Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction

Bourdieu's work has attracted considerable interest and, not withstanding criticism of his style and obscure theoretical formulations, has introduced some powerful concepts into social theory. This paper examines Bourdieu's contribution to the sociology of education and especially his account of socially differentiated educational attainment. Particular attention is given to issues of structure, agency and habitus, the cultural autonomy of the school, arbitrary and necessary school cultures, and the distinction between primary and secondary effects on educational differences. Some specific criticisms, for example Elster's charge of a double account of domination, are also addressed. Bourdieu's concentration on habitus as the most significant generator of practice is held to be a theory of socialisation and the paper examines the nature of the explanation of social practice provided by such theories. The argument concludes with a plea for critical tolerance with respect to Bourdieu's work but with a suggestion that his account of socially differentiated educational attainment in terms of habitus is finally inadequate.     

The importance of awareness and communication for the inclusion of young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in mainstream schools and colleges

Anthea Asprey and Tricia Nash both belong to the Children's Hospice South West Research Group, based at the University of Exeter. In this article, they report one aspect of a research project designed to determine the adequacy of support for young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in the education system. They describe here a set of findings drawn from interviews with parents whose children attended LEA-maintained mainstream schools and colleges of further education. They focus particularly on parents' perceptions of the levels of awareness of their children's needs and concerns and the consequent impact upon their successful inclusion in mainstream education. The findings show clearly that awareness of the needs and difficulties of these young people was seriously lacking. The issue of poor communication, both between school and home and between education and health agencies, was a central concern. Anthea Asprey and Tricia Nash discuss the influence of two models of disability (the medical model and the social model) upon educational practice with regard to these young people. Despite the difficulties reported here, some encouraging and helpful reports of good practice also emerged from the interviews, indicating that inclusion for these young people is not an impossible goal.     

Testing the effectiveness of the project success summer program for adult dyslexics

The major purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of the Project Success Summer Program (PSSP) for adult dyslexics. Using a pretest-posttest one-group design, the experimenter examined the effects of PSSP’s intensive eight-week program on the reading and spelling test scores of subjects (n=63). Data analysis indicated subjects’ reading and spelling scores improved significantly in five areas: reading of real words, passage reading rate, reading comprehension, spelling, and phoneme deletion. A second purpose of the study was to determine the best predictors of reading comprehension from among the study’s eight pretest reading and spelling measures. Regression analysis revealed that passage reading rates and individual word reading rates were the best predictors of reading comprehension scores. Interpretation of the results of this study suggest that training in phonological skills can improve poor readers’ basic decoding skills resulting in improved reading rate, comprehension and spelling.     

The Educated Habitus, Progress at School, and Real Knowledge

The New Zealand Progress at School study has demonstrated that certain personal dispositions, elements of the habitus, are associated with relative educational progress at school. The most important of these prove to be aspiration, academic self-concept, and perception of schooling. It is suggested, however, that these characteristics of the successful student are elements of the stratified self, unified by an overarching concept of education. Interview material with senior secondary school students is used to show how the desire to be educated within a specific concept of education is essential to their success. It is argued, with close reference to Bourdieu, that the concepts of education and the educated person need to be founded on the educational necessary as real knowledge.     

Federal Policies and Local Realities: The Case of Appalachian Senior Programs

ABSTRACT

National senior service programs have had a long and relatively successful history. Emerging at the intersection of federal aging and poverty policy initiatives in the early 1960s, projects such as the Foster Grandparent Program (FGP) and the Senior Companion Program (SCP) have expanded in size and scope over the last several decades. These two programs were first introduced into northwestern North Carolina in the 1980s. While the experiences of FGP and SCP in the region have broadly mirrored the successes of programs located elsewhere, they have also confronted difficulties unique to their local realities that federal policy guidelines are often not sensitive to.     

Those Hands

When examined cross-culturally, the formal incorporation of sport by American colleges and universities is rather unique. Although higher education in the United States is largely the result of European influences, only in America has sport become an official responsibility of the educational organization. The openness of the “charter” of higher education was the primary factor in the formal incorporation of sport responsibilities within American institutions. Without an agreed upon understanding of the role of American higher education, the business-minded leadership of its colleges and universities was allowed to use sport as a survival mechanism in response to financial and enrollment exigencies.     

Excellence in Coaching

Abstract

During this study, 10 expert coaches were interviewed to examine their views on aspects of their individual coaching practice. Four themes emerged from the interviews: (a) the long-term approach, (b) the authentic coaching environment, (c) creating a learning environment, and (d) the quality and quantity of training sessions. These coaches were consistent in their attempts to facilitate learning experiences for the athletes, while setting high standards in both training and competition. The study's findings show that expert coaches have to orchestrate a large number of variables when planning and executing a training session, and their success depends on their coaching knowledge and their skill at contextualizing the necessary components for specific situations.