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Pierre Bourdieu 's Contribution Of Understanding Education

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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

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