Study Notes on Pierre Bourdieu By Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar, Ph.

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Cultural Capital Notes prepared for students by Professor Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar The Role of Schools in the Reproduction of Social Inequality in Society: Cultural Capital as an Analytical Lens A. Unit overview This unit on cultural capital is intended to introduce students to a widely-employed perspective in sociology for accounting for how societal inequality perpetuates itself in very subtle yet powerful ways, and how the school system and school personnel [wittingly] play a fundamental role in this process. The cultural capital framework is attributed to the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu and is lodged in his scholarship on how social inequality reproduces itself through institutional practices that come to appear conventional, rational, and natural. Cultural capital, as a sociological concept and framework, is intended as part of a rigorous analysis of how public schools are implicated in perpetuating social inequality in society; it is not intended to be re-worked to valorize the cultural and linguistic resources of a subordinate group, although such a valorizing intellectual activity is crucial in any course in the field of multicultural education. A cultural capital framework can be extremely useful to convey to students that inequality and discrimination today are often not blatant or intentional, yet it is still every much an integral feature of almost every institution in society, particularly the school system. The principal thesis is that schools and the curriculum have always been arbitrarily [unfairly] organized so that academic achievement is closely aligned with the social, cultural, and linguistic characteristics of the dominant group[s] in society. Students from privileged communities encounter linguistic and communication structures, authority patterns, and knowledge forms that not only match their home and community environment, but that also enable them to be highly receptive to the pedagogical actions of teachers (i.e., permit them to appear smarter and talented than low-status students). School personnel, in turn, are trained and socialized to interpret these students familiarity or mastery of these cultural forms as evidence of their intellectual ability and aptitude for learning the official curriculum. To achieve complete legitimacy, the cultural forms and learning styles of the dominant group[s] become institutionally framed as culturally universalistic and normal (desirable, high status)certainly not culturally arbitrary--; the difficulties working-class students exhibit in school, due to having to handle literacy in an alien code, are then interpreted as objective evidence of their lower ability and educability. The cultural and linguistic resources of these low-status groups are not deemed as a viable and worthy vehicle to develop literacy or students talents. To make matters worse, the cultural, linguistic and cognitive characteristics that low-status exhibit in school (language competency and basic literacy in Spanish; Ebonics) are assessed interfering with their academic and intellectual progress in school.

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B.

Instructors preparation for this unit.

Instructors can read MacLeods brief summary of Bourdieus work on cultural capital; they can also read pp. 12-14 in Stanton-Salazar. Students, likewise, can initiate their understanding of cultural capital through these two brief accounts. It is crucial that instructors clarify the sociological basis for this concept, and explain, as best as possible, its definition. Unfortunately, the concept has been used in many different ways, even by Bourdieu himself, so a lot of people get confused, including researchers. Students also tend to confuse cultural capital with social capital; so caution is advised. Below I provide an elaboration from a forthcoming chapter on peer social capital: Many people mistakenly confuse cultural capital and social capital. Although both concepts are linked to Bourdieu's theory of social and cultural reproduction, many people link "cultural capital" to Bourdieu while linking "social capital" to James Coleman. The concepts, in Bourdieu's framework, are related, but need to be seen as distinct phenomena. Cultural capital can be most easily associated with sociolinguistic standards and cultural behaviors, while social capital refers to social relationships and networks. Bourdieu (1977) used "cultural capital" to highlight a form of ubiquitous and hidden form of "power" wielded by the dominant group to insure their survival at the top of the societal class hierarchy. Ultimately the upper middle-class and the upper class in society have the power to control the school system and its curriculumfor the most part. They are able to do this by assigning value (i.e., capital) to the cultural practices of the dominant group[s], and by designing curriculum that make it necessary for students to already have these practices down in order to succeed scholastically. It is as if one set of children were to come to school with Mexican pesos, and the other with U.S. dollars both groups may have equivalent currencyin a technical and scientific sense, but the school only officially accepts the dollars. The ability to do this is about powerthat's the crux of Bourdieu's contribution. So it doesn't matter what the truth is: i.e., that minority students come to school with lots of cultural currency or resources, or "funds of knowledge" (see Moll, Amanti, & Gonzalez, 1992)the school is not committed to "valuing" and sanctioning these cultural resourcescurrent school policies around bilingual instruction confirms this (Prop. 227).
Social Capital Among Working-class Minority Students. (Review of theory on social capital, and its application in research on minority students). In Peers, Schools, and the Educational Achievement of U.S.Mexican Youth. Edited by Margaret Gibson. Margaret A. Gibson, Patricia Gndara, and Jill Peterson Koyama. New York: Teachers College Press.

