Bourdieusian Analysis Research Articles

Change in and through practice: Pierre Bourdieu, Vincent Pouliot, and the end of the Cold War

The end of the Cold War led to intense debates about how change happens in international politics. In this article, we argue that practice theory has great potential for illuminating this question. Drawing on Vincent Pouliot’s empirical analysis of NATO-Russia relations after the end of the Cold War, we elaborate how change happens in and through practice. We show that post-Cold War security practices are inherently unstable, because there is a fundamental uncertainty about whether the Cold War is really over or whether the Cold War logic of bipolar confrontation still applies. Uncertainty about the meaning of the past destabilizes present practices and thus makes sudden and drastic change possible. To date, many contributions to the literature on international practices have, however, failed to grasp the inherent instability of practice. We argue that this failure is due to a particular conception of change that can be found in the works of Pierre Bourdieu. Through a close reading of Pouliot’s Bourdieusian analysis of post-Cold War politics, we demonstrate the limitations of such a perspective, notably that it is unable to grasp how change originates in practice.

A level playing ‘field’? A Bourdieusian analysis of the career aspirations of further education students on sports courses

There is currently a distinct dearth of research into how sports students' career aspirations are formed during their post-compulsory education. This article, based on an ethnographic study of sport students in tertiary education, draws on data collected from two first-year cohorts (n = 34) on two different courses at a further education college in England. The study draws on ethnographic observations, and semi-structured group interviews, to examine in-depth the contrasting occupational perspectives emergent within these two groups of mainly working-class students, and how specific cultural practices affect students' career aspirations. Utilising a Bourdieusian framework, the paper analyses the internalised, often latent cultural practices that impact upon these students' diverse career aspirations. The hitherto under-researched dimension of inter-habitus interaction and also the application of doxa are outlined. The article reveals how the two student cohorts are situated within a complex field of relations, where struggles for legitimisation, academic accomplishment and numerous forms of lucrative capital become habituated. The study offers salient Bourdieusian-inspired insights into the career aspirations of these predominantly working-class students and the ways in which certain educational practices contribute to the production and reproduction of class inequalities.

Disambiguating with Bourdieu: unravelling policy from practice in the teaching of children with English as an additional language

AbstractThis article explores the use of Bourdieusian analysis for examining how policy and practice interact in the teaching of English and therefore in the development of children's language and literacy, in particular how.Bourdieusian analysis uncovers the ways in which teachers' practice has been influenced unconsciously by centralised shaping of the curriculum for English in England while the pupil demographic in schools has become more linguistically diverse. Data were collected during interviews with both newly qualified and experienced primary school (pupil ages 5–11 years) teachers, whose pedagogical norms for the teaching of English were challenged by the arrival of non‐English speakers in their classrooms. The discussion highlights how the use of Bourdieusian constructs of field, habitus and capital can disambiguate teachers' practical classroom decisions from the influences of policy expectations.

The Classing Gaze and its Gendering Effects: (Dis)-Respectability, Emotional (in)-Competency, and the Counselling Experiences of Domestically Violent Taiwanese Men

Research on domestically violent men typically takes an oppositional logic of gender. While the significance of class in researching domestically violent men is identified, class and gender are often treated as separate entities that do not complicate each other. Drawing upon group observations and in-depth interviews, this paper identifies how intersections of class and gender manifest in the counselling experiences of domestically violent Taiwanese men. From a Bourdieusian feminist analysis, the authors analyse (1) how class distinctions serve to (re)produce gendered hierarchy; (2) how contradictory experiences of gender reveal a relational understanding of class; and (3) how the gendered nature of domestically violent men is inscribed with a meaning of (working) class specificity for maintaining middle-class ‘purity’. In analysing men's multiple and conflicting experiences, this paper contributes to research on domestically violent men by showing how class and gender are actively constructed and not produced in a monolithic/invariant way.

