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.     

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.     

Bourdieu and interprofessional education: what’s the relevance?

Interprofessional education (IPE) is perceived to be one strategy to reduce professional compartmentalisation and improve collaborative practices. The unequal power relations existing between the various professions who need to collaborate for IPE remains largely unexamined and it is only in recent years that sociological theories have been employed within the interprofessional field. This paper uses selected findings from an exploratory case study into IPE conducted at the University of Malta and then examines these findings from a Bourdieusian perspective. The first part of this paper introduces the breath of theoretical perspectives employed for IPE and then goes on to provide an overview of Bourdieu’s theories of social practices. The second part outlines the context of this case study and presents selected findings. The third section discusses how these findings were examined using Bourdieu’s concepts helping us demystify the various ways in which health care professions worked and interacted, and how this all made sense within a wider societal context. It also highlights the relevance of taking into account Bourdieu’s concepts during the development of IPE.     

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.     

An Overdue Theoretical Discourse: Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and Critical Race Theory in Education

Scholars often use Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Bourdieusian analyses with the aim of studying inequities in education. Despite their usefulness and popularity, a theoretical discourse between the two frameworks has not yet transpired and the two are sometimes constructed as incompatible, if not at odds. The argument in this essay is three-fold: (1) CRT has never fully engaged with Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, (2) Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and CRT, although distinct, are not necessarily in opposition, and (3) CRT and Bourdieusian concepts have the potential to inform each other, resulting in a more nuanced engagement of the interplay between structure, agency, and racial realities in education.     

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.     

Zafar,so good: middle‐class students,school habitus and secondary schooling in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

This article examines how students from the ‘loser’ sections of the middle class dealt with the game of secondary schooling in a ‘good’ state school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It engages with Bourdieu’s theory of social practice and, in particular, with its concepts of game, habitus and cultural capital. It argues that middle‐class students embody a school habitus, which I call zafar. Zafar (a Spanish slang word) refers to students’ dispositions, practices and strategies towards social and educational demands of teachers and their school. Zafar propels middle‐class students to be just ‘good enough’ students, and promote an instrumental approach to schooling and learning. Although this paper offers an account within which the reproduction of relative educational advantage of a group of middle‐class students takes place, it also poses questions about their future educational and occupational opportunities.     

Using Bourdieu’s concept of doxa to illuminate classed practices in an English fee-paying school

Especially in research on the ‘classed practice’ of educational decision-making, it is striking how the Bourdieuian concepts of habitus and capital have dominated. With a tendency to focus on the middle-classes’ ability to accumulate and deploy cultural capital, less attention has been given to the role of the educational institution and its place in the field. This article draws from interviews and field notes taken from time spent within a fee-paying school in the south of England. I argue that the school and parents are engaged in the production, display and consumption of cultural capital. Through Bourdieu’s notion of ‘doxa’ we gain an understanding of how the school and parents negotiate a very particular classed practice.     

Principals’ talking back to mediatised education policies regarding school performance

Increasingly mediatised policy processes influence practice in schools as education becomes a site of parental anxiety and choice exacerbated by standardised national assessment and ranking of schools in the media. This paper analyses the responses to media scrutiny of six principals whose schools’ national test results were reported in the Australian press following the release of the federal Labour Government’s MySchool website in 2010. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, the concept of cross-field effects, and associated research on mediatisation, the evidence suggests that the relationships between the press, education policy and schools are highly contested, and that principals have some agency in talking back regarding their school’s reported ‘performance’.     

农村学校家长参与的低迷现象研究——专业主义、不平等关系与家校区隔

本研究以一项为期一年的民族志调查为基础,旨在从教师访谈数据中揭示农村家长参与学校教育的障碍。在理论层面,本研究着眼于教师的专业身份及其对他们对于家长参与建构性理解的影响。在数据分析层面,本研究指出,接受访谈的教师倾向于认为家长在学校教育中的角色是"边缘性"的辅助角色,家长常被看作教师的追随者,而不是平等的合作伙伴,而教师则视自己为专业的工作者,其专业判断不容质疑。在行动层面,家长不同形式的参与又是教师构建专业身份的重要实践,常被看作鼓励"先进"、解决"后进"问题的重要手段,其符号意义要高过实质意义。本研究从教师的角度出发解释农村学校家长参与的低迷现象,是对本领域文献的一项重要补充,有着重要的理论意义。     

Reproduction and transformation of students’ technology practice: The tale of two distinctive secondary student cases

Disparities in the technology practices, skills and knowledge of school students still exist, despite widespread investment, and use in schools. In order to understand why inequalities remain, we first need a more nuanced understanding of students’ technology practice, including understanding how their backgrounds, circumstances and experiences shape their perceptions of and engagement with technology. This paper proposes that research in the field of educational technology would benefit from a sociological framing in order to highlight how and why students use technology at school and in their everyday lives. The paper reports on a qualitative embedded case study of 13–16-year-old students in two Australian secondary schools. In-depth case studies of two selected students illustrate the complex nature of students’ technology practice. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and capital are used as a lens through which to view and understand inequalities in students’ technology practice. The findings demonstrate the utility of sociological theory in educational technology research by highlighting systems and structures of reproduction and transformation. Furthermore, the findings can inform an approach to teaching and learning that considers students’ varied experiences, knowledge, perspectives and backgrounds relating to technology.     