CLASSROOM SOCIAL STRUCTURE (the hidden curriculum): Bourdieus framework on cultural capital is an excellent way to introduce or elaborate on the notion of the the hidden curriculum, or classroom social structure. The notion of social structure is fundamental to most sociological perspectives on schools as institutions, and on classrooms as key institutional sites that reflect the divisions existing in society. Below are some my notes on classroom social structure that may be helpful in preparing and teaching this unit.

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Key points for this unit: See second paragraph in Section A, and text in Section B.

Considering the focus on sociological theory in this section, perhaps the most important challenge will be to have students consider how this cultural capital framework might enlightened their programmatic efforts to make a difference in the educational lives of working-class students and parents. The main idea is that, as agents of social change, and as committed educators, they need to have a strong grasp of the [deeply institutionalized] political and power dynamics operating within the school system. The pragmatic challenge for educators is to assist students to gain competency in the dominant discourse, while recognizing that this dominant discourse carries ideologically racist and classist elements that low-status students and parents may react to and resist. While accommodating the dominant discourse, low-status students must also come to recognize that their own [sociocultural] discourse has intellectual and motivational value, meaning, and communicative power. For the students in the class, this cultural capital framework helps them understand that language and curriculum ideologically laden, and that the institutionalization of the dominant discourse in our school system is reflective of power dynamics [race, class, and gender] that organize communities and society.

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Social Structures in Society, the School & the Classroom

[notes by R. D. Stanton-Salazar, Ph.D.]

Premises: social behavior in society is patterned, or organized or structured; just like our way of speaking English in patterned---guided by deep linguistic structures, and then manifested through everyday speech. Sociologists (like linguists) work to identify social patterns and to figure what determines them (tacit rules, and when they followed and not followed); people and groups regularly act in predictable ways; there is a good deal of social conditioning, or condition behavior in society; of course, people and groups, do exercise agency, or forms of consciousness and behavior that is innovative and strategic; thus, social behavior is the product of both structure and agency. Key assumption 1: social structures are not directly observable; require a special kind of secondary discourse (a Discourse designed to provide a mode of analysis oriented toward viewing hidden functions (purposes) and consequences of socially-patterned behavior) Key assumption 2: patterned relations at the interpersonal level (in a particular context e.g., the classroom) is LINKED with patterned relations at the societal level; e.g., domestic violence in the home is linked to male supremacy throughout society (i.e., patriarchy); the way we organize manufacturing or production is linked to the interests of those who control our economic system) Key assumption 3: it is common for people, organizations, or institutions to set rules and try to control and regulate the behavior of others, and this is usually accompanied by official justifications or rationales for such controls; OFFICIAL RULES ARE OFTEN UNDERGIRDED BY HIDDEN OR TACIT RULES (schemas) that really drive social interaction; however, people and institutions are rarely conscious or devoted to examining the hidden consequences of organizational policies/norms and patterned relations (the hidden consequences of the hidden schemas). When people are motivated to examine and expose the hidden schemas and their consequences, it is usually those who suffer greatly from them. Key assumption 4: most wide-spread ideologies in society exist to mask the hidden consequences of social structures (e.g., ? The U.S. is the premiere model of democracy in the world).

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CHARACTERIZING social structure STEP 1: Identifying recurrent social practices; predictable patterns of organization, activity, and social organization; relative stability; patterns of interdependence: between basic institutions; between groups within institutions; between people, as members of groups within institutions; STEP 2: Revealing social structure, [two basic dimensions] A. SCHEMAS: schemes of perception, and appreciations, unspoken rules, tacit procedures, normative practices, regulations, [written and unwritten] which, whatever their official or explicit purpose, serve to regulate social behavior---gets people to act in a routine way, usually unconsciously [e.g., eligible men are consider first in executive promotions before eligible womenpecking order] B. and serve, as well, to distribute resources and create forms of power and influence in social interaction (Giddens, 1984; Sewell, 1992). C. The division and organization of resources, power and influence in society (e.g., Marx: the control of economic production under monolopy Capitalism) D. create and sustain (reproduce) schemes of perception, and appreciations, unspoken rules, tacit procedures, normative practices, regulations, [written and unwritten] which, whatever their official or explicit purpose, serve to regulate social behavior and maintain the distribution of resources and forms of power and influence in society. AB B A [mutually reinforcing]