Towards a Bourdieusian analysis of the social composition of the UK film and television workforce

The social composition of the workforce of the UK film and television industries does not reflect the diversity of the population and the industries have been described as white, male and middle class. While the lack of specific demographic representation in employment (for example gender or ethnicity) has been highlighted by both industry and academic commentators, its broader social composition has rarely been addressed by research. This article draws on the work of Bourdieu, particularly the concepts of field, habitus and capitals, to explore perceptions of the barriers to entry into these industries and the way in which individuals negotiate these by drawing on the various capitals to which they have access.

Present but not counted: the tenuous position of academic board chairs within contemporary university governance

This article draws on multiple case study research of Australian academic governance to examine the role and place of chairpersons of university academic boards (also known as academic senates or faculty senates) within university executive leadership committees. A Bourdieusian analysis of the data suggests that while within the broader university field there had traditionally been an academic governance subfield, executive management has appropriated many of the established academic board tasks for itself. It further suggests that the traditional academic governance/management divide may no longer be adequate to represent the intersections which occur in locations such as vice-chancellor’s executive committees where academic leaders and executive leaders mix and in an environment where many university executives were formerly academic leaders themselves. The article raises questions about whether this is indicative of future directions for university governance generally and for academic boards specifically.

Public Education: A Route into Lebanon’s Middle Class in the 1960s and Early 1970s

In Lebanon during the 1960s, public education became more accessible to members of the lower classes and different sectarian denominations, after a time when education had been, to a large extent, a privilege of upper- and middle-class Christians. This paper examines the socioeconomic conditions of public school teachers as a result of this process. Using Bourdieusian analysis, I argue that these teachers used cultural capital acquired through free education to become part of a rising professional middle class. To a large extent, these teachers' definition of their own social positions and roles was a result of their individual histories and internalized values.

Clothing norms as markers of status in a hospital setting: A Bourdieusian analysis

This article uses a Bourdieusian framework to understand the importance of clothing norms for symbolizing and reproducing social, as well as professional, hierarchy in hospitals. Using data from participant observation, it examines how a complex yet informal dress code has emerged at a community hospital in the Northeastern United States, in a setting where very few formal guidelines exist on how to dress. By conceptualizing professionals as holders of various types of capital (economic, cultural, and symbolic), this article expands previous research which considered clothing only as a marker of professional identity. The findings demonstrate (1) how clothing norms are used in subtle, but purposeful, ways to reflect varying degrees of cultural and economic capital and (2) how these complex norms also reflect professional boundaries in medical authority (symbolic capital), which is important during critical moments where clothing can quickly signal who can take control. The discussion borrows Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field to explain why subordinates subscribe to these clothing norms, in the absence of a formal organizational dress code.

Cultures of resistance? A Bourdieusian analysis of doctors' antibiotic prescribing

The prospect of an ‘antimicrobial perfect storm’ in the coming decades through the emergence and proliferation of multi-resistant organisms has become an urgent public health concern. With limited drug discovery solutions foreseeable in the immediate future, and with evidence that resistance can be ameliorated by optimisation of prescribing, focus currently centres on antibiotic use. In hospitals, this is manifest in the development of stewardship programs that aim to alter doctors' prescribing behaviour. Yet, in many clinical contexts, doctors' antibiotic prescribing continues to elude best practice. In this paper, drawing on qualitative interviews with 30 Australian hospital-based doctors in mid-2013, we draw on Bourdieu's theory of practice to illustrate that ‘sub-optimal’ antibiotic prescribing is a logical choice within the habitus of the social world of the hospital. That is, the rules of the game within the field are heavily weighted in favour of the management of immediate clinical risks, reputation and concordance with peer practice vis-à-vis longer-term population consequences. Antimicrobial resistance is thus a principal of limited significance in the hospital. We conclude that understanding the habitus of the hospital and the logics underpinning practice is a critical step toward developing governance practices that can respond to clinically ‘sub-optimal’ antibiotic use.

