difficulties I have outlined four key components of habitus and attempted to delineate the aspects of habitus as method that seem most relevant to primary classrooms. Finally, drawing on ethnographic data gathered over 15 months of participant observation in two primary classrooms, the article seeks to explore through the lens of habitus how differences of gender, ‘race’ and class are produced by children in primary classrooms. Although I make no claims for my own empirical work it does suggest that habitus as method has the potential to reveal the taken-for-granted inequalities embedded in everyday practices.     

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.     

Cross-field effect and institutional habitus formation: self-reinforcing inequality in Chinese higher education system

Bourdieu’s concept of field offers an alternative explanation for the inevitable gap between policy initiative and implementation. While the existing literature mostly concentrated on the dichotomy of macro- and micro-politics in enacting education policies, the missing attention to meso-level, local governments as policy interpreters and implementers in some developing countries with a vast territory, China and Russia, for example, has hindered deeper exploration in policy studies. Adopting cross-field effects as the theoretical base and applying Bourdieu's conceptual triad as a whole, rather than considering habitus, practice, or field separately, this study examines Chinese transnational higher education (TNHE) policy enactment by subnational authorities, aiming to: first, contextualize Bourdieu's theoretical and empirical approaches in various political/economic systems while consider the policy practice at meso-level; second, demonstrate the essentiality of conversation rate and standard of capitals in field analysis; and third, based on these analyses, explore the formation of institutional habitus as a way of explaining the perennial inequality in the Chinese higher education (HE) system. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection that Bourdieu’s ever-developing definition of habitus and the criticism of his unavoidable relapse to objectivism result from the indiscriminate use of individual and institutional habitus.     

Analysing religion and education in Christian academies

This paper asserts that the religious assumptions of Christian academies need to be fully examined in relation to any analysis of their cultural practices, impact or policy implications. It proposes that Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, cultural capital and symbolic power can be broadened out from their traditional use in accounting for social positioning in order to explore the interaction of religious faith and institutional culture. The emergent analytical framework outlined relies on series of theoretical tools drawn from Bourdieu whose social theory and concepts are already employed extensively in sociology of education research and studies of religion.     

The Cultivation of Learning Dispositions among First-Generation Disadvantaged Students at a South African University

This article discusses the learning dispositions of first-generation disadvantaged students at a university in South Africa’s Western Cape Province. Based on qualitative data collected over a 2-year period, it focuses on findings from 7 purposively selected students at this university. Utilizing Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Wacquant’s conceptual elaboration of this concept, the article explores the affective, cognitive, and conative (practices) dimensions of the students’ habitus as interrelated aspects crucial to understanding how they develop their dispositions to learn. The article illustrates how the students’ learning dispositions are produced through the active and strategic exercise of each of these 3 (affective, conative, and cognitive) interrelated embodied dimensions. I argue that understanding these embodied habitus generating practices are crucial for comprehending how they establish effective learning dispositions for successful educational engagement at their university. The significance of this article lies in offering a perspective of first-generation disadvantaged students’ learning dispositions in respect of establishing their educational engagement practices at the university.     

Habitus and the psychosocial: Bourdieu with feelings

This paper explores the potential of habitus to provide a window on the psychosocial. The paper works with a notion of psychosocial study as inquiry into the mutual constitution of the individual and the social relations within which they are enmeshed. At the same time it attempts to deepen and enrich notions of habitus. Although the strong focus on agency and structure has overshadowed the role of emotions and the emotional life of individuals within conceptualisations of habitus in Bourdieu’s work, the paper argue that there are strong links between the psychosocial and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. Drawing on empirical data on the affective aspects of living in an unequal society, the paper seeks to develop a psychosocial understanding of habitus that allows for a better and richer understanding of how the exterior – wider social structures – is experienced and mediated by the interior, the psyche.     

Contesting continuing professional development: reflections from England

This paper argues the competing ways in which continuing professional development (CPD) is currently practised in schooling settings in England is a product of the complex social conditions within which teachers work and learn, and teachers’ efforts to make sense of these conditions. Specifically, the paper draws upon research into the teacher learning practices, and conditions of practice, of a group of 18 teachers from one inner-city comprehensive secondary school in the British Midlands. To make sense of competing approaches to CPD within the school, the paper analyses these teachers’ experiences in light of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social practices as contested. The research reveals competing approaches to teacher CPD in relation to the management of teachers’ CPD, the focus upon improving test scores and the modes of learning in which teachers participate. The paper shows how conflicting pressures and demands in the context within which teachers work, and teachers’ responses to these demands, contribute to contested practices in and across these domains, both arising from and resulting in what is described as a ‘hybridised’ habitus. The research gestures towards the need to cultivate conditions conducive to more educationally oriented, critical, situated and collaborative CPD.     

Habitus as foregrounded history: theorising affect in the social formation of embodied practice

This article builds upon a tradition of feminist critical engagements with Bourdieu, developing the concept of ‘foregrounded history’ as a way to conceptualise the temporal and affective in processes of habitus formation. Through analysis of affects ‘produced through the social encounter’ within everyday childhoods on a British council estate, the article explores habitus as histories both embodied and felt in the present. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted within the interrelated fields of the Primary School and the Community Centre, this article considers processes of distinction, disagreement and resistance in the formation of classed positionings on The Estate.     

Playing the field(s): an exploration of change,conformity and conflict in girls’ understandings of gendered physicality in physical education

This paper draws on data from a year‐long ethnographic study of a group of 12‐ to 13‐year‐old girls that explored the processes through which they negotiated gendered physicality within the context of physical education. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and social fields and McNay’s extension of his work underpin a discussion of three contexts where girls experience and process understandings of gendered physicality: football and curriculum; home/school; and (hetero)sexuality. Girls’ identification of inequitable practices, modifications of behaviours with regard to perceived norms, and reflections on inconsistencies within and across social fields indicated the susceptibility of the gendered habitus to subversions. The notion of regulated liberties rather than resistance captures girls’ more subtle negotiations of gendered power relations as well as the ambiguities most girls experienced. Implications for teaching include creating space for critical inquiry, incorporating inclusive practices, recognizing girls’ interests, and exploring the influence of peer groups and friends.     

Bourdieu, 'Habitus', and Educational Research: Is it all worth the candle?

A recent critique of educational research published by the Office of Standards in Education has declared, largely on the basis of research reported in this journal, that Bourdieu- and particularly the concept of habitus- appears to have little to offer educational research. This proposition is considered in a critical evaluation of the origin of habitus in Bourdieu's work and its ability to fulfil its theoretical functions. It is concluded that there is no serious alternative but for those whose task it is to provide scientific accounts of social processes to engage with the concepts of disciplined thought - including that of Bourdieu.     

论文学翻译中译者惯习调节下的翻译规范——以杨必译作《名利场》为例

"社会翻译学"作为翻译学与社会学之间交叉形成的一门学科,近几年已引起翻译界的关注。试借助布迪厄社会学理论中的"惯习"这一概念,以杨必经典译作《名利场》为例,通过重构当时(二十世纪五十年代)的翻译规范和译者惯习来分析译者惯习对翻译规范的调节作用,以期展示并解释翻译与社会之间的密切联系,对进一步推动"社会翻译学"的发展提供借鉴。