Bourdieu on Education

Pierre Bourdieu:

• Cultural reproduction Model

• Habitus- tastes, attributes of individual

• Field- cultural framework of a specific context

• Cultural capital- value a person’s cultural knowledge has within a field

Education as cultural reproduction:

• Middle-class habitus given symbolic capital

• Teachers and heads are middle-class

• Those who write curriculum and policies are middle-class

• Working class disadvantaged subject to symbolic violence

How does education do this?:

• Language

• Dress sense

• Cultural knowledge

Contemporary applications:

• Ofsted- Cultural capital

• School policies on uniform

• Curriculum based on middle-class knowledge

• Teachers’ judgements

Support for Bordieu:

• Archer- Nike identities

• Reay- Psycho-social approach- Cleft habitus

• Sullivan- students with higher cultural capital achieve higher

Criticisms:

• Functionalists suggest that education is meritocratic

• Socialised into value consensus- skills are needed to achieve

• Students acquire cultural capital throughout their education