Capital, Habitus and Field
Bourdieuâs work explored the interaction between three conceptsâcapital, habitus and fieldâwhich he used to explain the maintenance of a stratified society. He expanded the notion of capital, arguing that it was not just tangible economic capital which could be used to account for the structure of society in terms of which individuals or groups held power and status, but that so could other forms of capital, which he referred to as cultural capital and social capital (1986). He used the term cultural capital to refer to those social assets which support social mobility beyond economic means including aspects such as style of speech, dress, ownership of books or pictures, or knowledge of types of music and art forms; his term social capital referred to the social networks and connections within a group of people. His view was that there was misrecognition of the value of different forms of culture as being something intrinsic to that form (e.g. piece of music, artwork or literature), whereas in fact it is arbitrary and defined by the dominant group. He proposed that in the education system it is those aspects of culture deemed worthy by the dominant group which are valued and studied (1976). This consequently means that individuals from the dominant group will have an advantage in education as their familial background will have allowed them to develop a habitus which values and leads to the acquisition of the cultural capital required to do well in education (Moore, 2004). Bourdieuâs theory was that the different forms of capital were convertible; for example, cultural capital can be converted to educational qualifications leading to greater economic capital, and in the same way that children can inherit their wealth from their parents, so too can cultural and social capital be transmitted within the family (1986). In this way, those groups with the cultural resources, particularly with regard to education, use them to maintain their status (Swartz, 1997).
The concept of habitus was developed by Bourdieu to describe a âsystem of shared social dispositions and cognitive structures which generates perceptions, appreciations and actionsâ (1984, p. 279). These are the dispositions inculcated in an individual by the environment and culture in which one grows up, which Bourdieu describes as unconscious internalisation of the chances of success of an individual from a particular class. The habitus produces certain actions and attitudes within particular fields, with Bourdieu describing fields as structured spaces with varying degrees of autonomy which produce their own values and behavioural constraints that are relatively independent from other fields (Naidoo, 2004). Bourdieu uses the term âfieldâ to describe the setting in which the interactions of capital are sited; the arena where the social relationships are structured in terms of power. An individualâs role in a particular field is determined by the cultural capital one holds in that field and how well oneâs habitus is adapted to it (Bourdieu, 1993).
It has been argued (e.g. Archer, 1970; Jenkins, 1992) that Bourdieuâs ideas are particular to French society However, Robbins (2004) argues that his ideas are transcultural and transferable and that there has been a failure to engage with Bourdieuâs ideas in the UK. This chapter considers the effect of capital and habitus of individuals in the fields of formal education in the UK.
Which Groups Are Under-represented?
The generally accepted consensus is that non-traditional students in HE include âwomen, ethnic minorities, mature and working class students and students with disabilitiesâ providing one side of a dichotomy with âa privileged minority of young, white, Western men without disabilities or without the constraints of employment or dependentsâ on the other (Hinton-Smith, 2012, p. 4). Although Bourdieuâs work focused on the dominant and dominated groups in terms of social class, it has been argued that it is also applicable to gender, racial and ethnic disadvantage (McClelland, 1990, p. 105; Reay, 2004) and Dillabough contends that Bourdieuâs work is key to understanding âthe problems of subordination, differentiation and hierarchy, and to expose the possibilities, as well as the limits, of gendered self-hoodâ (2004, p. 503). Reay considers that the inclusion of race and gender differences when studying habitus is particularly of importance when exploring smaller research contexts (2004).
A very important distinction to make is that individuals frequently fall into two or more of these categories making it difficult to disaggregate whether a disadvantage is due to sex, class, gender or ethnicity and Egerton (2000) noted that disadvantaged students are more likely to come to HE as mature students.