STEP 3: Those in power; those with resources: Actors [groups, classes, institutions] are able then, on the basis of these schemas and procedures, to establish relationships or connections that serve as the basis for strengthening their position and for acquiring more resources and power. Such rules or procedures, and their associated resources and privileges, are precisely those basic structural properties that can be activated or exploited for collective gain (e.g., men activate their gender identity in order to secure a host of privileges in family life, in the workplace, and in public contexts; middle class suburban political organizations organize [build solidarity] to protect their suburban interests).

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Study Notes on Pierre Bourdieu Stanton-Salazar, R

(March 20, 2005) EDUC 204

Dimensions of Institutionalized Exclusion: adapted from 1997 Harvard Educational Review article entitled, " A Social Capital Framework for Understanding The Socialization of Ethnic Minority Children and Youths." Any quotes taken from text below and used in written scholarly works must cite the 1997 article. Following the work of Bourdieu (1977) many educational scholars have argued that the enduring, orderly and patterned nature of social relations existing within mainstream social settings (e.g., schools, workplace, the police/judicial sphere) are governed by 2 underlying dimensions of institutionalized exclusion: The basic argument is that the constellation of policies, regulations, organizational structures, pedagogical methods, evaluation procedures, and normative practices which characterize the institution -- although officially justified as fair, meritocratic, nondiscriminatory, and democratic -- tacitly operate to exclude, discriminate outgroup members, to problematize their access to valued resources, opportunities, and privileges, .these same policies, regulations, organizational structures, etc. have differential effects, meaning that they operate in subtle and not so subtle ways to maintain and protect the interests and privileges of ingroup [or dominant group] members. How this occurs require that we come to grips with invisible or non-explicit forms of exclusion and oppression (Blauner, 1972, p. 9). First Dimension: As Pierre Bourdieu (1977a, 1977b) and others have argued (Harragan, 1977; Lamont and Lareau, 1988), for working class people, minorities, and women, mainstream social settings (that profess a commitment equality and fairness) remain hostile and alien terrain, precisely because institutional policies, pedagogical methods, evaluation procedures, organizational structures and practices are, in the most profoundest sense, geared toward the DIFFERENTIAL [unmeritocratic] access resources, opportunities, and privileges (toward the exclusion of others who vie for these same resources and opportunities). CULTURE: What makes institutional settings alien and resistant to change has do with the fact that these policies and practices become culture; that is, they become integrated with customs, traditions, and communicative conventions which, in turn, are deeply rooted in the cultural experiences, and in the very schemes of perception, thought, and appreciations of dominant group members. This explains why dominant groups become, in a psychological sense, highly invested in such policies and practices. This culture works for them, while working against subordinate group members. Yet, this is not the full story; such policies and practices become culturally meaningful precisely because they establish and maintain an unspoken interdependence and solidarity among dominant group members, and because such policies and practices provide for the near monopoly and greater enjoyment of institutional resources and privileges (see Hartmann, 1981). This cultural meaningfulness is further secured by dominant group members by way of a consensus that these policies and practices are in fact normal and legitimate. Thus, while dominant group members experience institutional policies and practices as facilitating their
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continued access to valued resources and opportunities, subordinate group members experience these same policies and practices as obstructive, alienating, and oriented toward their continued subordination. Second Dimension: Yet, the painful dissonance often experienced by outgroup [subordinate] members may rest more within the second dimension governing schools and other mainstream social settings professing equality, which can be explained in terms of the ideologies, institutional beliefs, and formalized explanations which are employed not only to justify and legitimate the more formalistic set of policies, organizational procedures and normative practices, but also to depict the cultural and institutional conventions of dominant groups as the universal or natural standard, to depict the cultural conventions of low-status groups as inferior or particularistic, and to obscure how institutional practices are oriented toward their continued subordination and exclusion (Bourdieu, 1977b; Fine, 1991). The ability to institutionalize or "normalize" these structures and ideologies is conceived by Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977a) as one of the most pervasive forms of power, and has articulated its impact on subordinate group members in terms of symbolic violence. According to Bourdieu, such invisible violence "produces 'dehumanization, frustration, disruption, anguish, revolt, humiliation, resentment, disgust, despair, alienation, apathy, fatalist resignation, dependency, and aggressiveness' " (Bourdieu, 1958, cited in Lamont and Lareau, 1988; also see Anzaldua, 1987, p. 80). Photographs of Pierre Bourdieu
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lbsjs.free.fr/Bourdieu/Bourdieu.jpg&imgrefurl=http://lbsjs.free.fr/Bourdieu/bourd ieudocs.htm&h=205&w=200&sz=15&tbnid=JMGQhhgX1KMJ:&tbnh=99&tbnw=97&start=8&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBourdie u%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