Leadership and branding in business schools: a Bourdieusian analysis

This paper explores the growth of corporate branding in higher education (HE) and its use by academic and professional managers as a mechanism for not only enhancing institutional reputation but also for facilitating internal culture change. It uses Bourdieu's framework of field, capital and habitus to analyse case studies of branding in two English business schools from the perspectives of academics, management and professional staff and students. The findings reveal a number of tensions and inconsistencies between the experiences of these groups that highlight the contested nature of branding in HE. In an era of rankings, metrics and student fees, it is suggested that branding has become an important means through which HE leaders and managers (re)negotiate the perceived value of different forms of capital and their relative positions within the field. Whilst branding operates at a largely ideological level it has a material effect on the allocation of power and resources within institutions. This is an important development in a sector that has typically privileged scientific capital and contributes towards an understanding of the ways in which leadership is ‘distributed’ within universities.

Fields of struggle: a Bourdieusian analysis of conflicts over criminal justice in England, c. 1820–50

The nineteenth century ‘revolution in government’, from which a dramatically altered relationship between central and local government emerged, is of central concern to social historians. This article uses the work of Pierre Bourdieu to analyse the struggles between the magistracy in Cheshire and the Home Office over the centralisation of prisons and policing between the 1820s and 1840s. During this period legislative enactments increased the role of central government in monitoring and overseeing administrative management in both areas and this produced both direct and indirect conflict. The article argues that Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘field’, ‘capital’ and ‘habitus’ provide a framework for analysing the changing relationship between central and local government which makes evident the effects of divisions between and within social classes and enables the varying nature of the course and outcome of conflicts to be understood. Overall the analysis demonstrates the potential of the approach to be used more widely to explore the changing relationship between central and local government in other areas of social policy.

Intercultural interactions of mono-cultural, mono-lingual local students in small group learning activities: a Bourdieusian analysis

This research examines the understandings and experiences of mono-cultural, mono-lingual local students in relation to intercultural interactions within small group learning activities at university. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and capital are employed to illuminate a number of barriers to intercultural interaction. Using qualitative analysis of interviews with local students, the study revealed intercultural interactions to be co-shaped by multiple co-existing, interdependent and often competing structural and contextual elements, as well as the personal dispositions that students bring to the classroom. The field tends to privilege the capital held by local students (knowledge of small group work, verbal confidence, language), and imposes structural limits on interactions. While students' habitus mediates this effect, the overall result discourages interactions between local students and those from different cultural backgrounds. Implications for universities are discussed.

A Bourdieusian analysis of the participation of Polish students in the ERASMUS programme: cultural and social capital perspectives

In this paper we examine the perceptions of ERASMUS agents’ of Polish students’ participation in the EP. We provide a Bourdieusian analyse of the cultural and social capital acquisition of students based on the qualitative data, collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Erasmus agents, of a European research project. We argue that: Polish students’ participation in the EP has a positive impact on their academic achievement, cultural, social and linguistic capital, but, at the same time, it has a negative impact on degree completion of students as they get highly paid jobs, which prevent them from fully developing their cultural capital; ERASMUS Tourism has its value and place in the EP, because it provides students with the opportunity to develop their cultural, social and linguistic capital; and a Bourdieusian analysis of the experiences of ERASMUS students provides a better understanding of the impact student participation in the EP on their development.

Widening access through openness in higher education in the developing world: A Bourdieusian field analysis of experiences from the National Open University of Nigeria

Bourdieu has argued that higher education is a field that reproduces social inequality, thus complicating how openness widens access to higher education in the developing world. Drawing on the experiences of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), this paper critically analyses and evaluates the rationale, approach, difficulties, opportunities, outcomes and benefits of NOUN’s experience in widening access to higher education in Nigeria using Bourdieu’s field theory. We argue that the success of efforts for openness in higher education in a developing world context involves steering the contradictory tensions of openness and access across competing policy and practice fields. We offer this theorisation as a future social theoretical agenda for reflexive research for improving the effectiveness of praxis to widen access through openness in higher education in the developing world.

Understanding Responses to High School Exit Exams in Literacy: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Poetic Transcriptions

AbstractIn this article, the author demonstrates how a Bourdieusian analysis of poetic transcriptions offers great potential for helping teachers and students to understand how they are responding to state policy mandates in schools. Specifically, the author uses Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, and habitus to analyze two poetic transcriptions, “Fodder for Factories” and “Playing the Testing Game” to show how Nick, an ESOL teacher, and his students respond to the high school exit exams in their state. The Bourdieusian analysis helps explain why Nick is willing to “play the testing game” and his students, most of whom are immigrants, “retreat” from public school experiences. The author concludes by considering how a Bourdieusian analysis of poetic transcriptions can be used by teachers and students themselves to raise awareness of oppressive testing policies and to imagine and create more just accountability systems.

