Bourdieu: structure and agency

In this section I argue that the Bourdieusian thinking tools provide a sound understanding of how the structures of privilege of dominant (racial and class) groups are being re/produced through education and thus supplement CRT in its critique of meritocracy. I further argue that the versatility of the framework, as indicated by its multiple theorisations and applications begins to indicate

sources of agency of BME students navigating the educational field.

A variety of aspects of the structure versus agency debate have been

thoroughly explored in literature (Archer, 1988; Giddens, 1991; Goffman, 2012; Hall, 2000). However, as I argue below, Bourdieu’s clear theorisation of the role of education in mediating the relations between structure and agency, while not without its drawbacks, seems most useful in this research. For Bourdieu

education is key to the reproduction of privilege and disadvantage (Bourdieu, 1973). To describe how exactly this reproduction happens he introduced the concepts of habitus, capitals and field (Bourdieu, 1997, 1977).

Field can be understood as the element of structure, a social context, with specific, yet unwritten, rules (Archer et al., 2015b; Bourdieu, 1984). It is these rules, implicitly determined by the dominant groups, that will decide which particular forms of capital and habitus are recognised and valued (or not) in a given field (Burke, 2017). The boundaries of a field are often difficult to

determine, as they can simultaneously act as sub-fields of a larger field or as separate fields which are hierarchical to one another in a larger field of power, with these fields being very different from one another, thus recognising different capitals (Colley et al., 2014).

Habitus, then, can be described as norms and values that an individual (or a group) uses to guide their actions (Reay et al., 2001). It is a matrix of enduring dispositions which informs one’s interactions with the world (Archer et al., 2014; Bourdieu, 1977).

And finally, capitals can be understood as a set of resources that can be

(Archer et al., 2014; Bourdieu, 1997). Capitals then, can act as the agentic factors, if they are recognised in a given field, helping to navigate it. Thus, for Bourdieu, agency stemming from capitals can sometime mean colluding with structures. Bourdieu (1997) distinguished the following basic forms of capital:

• _{Economic capital – these are economic resources, like money, income,} wealth.

• Cultural capital – which is a set of cultural practices and competences, such as attitudes or knowledges, which can be used to play the educational, labour, and other fields. It can be embodied (a person’s internalised ethos, attitude, knowledges, culture), objectified (cultural goods like books or art pieces) and institutionalised (e.g. educational qualifications)

• Social capital – is a network of acquaintances which can be mobilised in order to gain advantage

• _{Symbolic capital – is a combination of the particular forms of cultural, social} and economic capitals which in a given context are given worth.

Education and in particular schooling, including higher education, can be interpreted using the above Bourdieusian conceptual tools, whereby higher education/schooling is a field into which students, academics and others (i.e. agents or players in the field) come with different habitus and capitals, which they derive from family, prior education, and the surrounding environment, like, peers and popular culture (Bourdieu, 1977). Bourdieu, leaves very little room for individuals under the same circumstances to develop different habitus and capitals, which limits the development of agency among them, while at the same time he is doubtful that fields, like the field of education, are likely to change their rules and systems of rewards, which would start recognising diverse habitus and capitals. Therefore, only the ‘right’ types of capitals are recognised in a given field and it takes an exceptional individual to succeed in the system against the odds.

Bourdieu (1976) also maintained that schools, by treating everyone equally, in the spirit of meritocracy, reproduce (dis)advantage. This happens because the implicit rules in the field of education, which recognise and reward only

particular forms of capitals and habitus, are set by and for the dominant groups. Therefore, as the dominant groups come into the schooling system with what is

seen as the ‘right’ habitus and capitals, nurtured in family and their

environment, pass the examination (of formal and informal/hidden curriculum) with a lot more ease. Thus, meritocracy can be seen as a smoke screen, a tool to conceal structural inequalities and frame them as personal responsibilities (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1979; Reay, 1998). Abrahams (2016) investigated attitudes towards meritocracy among working and middle class students and found that working-class students displayed a commitment to using only their institutionalised cultural capital (their degrees/qualifications) to secure a position on the labour market ladder, which she argued stemmed from their working- class habitus and the desire to prove themselves in the middle-class field of professional employment. Thus, they seemed to adhere to meritocracy (or believe in it) in its literal sense of a merit-based system of recognition of achievement (rather than see through it as merely a discourse of such recognition rather than an actual practice). At the same time, middle-class students in Abrahams’s study were more likely to express willingness to utilise other networks/social capital (e.g. engage in nepotism) to gain advantage. The strength of discourses of meritocracy and how these discourses are applied differently on White and BME people and what capitals BME students use to achieve advantage form a crucial part of my research and are explored throughout the thesis.

3.4.1. Developing Bourdieusian tools further

Bourdieu has been widely theorised and applied in education, as well as higher education in particular (see for example Heath et al., 2010; Naidoo, 2015; Reay et al., 2001). For example, at an institutional level, Diane Reay (2001)

conceptualised institutional habitus of universities as a set of norms and values underpinning institutional cultures, which can be friendly or hostile to students depending on their individual habitus. Colley and her colleagues (2014) applied field analysis to the HE sector, arguing that individual universities can be seen not only as separate fields but also as subfields, playing in the wider field of HE to secure the best possible position within the hierarchy of the field. Thus, research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group institutions, have been categorised as being positioned, as well as actively seeking to position themselves as higher in the hierarchy of fields (Colley et al., 2014).