http://www.dtv.dk/tekhist/fotos/bourdieu.jpg
www.infoamerica.org/teoria/bourdieu1.htm

Pierre Bourdieu died in Paris, January 23, 2002, of cancer. He was well known internationally and his work widely discussed dealing with late modernity. He also supported (progressive) social movements.

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Loic J. D. Wacquant The Structure and Logic of Bourdieus Sociology, in An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant

(November 27, 1999; Feb. 12, 2001)

[p. 7] The task of sociology, according to Pierre Bourdieu (1989a: 7) is to uncover the most profoundly buried structures of the various social worlds which constitute the social universe, as well as the mechanisms which tend to ensure their reproduction or their transformation. This universe is peculiar in that its structures lead, as it were, a double life. They exist twice: [1] in the objectivity of the first order constituted by the distribution of material resources and means of appropriation of socially scarce goods and values (species of capital, in Bourdieus technical language); and [2] in the objectivity of the second order, in the form of systems of classification, the mental and bodily schemata that function as symbolic templates for the practical activities-conduct, thoughts, feelings, and judgements--of social agents. [REPRODUCTION] Cumulative exposure to certain social conditions instills in individuals an ensemble of durable and transposable dispositions that internalize the necessities of the extant social environment, inscribing inside the organism the patterned inertia and constraints of external reality. [p. 13] [Cumulative exposure to certain social conditions: 1) cumulative exposure to seeing people of color in the media in degrading roles ---- > leads to certain patterns of thought; 2) cumulative exposure to differential privileges: boys and men get served first at the table, followed by girls and women ---- > leads to certain patterns of thought; 3) cumulative exposure to seeing white men in positions of power and authority women ---- > leads to certain patterns of thought; 4) cumulative exposure to suburban ways of living ---- > leads to certain patterns of thought; 5) etc. CLINCHER: certain patterns of thought (WAYS OF THINKING) -- > symbolic systems = instruments of domination] systems of classification constitute a stake in the struggles that oppose individuals and groups in the routine interactions of daily life (p. 14 of B&W) [My own work: Cumulative exposure to contexts that are geared toward relations that are structurally encoded to prevent the transfer vital forms of institutional support--dispositions that near obliterate expectations for support, and that force a movement toward unsponsored self-reliance.]

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Classes and other antagonistic social collectives are continually engaged in a STRUGGLE to impose the definition of the world [a system of classification] that is most congruent with their particular interests. (B&W, p. 14) [Bourdieus Field] [p. 16] [Marx]: Society does not consist of individuals; [rather] it express the sum of connections and relationships in which individuals find themselves. Die Grundrisse (1971: 77) [quoted by Wacquant on page 16] [use to preface Theory Chapter] [Bourdieus Field] [p. 16] A field consists of a set of objective, historical relations between positions anchored in certain forms of power (or capital), [e.g., relations between middle-class teachers and working-class youth/students] while habitus consists of a set of historical relations deposited within individual bodies in the form of mental and corporeal schemata of perceptions, appreciation, and action. [keep in mind my own ideas of STRATIFICATION and COUNTERSTRATIFICATION] each field prescribes its particular values and possesses its own regulative principles. These principles delimit a socially structured space in which agents struggle, depending on the position they occupy in that space, either to change to to preserve its boundaries and form. Two properties are central to this succinct definition. [1] First, a field is a patterned system of objective forces (much in the manner of a magnetic field), a relational configuration endowed with a specific gravity which it imposes on all the objects and agents which enter in it. [Quoting Bourdieu]: It is the structure of the game, and not a simple effect of mechanical aggregation, which is at the basis of the transcendence, revealed by cases of inversion of intentions, of the objective and collective effect of cumulated actions. [p. 17 of book]

