Abstract
The present paper draws on fostering sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 2000) and contemporary possibilities in teaching and learning sociological concepts in relation to education. The authors present a method of reading films as a didactic tool in connection to selected sociological texts in order to better understand theory and praxis in the educational field and beyond. The film Billy Elliot was chosen as a didactic tool for presenting how Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and forms of capital, as well as Bernstein’s conceptualisations of language codes, can be used in the pedagogical process. Emphasis is placed on education and the ways in which it contributes to shifting or reproducing social inequalities, class inequalities and gender.
Highlights
As indicated by Wright Mills (2000), sociological imagination is always a reflection of the time and environment, and of the need to understand events in the world and what is happening to “us”
Critics of modern society and school highlight the risks of instrumentality and the subsequent emphasis on applicable knowledge (Biesta, 2010) rather than quality of thought (Wright Mills, 2000)
We will focus on Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of the forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1986); on habitus; on social practices; and on Bernstein’s concept of formal and informal language or elaborated and restricted codes
Summary
As indicated by Wright Mills (2000), sociological imagination is always a reflection of the time and environment, and of the need to understand events in the world and what is happening to “us”. We will focus on Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of the forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1986) (where they can be found in the film, who the holders of various forms of capital are); on habitus (the case of the classification of gender roles and in parts of social classes); on social practices; and on Bernstein’s concept of formal and informal language or elaborated and restricted codes Together, these concepts enable a better insight into understanding the reproduction of social and educational relations, offering a sociological perspective on the process of education and above all on the socially conditioned methods of learning and teaching the formation of social (gender) roles, as well as on the reproduction of social relations. To study all of the above, in this paper we have selected Billy Elliot, a film about a working-class boy who chooses ballet instead of boxing
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