Internal- Class Identities Flashcards
What is a habitus?
Refers to the dispositions or learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular social class. MC can define their habitus as superior and impose it on education system.
What is symbolic capital?
MC pupils who have been socialised into MC tastes and preferences so gain statu and recognition from the school and are deemed to have worth and value.
What is symbolic violence?
School devalues WC habitus so their tastes are deemed as tasteless and worthless. WC see education system as alien and unnatural.
What are Nike identities?
WC pupils seeking alternative ways of creating self worth, status and value by investing heavily in brands such as Nike. Pupil identities are also strongly gendered (e.g. girls adopted a hyper-heterosexual feminine style). Pupils did this to gain symbolic capital but they only further marginalise themselves from the education system and exaggerated their underachievement.
One piece of evidence for class differences in education?
Nicola Ingram- two groups of WC boys from same deprived neighbourhood in Belfast. One passed 11+ and one didn’t (passed= grammar. failed= local secondary). Grammar school= strong MC habitus with high expectations and achievement. Local secondary= low expectations and underachievement.
What did Nicola Ingram find?
WC identity was inseparable from belonging to a WC locality. The network is family and friends was a key part of the boys habitus. WC habitus= emphasis on conformity (extreme pressure to fit in). Major problem for grammar school boys due to conflict between habitus of their locality and habitus of their school- particularly evident on non school uniform days.
What acts as a barrier to success at university? (For the WC).
Clash between their own habitus and that of higher education- due to process of self exususion.
What did Sarah Evans find? (Class identity)
WC students from London did not want to apply to oxbridge because they were scared of not fitting in. The WC also have a strong attachment to locality (4/21 intended to move away).
What does Bourdieu argue about WC pupils?
Many WC pupils saw oxbridge as ‘not for the likes of us’.
What limits success of the WC?
Self exclusion from distant and elite universities.
What are WC pupils forced to do?
Choose between maintaining heir WC didn’t or abandoning it and conforming to MC habitus.