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A field is simultaneously a space of conflict and competition, the analogy here being with a battlefield, in which participants vie to establish monopoly over the species of capital effective in it [a] cultural authority in the artistic field, [b] scientific authority in the scientific field, [c] sacerdotal authority in the religious field, and so forth-and the power to decree the hierarchy and conversion rates between all forms of authority in the field of power. [my underlining; e.g., bilingualism] In the course of these struggles, the very shape and divisions of the field become a central stake, because to alter the distribution and relative weight of forms of capital is tantamount to modifying the structure of the field. [e.g., the school system as the education field] [immigrant parents do not wield the power and social resources to enforce a high value on their cultural products; to enforce standards that contests the standards and myths found in the mainstream] agency: Even in the universe par excellence of rules and regulations, palying with the rule is part and parcel of the rule of the game. (p. 18; keep this in mind next time some bureaucrat tells you, You cant do this, it against policy i.e., the rules) YET SOCIAL LIFE IS SO PREDICTATIVEWHY? Habitus, my dear, thats why: [HABITUS defined by Bourdieu]: the strategy-generating principle enabling agents to cope with unforeseen and ever-changing situationsa system of lasting and transposable dispositions which integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks. [p. 18] Habitus is creative, inventive, but within the limits of its structures, which are the embodied sedimentation of the social structures which produced it. [p. 19] [footnote 32, p. 18]: Note that the field of power (Bourdieu, 1989a, ) is not situated on the same level as other fields (the literary, economic, scientific, state-bureaucratic, etc.) since it encompasses them in part. It should be thought of more as a kind of meta-field with a number of emergent and specific properties. [the field of power -- a meta-field: the literary field, economic field, scientific field, state-bureaucratic field, etc.) ]

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Any fieldpresents itself as a structure of probabilities--of rewards, gains, profits, or sanctions-but always implies a measure of indeterminacy [Why is social life so regular and predictable?] p. 18 If external structures do not mechanically constrain action, when then gives it its pattern? The concept of habitus provides part of the answer. Habitus is a structuring mechanism that operates from within agents, though it is neither strictly individual nor in itself fully determinative of conduct. As the result of the internalization of external structures, habitus reacts to the solicitations of the field in a roughly coherent and systematic manner. [p. 18] this deep structure is a historically constituted, institutionally grounded, and thus socially variable, generative matrix The strategies it manages are systemic, yet ad hoc because they are triggered by the encounter with a particular field. Habitus is creative, inventive, but within the limits of its structures, which are the embodied sedimentation of the social structures which produced it. [p. 19] [p. 20]: The relation between the social agent and the world is not that between a subject (or a consciousness) and an object, but a relation of ontological complicity --or mutual possession as Bourdieu (1989a: 10) recently put it-between habitus, as the socially constituted principle of perception and appreciation, and the world which determines it. [example of a player in action in the soccer field]: it expresses very clearly this cohesion without concept that guides our felicitous encounter with the world whenever our habitus matches the field in which we evolve. [p. 21] yard lines -- > penalty area, lines of force: which call for a certain mode of action as if the player were unaware of it, i.e., we are players in particular fields (the educational system); we play the game of education, we play by the rules, we bend the rules, but within certain penalty areas, we experience agency, spontaneity, improvisation, but within certain historical structures that we did not individually construct, historical structures that are ingrained in our consciousness (i.e., habitus); we stay within the penalty areas. Of course, Bourdieu here is telling us that these penalty areas are always being contested; for example, in the feminist movement of the 70, women contested and were able to redefine these penalty areas and these rulesto an extent; today we see the game still in actionand the political right mobilizing its forces for the purpose of redrawing the lines as they were in the good ol dayz.
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[p. 23]: The concepts of habitus and field allow Bourdieu to forsake the false problems of personal spontaneity and social constraint, freedom and necessity, choice and obligation, and to sidestep the common alternatives of individual and structure, micro (Blumer, Coleman) and macroanalysis (Blau, Skocpol) that forces a polarized, dualistic social ontology: One does not have to choose between structure and agent, between the field, which makes the meaning and value of the properties objectified in things or embodied in persons, and the agents who play with their properties in the space of play thus defined (Bourdieu 1989a: 448). [ontology defined--Webster: the study of the nature of being or reality] Bourdieu [also] rejects the alternative of submission and resistance that has traditionally framed the question of dominated cultures and which, in his eyes, prevents us from adequately understanding practices and situations that are often defined by their intrinsically double, skewed nature. [p. 23] [people both submit and resistance--contradictory behaviors] [Footnote 40, p. 23]: As Don Levine (1985: 17) has argued, the toleration of ambiguity can be productive if it is taken not as a warrant for sloppy thinking but as an invitation to deal responsibly with issues of great complexity. [young people receive different mixed signals regarding the value of solving problems through the mobilization of support; they also interact with people who can not objectively provide certain forms of support, as well as interact with people who can, but dont (provide) support]