Intended Consequences: Challenging White Teachers’ Habitus and Its Influence in Urban Schools Implementing an Arts-Based Educational Reform

Reform efforts like the urban, arts-based initiative Project ARTS are designed to provide intentional, equitable methods of improving students’ learning, yet few urban educators have been sufficiently trained to recognize differences in habitus between themselves and their students. For equitable reform to occur teachers must understand their own habitus and the habitus-forming experiences of their students. In this paper, we analyze qualitative project data using Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of cultural capital, field, habitus, symbolic violence and misrecognition to explore teachers’ and students’ experiences in order to determine the extent to which power and privilege begin to be challenged within participating schools. We explore the ways in which teacher habitus has shifted to recognize, include or become empathetic to student habitus as a result of Project ARTS curricula, co-teaching and professional development while also considering the possibility the program produces unintended consequences at odds with the project’s mission: reproducing the status quo by advancing the cultural capital of teachers rather than that of students. Finding markedly fewer teacher narratives confirming the social reproduction of inequitable power relationships than when the project began, we conclude by discussing the transformation of teacher habitus, student outcomes, and school climate after 5 years of Project ARTS participation, proposing implications for urban teachers and leaders, their communities, and policymakers intent upon implementing equitable educational reform and the social transformation reform intends.     

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.     

Bourdieu's misrecognition: why educational leadership standards will not reform schools or leadership

This article examines the concept of misrecognition as advanced by Pierre Bourdieu in the development and implementation of educational leadership standards in the USA and in England. The line of argument advanced is that leadership standards were promulgated as an agenda to control and dominate a contested field in both countries by certain individuals and agencies. The analysis proffers that the steps involved in the creation of national leadership standards will not lead to reform since they are embedded in reified current roles and practices. The net result explains why a nation's educational leadership standards cannot become excellent via standardisation, and why significant educational reform is highly unlikely as a result of the processes employed to construct and impose them on practitioners, universities, schools, and school systems.     

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.     

Globalizing policy sociology in education: working with Bourdieu

This paper uses Bourdieu to develop theorizing about policy processes in education and to extend the policy cycle approach in a time of globalization. Use is made of Bourdieu’s concept of social field and the argument is sustained that in the context of globalization the field of educational policy has reduced autonomy, with enhanced cross‐field effects in educational policy production, particularly from the fields of the economy and journalism. Given the social rather than geographical character of Bourdieu’s concept of social fields, it is also argued that the concept can be, and indeed has to be, stretched beyond the nation to take account of the emergent global policy field in education. Utilizing Bourdieu’s late work on the globalization of the economy through neo‐liberal politics, we argue that a non‐reified account of the emergent global educational policy field can be provided.     

Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and worldwide higher education

This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorisation of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of Bourdieu’s notions of field of power, agency, positioned and position‐taking; drawing on Gramsci’s notion of hegemony in explaining the dominant role played by universities from the United States. Noting there is greater ontological openness in global than national educational settings, and that Bourdieu’s reading of structure/agency becomes trapped on the structure side, the paper discusses Sen on self‐determining identity and Appadurai on global imagining, flows and ‘scapes’. The dynamics of Bourdieu’s competitive field of higher education continue to play out globally, but located within a larger and more disjunctive relational setting, and a setting that is less closed, than he suggests.     

Revisiting Bourdieu: alternative educational systems in the light of the theory of social and cultural reproduction

The paper reflects upon the principles and practice of an alternative educational system operating in rural Mexico in the light of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural and social reproduction. Bourdieu’s theory seeks to explain processes of reproduction of power relations within schools and society; whereas alternative educational systems seek to expand educational access in deprived areas in order to counteract processes of social inequality. The paper argues that, although Bourdieu’s theory does not fully explain the gradual inclusion of more people from disadvantaged backgrounds into education through alternative educational systems, processes of social reproduction in deprived communities still occur mainly because of lack of state support after primary school level, and a shortage of better infrastructure and opportunities for this sector of the population. Since the widespread upward educational and class mobility of the rural poor has not yet been achieved, the paper concludes that the processes of cultural and social reproduction continue despite the introduction of alternative educational systems.     

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.     

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.