A Critical Review and Appropriation of Pierre Bourdieu'S Analysis of Social and Cultural Reproduction

Abstract

Although Pierre Bourdieu is easily the most important current French sociologist of education, his work has largely been neglected by American educationalists. Part of this is undoubtedly Bourdieu's fault, for his writing is both jargon-ridden and and convoluted, but it would be a pity if this stylistic barrier impeded a critical and balanced analysis of his research. Beneath the jargon lies an astonishingly comprehensive and systematic sociology of French education, informed by a carefully selected and uniquely articulated integration of classical sociological theory and statistical analysis, To contribute to the critical reception of Bourdieu's research and social theory the author isolates and explicates key terminology in Bourdieu's work, links these concepts with each other within the totality of his sociology of education, and differentially appropriates and criticizes Bourdieu's work from the vantage point of the philosophy of praxis.