[the issue of internalized oppression, top of page 24] [quoting Bourdieu] If it is fitting to recall that the dominated always contribute to their own domination, it is necessary at once to be reminded that the dispositions which incline them to this complicity are also the effect, embodied, of domination. (Bourdieu, 1989a: 12, Wacquants translation and emphasis) [idea: in Manufacturing Hope & Despair, to use the term internalized oppression, as well as alienation] Thus the submission of workers, women, minorities, and graduate students is most often not a deliberate or conscious concession to the brute force of managers, men, whites and professors; it resides, rather, in the unconcious fit between their habitus and the field they operate in. It is lodge deep inside the socialized body. In truth, it expresses the somatization of social relations of domination (Bourdieu 1990I).
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[B against rational choice--undersocialized man] [Bourdieu] is staunchly opposed to the finalism of philosophies of consciousness that situate the mainstring of action in the voluntaristic choices of individuals. ----- > i.e., functionalist thought By strategy, he refers not to the purposive and preplanned pursuit of calculated goals (as does Coleman [1986]), but to the active deployment of objectively oriented lines of action that obey regularities and form coherent and socially intelligible patterns, even though they do not follow conscious rules or aim at the premeditated goals posited by a strategist. [the soccer player is not robotic, from one minute to the next, the soccer play is creative, strategic, following gut, taking chances, mobilizing in alliance with others, but nonetheless, there is regularity, and at particular points in history, we even see the field changingthe penalty areas transforming] [B] wants to convey the idea that people are motivated, driven by, torn from a state of indifference and moved by the stimuli sent by certain fields--and not others. [p. 26] [my emphasis] For each field fills the empty bottle of interest with a different wine. [pugilism: the art or practice of fighting with the fists] People are pre-occupied by certain future outcomes inscribed in the present they encounter only to the extent that their habitus sensitizes and mobilizes them to perceive and pursue them. [the value of multidisciplinary research, p. 28--top]

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Lareau, Annette (Chapter 4 in Biddle edited, symposium book) Linking Bourdieus Concept of Capital to the Broader Field: The Case of Family-SchoolRelationships. Elements of Bourdieus Model (p. 4) [rough descriptions of cultural capital]: Swartz goes on to argue that Bourdieus concept of cultural capital convers a wide variety of resources including such things as verbal facility, general cultural awareness, aesthetic preferences, information about the school system, and educational credentials. His point is to suggest that culture (in the broadest sense of the term) can become a power resource. (Swartz, 1997, p. 75) [Lamont and Lareau] institutionalized, i.e., widely shared, high status cultural signals (attitudes, preferences, formal knowledge, behaviors, goods and credentials) used for social and cultural exclusion. (Lamont and Lareau, 1988, p. 156) For [Bourdieu], the key issue is that the cultural resources are arbitrary. [p. 9] Capital only has meaning in light of the field. [emphasis mine] [in her study, field is defined] as including the standards of professionals (e.g., social workers, physicians, psychologists) concerning child rearing, the curriculum of professional schools, government regulations for child abuse, [ ----------- > the school ] district and school standards, and the expertise of the local school site counselor. both families confront a field with a dominant standard in school. [the two families approach the school with different habitus] [middle class habitus, the cultural value placed on reasoning with kids]: These cultural practices, however, are transformed into cultural capital and lack of cultural capital when the children actually attend school and the parents are forced to interact with school officials. [p. 11] A Broader Vision of Schools and Social Stratification: The Notion of Field and Habitus [p. 12 of paper] The pivotal idea behind the notion of field is the notion of the rules of the game which help to set standards:

