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.     

Gatekeepers or facilitators: the influence of teacher habitus on students’ applications to elite universities

Low application rates of state school students to elite universities have been identified as a factor in their limited participation in elite universities. This article explores the role of teachers in state schools and colleges in guiding higher education (HE) choice. Drawing on qualitative research with teachers and students in six institutions, we identify differential practices that corroborate explanations of an ‘institutional habitus’ shaping students’ likely pathways to HE. However, we suggest that attention is paid to teacher habitus, demonstrating how teachers’ political and ethical dispositions as well as their social capital are potential factors shaping students’ decision‐making about HE, and elite university applications in particular.     

Meritocracy through education and social mobility in post‐war Britain: a critical examination

After the Second World War, education in advanced capitalist societies has been perceived as the main ‘saviour’ of the meritocratic ideal. In this paper I will investigate some of the implications of the lasting emphasis that has been placed upon education in Britain, in the pursuit of a more just and equal society. Initially, I will present two main strands of thought vis‐à‐vis meritocracy. I will then show how these different approaches have shaped the pertinent debate. The main line of reasoning will be that the ‘meritocracy through education’ discourse can potentially conceal inequalities and injustices in contemporary market‐driven British society. This contention will be supported by evidence from social mobility research, which clearly indicates that the expansion of educational provision and the increase in educational qualifications of the past 60 years has done little to eliminate social class differences and associated privileges.     

Optimising meritocratic advantage with the International Baccalaureate Diploma in Australian schools

This paper explores two of the tensions Tarc identifies in the history of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma: firstly, between its design for meritocratic competition and its internationalist vision and, secondly, between the IB as a global commodity and its localised interpretations. Using data from three case studies of Australian schools offering both the IB Diploma and the local government curriculum, and student responses to an online survey across 26 such schools, the analysis shows how choices behind the IB's growing popularity foreground strategies for optimising meritocratic competition. Framed through Bourdieu's concepts of field and ‘rules of the game’, the analysis shows how students act on their own comparative analyses of each curriculum to optimise their chances to access desirable university pathways within the local rules of the game for university placement. Schools are shown to offer the IB Diploma to recruit and retain academically ambitious students by pooling their relative advantage in different local ecologies. Students are shown to carefully evaluate the benefits and costs of the IB choice. The conclusion reflects on how the choice of the IB Diploma for meritocratic advantage by some might change conditions for others not choosing it.     

权力再生产的教育机制——布尔迪厄教育社会学理论及其现实意义

在现代社会,高等教育日益成为社会流动的主要渠道。法国社会学家布尔迪厄通过对高等教育与社会流动之间关系的研究,提出了以场域为核心、以学校为中介的社会再生产模式。这一理论揭示了权力与资本在学校场域中通过国家意识和个体惯习的符号化实现再生产的过程。其观点揭示了高等教育的社会流动功能既具有稳定性也具有虚无主义的特征。布氏的理论与方法对于研究中国20世纪以来社会流动与教育的关系及其背景有着重要价值。     

Mobility as ‘becoming’: a Bourdieuian analysis of the factors shaping international student mobility

This paper unpacks the meanings and implications of the mobility of international students in vocational education – an under-researched group in the field of international education. This four-year study found that transnational mobility is regarded as a resourceful vehicle to help international students ‘become’ the kind of person they want to be. The paper justifies the value of re-conceptualising student mobility as a process of ‘becoming’. Mobility as ‘becoming’ encompasses students’ aspirations for educational, social, personal and professional development. Theorising mobility as ‘becoming’ captures international students’ lived realities and has the potential to facilitate the re-imagining of international student mobility with new outlooks. By theorising mobility as ‘becoming’, this research suggests the importance of drawing on the integrated and transformative nature of Bourdieu’s forms of capital in understanding the logics and practice of the social field – international student mobility.     

学生贷款社会流动功用的实证分析

高等教育具有社会流动的功能,随着高等教育费用的快速增长,高等教育的社会流动功能呈现弱化的趋势。但实施学生贷款政策后,通过学生贷款保障高等教育社会流动功能顺利实现,间接发挥着促进贫困生向上社会流动的功用。为了进一步促进贫困生向上社会流动,我国应该加快学生贷款的立法工作,发展多种形式的学生贷款,并且扩大学生贷款的覆盖面。     

Double contradiction of schooling: class reproduction and working-class agency at vocational schools in China

Situating in the different social, political and cultural contexts of schooling in China, which is more embedded in mixed neoliberal value, authoritarian state control and collective morality, we use a somewhat different theoretical angle to understand the process of ‘learning to labour’ and the reproduction of working class at school and at work. Our study extends the horizon of Willis’ analysis of cultural reproduction at school by seriously analysing students’ work experiences through their internship at the site of production. Taking a sociological rather than cultural analysis approach, we re-conceptualize working-class agency embedded in a double contradiction of schooling as a site of contestation. This double contradiction is generated by conflicting experiences caused by inevitable conflicts among the three spheres of material production, social reproduction and cultural reproduction in educating ideal labour subjects to serve the state, market and family, providing fertile soil for re-negotiating working-class solidarity.     