At the level of communities, Archer and her colleagues (2012a), highlighted the influence of family habitus, i.e. the “ways and settings in which family operates” (p. 886) to shape interests and aspirations in a particular field, which could differ by ethnic groups. For example, family habitus of Chinese families has been categorised as often emphasising family honour, which has been argued to translate itself into good educational results (Archer and Francis, 2007).

Most usefully for this study, the concept of science capital was developed to describe a combination of specific forms of cultural (knowledge, interest in science, positive view of self in science), social (parents and others who have science background), and economic capitals (money spent on scientific kit, school and extra-curricular trips, etc.) in science (Archer et al., 2015b, 2014, 2012). Archer and her colleagues (2014) argued “that “science capital” is not a separate “type” of capital but rather a conceptual device for collating various types of economic, social and cultural capital that specifically relate to science” (p.5). In other words, science capital comprises of science literacy, science dispositions and preferences, scientific behaviours and practices, and a science identity (Archer et al., 2015b). Science capital, then, is argued to help

understand the development of scientific aspirations and differing patterns of science participation (Archer et al., 2014). For example, using a country representative sample Louise Archer and her colleagues (2015b) showed that BME students between school years 6 and 9 displayed higher science

aspirations than White students, which was highly related to their science capital.

3.4.2. Bourdieusian theory and ‘race’

While Bourdieu wrote on issues of ‘race’ and coloniality in his earlier works (Bourdieu, 1958), these concentrated more on the power relations of colonial states with their colonies and the subjugating role of ‘race’ or caste in these relations. Subsequently, he has been criticised for generally not engaging with issues of ‘race’ in his work on capitals, habitus and field (Burke, 2017).

However, other scholars applied his thinking tools in an intersectional manner, looking at the junctures of class and ‘race’/ethnicity to indicate how BME students achieve success.

Moore (2008) conceived of Black habitus as a ‘cultural reservoir’ (p. 496) of middle-class African-Americans, which determines the performance of racial and class identities and rejects current racial order, nurtures positive

representations of Black communities and presents respectability as its key characteristic. In this sense Moore’s understanding of Black habitus is rather subversive, as the mainstream White society may not usually view Black habitus as positive and/or successful dispositions.

Wallace (2017) conceptualised Black cultural capital as simultaneously operationalising ‘race’ and class to “recognise and resist the mainstream” education (p.913, emphasis in the original). This was done, he argued, for example, by using a middle class language of respect towards teachers (“yes sir” instead of a simple “yes”) and contributing facts about Black British

experiences to historical debates (Wallace, 2017).

Another example is ethnic capital (Modood, 2004; Moran, 2016; Shah et al., 2010). Shah and colleagues (2010) found that despite coming from lower

classes South Asian families were able to instil high aspirations for achievement in their offspring through a closely knit community network, thus emphasising the role of ethnic capital as a specific form of social capital available to South Asian families.

Rollock and her colleagues (2015) talked about moral capital, which they argued was a preserve of Black working classes which puts emphasis on respectability, integrity, honesty, selflessness and good will. And finally, Islamic capital, stemming from the teachings of Koran, was argued to be used by South Asian families in the UK to exercise control over children, legitimise family roles, and inform family system of values which included emphasis on education (Franceschelli and O’Brien, 2014).

In all the cases, the above mentioned capitals and habitus have been argued to contribute to educational success of BME students, with some even being labelled as ‘model minorities’, i.e. doing better/achieving better educational results than the White majority (Bradbury, 2013; Gillborn, 2008). However, the success of ethnic minority students linked to the above capitals and habitus,

has also been questioned as in-authentic or supposedly achieved in a ‘wrong way’, whereby it stemmed more from family values and expectations than from students’ intrinsic motivations which are supposedly the preserve of White students (Archer and Francis, 2007; Bradbury, 2013). Such interpretation of success as supposedly achieved in different ways creates and marks racial differences whereby White students are not only set as the point of reference for how success should be ‘authentically’ achieved (i.e. centring whiteness), but also falsely designated as the ultimate independent, self-made learner (playing into neo-liberal discourses) whose success was supposedly entirely thanks to themselves and not the conditions in which they were socialised in, which equipped them with the right capitals and habitus (Bradbury, 2013). Thus, issues of racism and whiteness, yet again, seem to be pertinent in every interaction within the educational field.

Bourdieu’s thinking tools provide a clear outline of the mechanisms of structure and agency, particularly as it pertains to the reproduction of privilege.

Additionally, further theorisations of his work at the intersections of class and ‘race’ begin to indicate the sources of agency of people of colour. However, they seem to be narrow in their scope; their focus is usually limited to one particular aspect or community, such as ethnic capital being the preserve of South Asian families, or the Black cultural capital, as the name suggests, being the preserve of the people of African descent. This is why Yosso’s (2005) concept of community cultural wealth, which incorporates multiple capitals and therefore is multi-faceted and versatile, gains attractiveness. It is discussed next.