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A field may be defined as a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positionsWe can, with caution, compare a field to a gameit follows rules, or better regularities, that are not explicit and codified. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 97-98) [of objective relations between positions e.g., hierachical relations; relations between middle-class and working class people within dominant institutions] The field is always dynamic; it is always changing: The field is the locus of relations of force--and not only of meaning--and of struggles aimed at transforming it, and therefore of endless change. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 103) [stratification and counter-stratification] [CAPITAL] does not exist and function except in relationship to a field. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 101) There are many different types of fields. the rules of the game patterns of regularities that individuals face as the move through their life trajectories. Empirically, it is possible to define fields as composed of dominant organizations, professional, and ideologies (i.e., standards encoded in professional training, professional organizations, and professional codes of ethics). The Field of Family Life: Professional Standards for Rearing Children (p. 14)

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Loic J. D. Wacquant The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology (The Chicago Workshop), in An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant The Logic of Fields (p. 94)

(November 27, 1999)

Such notions as habitus, field, and capital can be defined, but only within the theoretical system they constitute, not in isolation. [Bourdieu talking here, in response to a question; p. 96] To think in terms of field is to think relationally. what exist in the social world are relations-not interactions between agents or intersubjective ties between individuals, but objective relations which exist independently of individual consciousness and will, as Marx said. [my emphasis] At each moment, it is the state of the relations of force between players that defines the structure of the field. [p. 101]: the field as a structure of objective relations between positions of force undergirds and guides the strategies whereby the occupants of these positions seek, individually or collectively, to safeguard or improve their position and to impose the principle of hierachization most favorable to their own products. The school system, the state, the church, political parties, or unions are not apparatuses but fields. In a field, agents and institutions constantly struggle, according to the regularities and the rules constitutive of this space of play (and, in given conjunctures, over those rules themselves) Those who dominate in a given field are in a position to make it function to their advantage but they must always contend with the resistance, the claims, the contention, political or otherwise, of the dominated. [p. 102] [Question: Briefly, how does one carry out the study of a field and what are the necessary steps in this type of analysis? [p. 104] [p. 132--agency and habitus discussed] The notion of habitus provokes exasperation, even desperation, I believe, because it threatens the very idea that creators (especially aspiring ones) have of themselves, of their identity, of their singularity. Habitus is not the fate that some people read into it. [p. 133] Being the product of history, it is an open system of dispositions that is constantly subjected to experiences, and therefore constantly affected by them in a way that either reinforces or modifies its structures. It is durable but not eternal. [mainly reinforces]
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[an open system of dispositions ]: of virtualities, potentialities, eventualities [argues against the deterministic schema attributed to him: structures produce habitus, which determine practices, which reproduce structures] [p. 135]

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Bourdieus Theory of Cultural & Social Reproduction Q1: How does the dominant group engagement in SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE serve to reproduce the social order (class stratification)? Q2: What is Bourdieu & Passeron's main thesis (i.e., social reproduction)? Dominant group's symbolic power is seen in the ways that the dominant classes imposes... Q3: Are school socially and politically neutral institutions? Q4: How does the school system and elite families join forces to engineer the school sucess and rise to power of elite children? Working-class kids come to school (Day One) with as rich a repertoire of cultural resources (codes and competencies) as the children of the elite classes. Q5: So what? Working-class are still pre-disposed to eliminante themselves from the school system (at some point in time), as "institutionally sanctioned failures." WHY and HOW? Habitus (cultural codes and competencies): Q6: How is the CURRICULUM designed in class-stratified societies? Q7: On what basis does the educational system allocate intellectual resources and academic privileges? What do kids have to do? Boudieu argues that they have to fork over large amounts of metaphoric "bucks." What does he mean? Q8: What is necessary for kids in school to "receive" (make sense of) the school's transmitted educational messages ("pedagogic actions" of the teachers). (clue: think of a broadcaster and his radio transmitter; how do people--at the receiving end-- pick up the signals loud and clear?????) Q9: How does the educational system make symbolic violence a LEGITIMATE and taken-forgranted process? Q10: How is "talent," "intelligence," and "ability" conceived, defined, identified, and consecrated? --> implied in Bourdieu's work THREE TYPES OF CULTURAL CAPITAL: "embodied cultural capital," "objectified cultural capital," "institutionalized cultural capital." Q11: How does the dominant group use its cultural capital to protect its interests? (Lamont & Lareau) How are women and minorities kept out of the executive boardrooms? Bourdieu and P distinguishe between 4 kinds of institutionalized exclusion: 1) self-elimination; 2) overselection; 3) relegation; 4) direct selection. Defined them.

