‘There was never really any question of anything else': young people's agency,institutional habitus and the transition to higher education

International research into educational decision-making has been extensive, focusing on the way in which young people and their families assess the different options open to them. However, to what extent can we assume that different groups of young people have equal access to the information needed to make such an assessment? And what role, if any, do schools play in this process? Using in-depth qualitative interviews from two schools with very different student intakes, this paper examines the key influences that shape young people's choices. Decisions about whether to go on to higher education are found to reflect three sets of processes: individual habitus; the institutional habitus of the school, as reflected in the amount and type of guidance provided; and young people's own agency – namely, the conscious process whereby students seek out information on different options and evaluate these alternatives.     

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.     

适应与不适——论布迪厄实践理论中的“惯习”概念与社会条件的关系

布迪厄的实践理论中的惯习概念与社会条件之间有着特殊的关系。当惯习处于其生成所处的历史和社会条件下时,趋向于再生产出原来的结构,行动者能很好地适应其场域;但若惯习作用的社会条件与其产生时的社会条件不相符时,惯习的滞后性问题会引发行动者的不适,需要得到足够的关注。     

公开课场域下教师教学惯习形成探讨

“表演”“作秀”被认为有损于公开课的价值取向,回归真实课堂便成为相关研究关注的焦点。事实上,公开课有别于日常教学,具有特殊的场域逻辑和行为惯习。以重庆市Y区优质课大赛为例,从时间、空间、人物三个维度分析公开课活动现场,发现三者皆具备剧场要素特质,形成了公开课的剧场效应。公开课场域具有逻辑独特性、资本竞争性、结构稳定性,参与者的“期待”是场域的核心。因此公开课场域养成了教师独有的教学惯习,体现出公开课上教师行为的自觉性与合理性。     

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.     

Working‐class boys,educational success and the misrecognition of working‐class culture

This article contributes to the theory of institutional habitus by exploring the differing ways in which the institutional habitus of two schools in Belfast, Northern Ireland mediates the local habitus of working‐class boys. All of the boys in this qualitative case study live in the same disadvantaged working‐class community but attend two different schools, depending on whether they succeeded or failed in an examination at the age of 11 years. It is argued that these schools have different mediating effects on the boys’ common habitus. While most studies of working‐class boys focus on underachievement, and most studies of working‐class success focus on females, this article draws together the strands of success, failure, working‐class boys and locality, and examines the ways in which identity is constructed and reconstructed in response to schooling. Questions are raised about the interpretation and/or misrecognition of working‐class culture in schools and within the wider discourses of society.