Pierre Bourdieu, Social Transformation and 1960s British Drama

This article makes the controversial argument that Bourdieu’s theory of practice offers both a model of transformation and social reproduction. However, it also claims that his account of cultural production is marred by two blind-spots. First, it contends that Bourdieu has neglected key forms of material support, notably, that offered, post-war, from the ‘left hand of the state’. The subsequent New Wave of 1950s and 1960s British drama had authors who possessed neither economic capital nor certified cultural capital. Secondly, it interrogates Bourdieu’s conclusion that popular culture can never be source of canonized art. Adopting the view that Bourdieu focused too exclusively on legitimate culture, it seeks to contrast his theories on this point with the approach developed by Raymond Williams. The last section sketches a Bourdieusian analysis of Bourdieu. It reads his writings in the light of the different origins of the British and French fields of cultural studies.

PLAYING THE MEDIA GAME

The coal industry is a high-profile and significant sector of the Australian economy that is coming under increasing criticism as a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper offers a Bourdieusian field analysis of major Australian newspaper coverage of the coal industry in relation to economic, political and environmental issues. Theoretically, it extends Bourdieu's field model to embrace the issue of visibility and invisibility of agents and their positions in the field, using the work of Goffman, Giddens and Ericson. Empirically it finds that both journalists and their sources actively engage with factors of invisibility and visibility in contesting the representation of coal industry interests in media coverage. Overall there is a common journalistic endorsement and visibility across all newspapers of the national and regional economic benefits of the coal mining and power generation industries, but marked differences among individual newspapers in how they position themselves and their sources with respect to climate change impacts and issues. A key factor in the contestation over the journalistic coverage is the production of visibility and invisibility for specific information and activity.

A Bourdieusian analysis of cultural reproduction: socialisation and the ‘hidden curriculum’ in professional football

This article draws on the theoretical concepts of Pierre Bourdieu to provide an explanatory account of how socialisation and the hidden curriculum within coaching practice contribute toward the formation of social identities and powerful schemes of internalised dispositions. Drawing on a 10 month ethnography within professional football, the research found that day-to-day practice was ideologically laden and served the production, reproduction and incorporation of socialised agents into the prevailing ‘legitimate’ culture. The legitimacies embodied included respect for authority, hierarchical awareness, control, obedience, collectivity, work ethic and winning.

Dress rehearsal: a Bourdieusian analysis of body work in career portfolio programs

This article examines how career portfolio programs at two secondary schools establish corporeal regimes. Both programs require students to compose portfolios that plot their trajectories through school and into paid work. Prior to graduation, students defend their portfolios before panels of educators and businesspeople. Employing the Bourdieusian concepts of capital and habitus, this article investigates how these programs set up systems that value certain kinds of bodies. Further, it examines how students negotiate these systems and display different kinds of bodies in different kinds of ways. Ultimately, it is argued these disparate bodily performances are read by authorities as indicators of the types of paths students are travelling or should travel into the future.

The Biographical Illumination: A Bourdieusian Analysis of the Role of Theory in Educational Research

The intention of this paper is to serve as a reflexive comment as to my ongoing empirical processes and epistemological position concerning research on university graduates’ aspirations and expectations of graduate employment. This paper will illustrate the inevitable role of social theory in empirical research, and from a Bourdieusian position, consider the use of theory in creating a break with common sense, the danger of replacing common sense with learned bias, and processes that may aid to avoid this problematic issue. Using educational research as a tangible basis, this paper will discuss the empirical application of the habitus in creating a break with common sense, whilst not losing itself to social theory. However, in an effort to depart from simply offering a comment on the need for the application of theory in educational research, this paper intends to demonstrate how the neo-positivist biographical narrative interview method can, contrary to BOURDIEU's (1987) comments, illuminate the habitus, offering an opportunity for its empirical application in educational research and also for the wider academy.