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.     

Class acts? Working class student officers in students’ unions

Abstract

This article explores the recent emergence of ‘working-class student officer’ roles in students’ unions associated with elite UK universities. These student representative roles are designed to represent the interests of working-class students within their universities and sit alongside student representatives for liberation groups and/or student communities. Based on interviews with postholders and using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field and Reay’s applications of a ‘reflexive habitus’, I explore how these students have come to assert a public and political ‘working-class student’ identity within their universities. Their commentaries reveal the ‘makings of class’ in a context where students are very aware of claims for recognition and the ‘hidden injuries of class’ and offer an insight into how working-class students are finding new ways to navigate their classed identities in HE.     

‘An attempt to tip the scales’: music and embodied capital in an English secondary school

This article explores class, capital, and aspiration to social mobility in an ethnographic study of an English secondary school. In particular, the article considers the school’s musical instrument programme as a site for inculcating forms of capital, under the auspices of developing skills for upward social mobility. Bringing together Bourdieu’s conceptions of schooling with theories of materiality and situated learning, we contend that this school succeeds in cultivating new forms of embodied capital among students through the development of communities of musical practice. However, a tension remains between emancipatory aims of the programme and the sanctioning and championing of certain forms of dominant cultural practice. The learning environment of the instrument programme highlights the complex and conflicted impact that schooling can have on the development of cultural capital and on reproducing disadvantage and difference.     

高师学生心理素质结构研究

高师学生的心理素质是其个体素质结构的核心,直接影响到高师教育的质量以及高师学生的个人素质,目前,高师教育中对心理素质的培养重视不够,本项目研究在国内外已有研究的基础上,取得心理素质指标51项,经调查研究得出高师学生心理素质指标8个方面39个项目,并在此基础上讨论了高师学生心理素质教育中存在的问题,以及对一些问题的思考。     

Rural Students in a Chinese Top-Tier University: Family Background,School Effects,and Academic Performance

Abstract

New preferential policies in China promise to increase the number of rural students entering top-tier universities, where there is a wider path to a higher social status. While a substantial body of literature has investigated rural students’ trajectories to university, there is a dearth of systematic empirical studies on the academic success of rural students in colleges and universities. This study seek to address this gap by examining the academic achievement of representative samples of students entering an elite university in China, including their place of origin, family background, school experience, and the characteristics that align with their academic performance. The data suggest no significant difference in academic performance obtained by urban and rural students with respect to average grade point average (over four years). It also suggests that fathers’ occupations may not be associated with the academic achievements of students from different families. However, the data suggest a relatively clear school effect on the academic performance of students at University S.¹For ethical considerations, we use pseudonyms in the article. The study enriches the discussions of the inequality issue in China’s higher education sector. It also enriches the literature in sociology of education by looking at the relative strength of the relationship between the possible causes and outcomes of schooling.     

跨越城乡边界的道德风险与自主性重构——“读书的料”家庭经验中的情感困扰研究

农家子弟取得高学业成就、实现向上流动和阶层跨越的过程,也是在具有不同文化意涵和道德秩序的社会世界中穿行的旅程。研究以改革开放之后出生、进入精英大学的农家子弟的成长叙事为中心,深描他们穿梭于乡村与城市、植根于家庭经验之中的情感困扰,揭示跨越城乡边界的阶层旅行中内隐的道德风险。通过教育向上流动不仅意指社会位置的变动,也伴随着对家人关系的冲击,包括“疏离”的隐痛、“孝顺”的难题以及“做自己”的矛盾。在跨越边界的流动过程中,农家子弟进行着两种不同性质的文化生产：既有以取得高学业成就为中心的文化生产,也有以“过道德生活”为中心的文化生产。第一种文化生产中,他们的创造性突出体现在对一个道德世界的秉信,而第二种文化生产的发生恰恰需要打破这种单一秉信,融合差异性的道德秩序,重构富有自主性的道德生活。     

略论高校辅导员素质与当代大学生思想政治教育

文章从当代大学生思想政治素质存在着的诸多问题入手,积极探索高校辅导员素质提高和当代大学生思想治教育的有效路径,提出了高校思想政治教育工作的对策。     

Performance-based university funding and the drive towards ‘institutional meritocracy’ in Italy

Many countries, including Italy, are increasingly managing their public higher education systems in accordance with the New Public Management principle that private-sector management practices improve efficiency and quality. A key mechanism has been the introduction of performance-based funding systems designed to reward ‘high-performing’ institutions and incentivise ‘lesser-performing’ institutions to improve. Instead of improving efficiency and quality across the board, however, we argue that performance-based funding systems naturalise longstanding structurally determined inequalities between institutions by recasting national higher education systems as competitive institutional meritocracies in which institutional inequalities are redefined as objective indicators of intrinsic ‘merit’ or worth. We illustrate how performance-based university funding systems naturalise pre-existing inequalities between universities drawing on the case of Italy, a country characterised by longstanding inequalities between its northern and southern regions which demonstrably impact on the apparent ‘performance’ of universities. The concept of institutional meritocracy captures the illusory nature of this performance game.