Option 2: Pierre Bourdieu’s contribution to understanding education. Introduction: Pierre Bourdieu was born in the southern part of France. He was the only son of a minor civil servant, who left the region to pursue a better academic opportunity in Paris. He completed his graduation in the subject of philosophy from the elite École Normale Supérieure. He was teaching for about a year at a provincial lyceé, before joining the French army and was departed to Algeria for two years. In this duration, his interest shifted from philosophy to social sciences and after his return from the military, he attended various seminars, read Marx and worked as an assistant to a sociologist. Finally, he converted into a sociologist and became the Director …show more content…
Hence, according to Bourdieu, education promotes reproduction of inequality in the society, as the higher class hold a higher status in the social structure. Bourdieu’s Theories The Logic of Practice (1990) written by Bourdieu raises fundamental issues relating to human behavior. He aims to identify why humans behave in a particular manner and how we are to understand the world they have built. He discusses how such understanding relies on three vital concepts, practice, habitus and field. Practice: Practice is in general what social beings do. They have different motives and intentions which help in creating and transforming their worlds. Habitus is an essential part of the formulation of the practice theory and is considered to be the heart of the theory. Habitus: Habitus is one of the influential concept of Bourdieu’s theory. It is the durable disposition and orientation which are created by practices within a particular structural context. For instance, it is viewed that girls generally prefer to specialize in biology over physics or mathematics. This is because it is considered that girls are care givers and will handle and relate to the subject biology better than physics or math. It is an ingrained habit that is developed due to some enduring social interactions which are transferrable from one context to another. This shift can be transferred only in
Bowles and Gintis also reject the idea that the education is meritocratic, and providing equal opportunities for everybody. Middle class children will gain high qualifications and receive higher pad jobs because of their ability but also through their large quantities of cultural capital. Whereas working class children may not have the same opportunities to receive cultural capital this creating inequalities within the education system, much like the class system. This is called cultural reproduction. Bourdieu believes that education reproduces the culture and class system. It shows the importance of the upper class culture and therefore reinforces the power those have over the working class. They are allowed to do this by basing the education system off cultural capital, whilst the culture that the working class children are receiving is not on the education system and therefore they lose interest. Bourdieu believes that education has been developed by the bourgeoisie and therefore the working class have never had any real ownership on the education system they are forced to be a part of.
Finally his studies led him to France at the age of 21, where he studied under Paul Vidal for a short period of time and then under Mlle. Boulanger for three years. Before
Our culture is spoon fed the idea that education equals opportunity, yet the education available to the lower-class thwarts growth. On the other hand, education offered to the upper class is rich with freedom
Covey’s fourth habit, think win-win, is all about interacting with others. This habit is particularly important to me because I have grown up in a household of
The intellectual education as a means of removing poverty and securing abundance is often seen as the road to success, but how much of its truth still applies today? Like in any job, no matter how much hard work put into it, an employee would still be considered an employee and would never become the owner of that company. Could it also be true that the same road education offers to success could also offer a limit to the success you could accomplish in life? An article titled “From Social Class And The Hidden Curriculum Of Work” done by Jean Anyon a professor in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York suggests that “School experience…differed qualitatively by social class...may not only contribute
strategies and information to ensure that one is able to uphold ‘Inclusive practice’ which is a vital part
De Certeau discusses ¬¬¬a similar system to the habitus through the terminology of strategies and tactics. Strategies are the actions which directly reinforce the desires of those in power, they follow the will of the majority. The actions which appose strategies are tactics, the craftier actions of those in the minority who lack the platform to be able to use a strategical approach. The core principle of strategy is the existence of its “…own place, that is, the place of its own power and will, from an “environment” (De Certeau 36). The power which strategy has comes from it being rooted in a based which is explicitly its own, and the forces it works against are distinguishably outside of its own
Human habits can be explained in much the same way. Although typically unseen and unnoticed by us, our habits are powerful enough to impact our decision-making and drive our daily activities. In fact, Duke University researchers found that over 40% “of our actions are unconscious habits.” It is this idea that validates the saying “old habits die hard” and often makes new habits exceedingly difficult to establish.
A lot of the inequalities that are produced are in social classes. According to Lareau, the middle class is
Education and wealth have a big impact on income inequality. Education and wealth go hand in hand when talking about income inequality. When a family is more wealthy, they can afford a better education. One article from ACE states that “currently in America, getting a postsecondary degree—in particular a bachelor’s degree—generally results in higher incomes, greater job choice, satisfaction, and security, as well as other outcomes considered good for our society, such as voting and community service.” This is important because if
The association between social class and education can only be denied by those willing to contest that civilization leaves its remnants to disparate communities. We as a society place standards and expectations to education that result in potential power, wealth, and intelligence. Due to this relationship, we pertain to a society who runs on tainted mechanisms and values today. No longer are institutions preoccupied with education, but with their own success and wealth. Money is highly regarded, those of the lower class are rejected, and children are left to deal with their grievances alone.
Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital has been extremely influential, and has garnered a great deal of literature, both theoretical and empirical. Like Marx, Bourdieu posited that capital was the foundation of social life and dictated people’s position within the social hierarchy (Bourdieu 1986). According to Bourdieu, the more capital one possesses, the more prestigious a position one occupies in social life (Bourdieu 1986). In addition to that, Bourdieu extended Marx’s idea of capital beyond the economic and into cultural symbolism (Bourdieu 1986). Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital that refers to the collection of symbolic elements (e.g. skills, tastes, clothing) one acquires through being part of a particular social niche and his concept of habitus that refers to the physical manifestation of cultural capital owned by individuals due to life experiences are his major influential concepts that are very useful in deconstructing power in development and social change processes. However it must be recognized that these concepts also propagate social inequalities at the same time. This essay will closely examine his concepts of capital that comes in three forms - embodied, objectified, and institutionalised, and habitus in the fields of education and stratification have made of it. Bourdieu’s work will be analysed in the context both of the debate on class inequalities in educational attainment and of class reproduction in advanced capitalist societies.
According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, a habitus is referring to a person’s way of thinking, acting, and behaving. A habitus is a structure that helps a person comprehend and deal with society. It can be simply seen as a merger of society and the individual. (Wysocka, Paulina, 2013). Habitus is both a “structured structure”—the effect of the actions of, and our interactions with, others—and a “structuring structure”—it suggests and constrains our future actions (Bourdieu, 1992). In other words, habitus is both the “embodiment of our social location” (i.e., class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, generation, and nationality) (Noble & Watkins, 2003) and “the structure of social relations that generate and give significance
2. What is the interpretative habit? And how does one engage in the practice of interpreting?
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) was a French philosopher. He completed his degree in sociology in University of Paris X at Nanterre. Also, he taught there between (1966–68) in the sociology department. Then, he moved later to the University of Paris IX, until his retirement in 1987. ("Jean Baudrillard | French author and philosopher," 2017)