Students from Lower Socioeconomic Backgrounds
Although there is evidence that participation in HE has been improving for people from lower socioeconomic groups, there is still a great deal of disparity and the pattern of participation which demonstrates uneven distribution across types of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Yorke (2012) compared the proportions of young people from lower socioeconomic groups in old and new universities and found that on average, new universities had 37.7% of their young people from the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) categories 4, 5, 6 and 7 compared to 22% for old universities. He also compared the increase in participation in the 12 years between 1994 and 2006 and found that for students from advantaged backgrounds the increase was from 50% to 55%, while for those from disadvantaged backgrounds the increase was from 13% to 16%.
Ethnic Minorities
The increase in upward social mobility for ethnic groups in Britain has been observed since the 1960s with education seen as a major driver (Shiner & Modood, 2002). The efforts of economic migrants to better themselves and their identification of education with improved social mobility is one of the explanations given for the over-representation of ethnic minority students in HE, nearly twice the proportion of university entrants compared with the general population of ethnic minority 18â24 year olds (Shiner & Modood, 2002). However, the pattern of participation for minority ethnic groups is not evenly distributed across HEIs, with a greater proportion found in new universities and, as a consequence, producing under-representation in elite universities (Shiner & Modood, 2002).
Female Students
At the beginning of the expansion of HE in the 1960s, women were in the minority compared with men (Tight, 2012). Five decades on, the situation has reversed and now commentators are beginning to discuss men as the under-represented group (Gorard, 2008). However, the picture is more complex as there is uneven participation by men and women in elite universities, with women being less well represented (Tight, 2012).
Mature Students
Studies of adult learners have demonstrated that there are personal, social and economic benefits when adults return to learning (Knightley, 2006). Much of the focus of this work has been on raising the aspirations of the learners rather than changing the cultures inherent in the educational establishments (Tett, 2004). Yet, there is evidence that HE may benefit from mature student participation.
A study to explore retention in HE (e.g. David, 2012) showed that while students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were less likely to be retained than more traditional students, this difference was less marked in mature students. This may be because they are making up for their lack of cultural capital with other skills and qualities, such as, time management skills.
How Unfair Is this Representation?
Gorard (2008) contends that the unfair under-representation of particular groups in HE has yet to be established, pointing out that the demographic landscape in the UK has changed considerably in the post-War years making it difficult to make comparisons across time. There are difficulties in defining and measuring social class as well as defining and measuring participation in HE. Gorard (2008) argues that as 92% of the population as a whole is White, based on the 2001 census, while they make up only 84% of undergraduate (UG) population, that it is actually the White proportion of the population who are under-represented. He also notes that the increased participation by women in HE has led to an under-representation of men across all categories. Given the data available to him, Gorard notes that the odds ratio of enrolling in a degree between the higher three social groups and the lower three social groups fell from 7.9 in 1990 to 4.4 in 1999 indicating that social class participation in HE is improving. The inequality is still apparent; data from the 2001 census showed that 50% of those aged 18â19 in the higher three social groups were accepted to degree courses compared with 19% of the lower three social groups.
Tight (2012) reaches the same conclusions as Gorard in that the picture for women and ethnic minorities does not indicate under-representation. However, he does qualify this with some concerns about womenâs under-representation in certain institutions and the fact that ethnic minorities, like women, are over-represented, but they are concentrated in the new universities maintaining a level of inequality of opportunity; that professions providing wealth and status are more likely to recruit from the elite universities (Milburn, 2009). Likewise, although there have been some advances for mature students, they too tend to be concentrated in new universities, and as part-time students, struggle to achieve parity in terms of funding (Tight, 2012). Tight acknowledges Gorardâs point that it is prior academic achievement which provides the barrier for students from lower socioeconomic groups to access university; however, there is evidence that, while there is correlation between A-level (Advanced General Certificate of Education) scores and achievement in HE, this correlation is less marked for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds (Milburn, 2012).
Reasons for Under-representation
Cultural Capital and Inadequate Compulsory Education
All children in the UK are required by law to receive education up to the age of 16, but the question is whether all children receive an adequate education to enable them to continue their education beyond that. In a paper outlining the different forms of capital, Bourdieu described how his notion of cultural capital arose as a theory âto explain the unequal scholastic achievement of children originating from the di...