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Q12: How do members of the subordinant classes REACT TO long term symbolic violence, selection and exclusion? Make the connection between HABITUS AND career ASPIRATIONS. Q13: How this connection differ from the Wisconsin folks?

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Bourdieu and Wacquant Q1: What is the task of sociology according to Bourdieu? (see Wacquant) Q2: Get a handle on Bourdieus notion of field HINT: How are relations between men and women socially organized in society? [by way of a hierarchy] When you organized groups into a hierarchy, that hierarchy, that structure, governs dynamics of relations. Q3: Bourdieu [also] rejects the alternative of submission and resistance that has traditionally framed the question of dominated cultures and which, in his eyes, prevents us from adequately understanding practices and situations that are often defined by their intrinsically double, skewed nature. [p. 23] people both submit and resist; put into your own words; Q4: How does Bourdieu deal with human agency??? [Bourdieu] is staunchly opposed to the finalism of philosophies of consciousness that situate the mainstring of action in the voluntaristic choices of individuals. Is Bourdieu suspicious of the individualism hidden in liberal treatments of agency?

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cultural capital: serves different functions at different times in the life cycle (or attainment process); concept speaks to the ability of dominant group members to convert culture resources into p-r-i-v-i-l-e-g-e; Bourdieu (1986) has argued that the laws governing the exchange of economic capital are applicable to human social relations in all their various forms. Thus, social capital is (1) cumulative, ("the rich get richer") (2) possesses the capacity to produce profits or benefits (and privileges) in the social world, (3), is convertible into tangible resources or other forms of capital (e.g., CONNECTIONS; "palancas") and (4) possesses the capacity to reproduce itself in identical or in expanded form. Just as a twenty-dollar bill represents a form of "capital" that can be converted into a desired service or product, ... ...a social relationship, or a network of relationships, also represent forms of capital that can be converted into socially valued resources and opportunities (e.g., emotional support, legitimated institutional roles and identities, privileged information, access to opportunities for mobility). (from Stanton-Salazar, 1995)

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Notes for Seminar Discussion 02/14/01 ARE TREATMENT OF BOURDIEU SHOULD BEGIN WITH THIS STATEMENT: Classes and other antagonistic social collectives are continually engaged in a STRUGGLE to impose the definition of the world [a system of classification] that is most congruent with their particular interests. (B&W, p. 14) LINK TO MARX: ...the ideas of the ruling class in every epoch are the ruling ideas...the class which is the ruling force in society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it... (Karl Marx, Capital ). KEY CONCEPTS: field and habitus cultural capital

SOCIETY: an ensemble of relatively autonomous spheres of play that cannot be collapsed under the overall societal logic (p 17, B&W) 1. cultural capital: serves different functions at different times in the life cycle (or attainment process); concept speaks to the ability of dominant group members to convert culture resources into privilege; 2. the perversity of maintaining "deficit models" in educational frameworks is not necessarily the deficits that are identified, but that issues of power are erased. the distinction between constructivist vs. structuralist approaches to societal phenonomena (W & B, p.10) --- > revisit Durkheims suicide -- structuralism

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Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar, Ph.D.

arroyorunner@yahoo.com

www.scribd.com ______________________________________________________________________________ SUMMARY Stanton-Salazar is a nationally-recognized author on students and youth from segregated communities of color. For two decades, through a series of publications, and his students doctoral dissertations, he and his students have developed a conceptual and theoretical framework for how social ties between students and key participants in their social networks (e.g., teachers, key adults in the community) function to either reproduce social inequality and exacerbate forms of alienation, or function as sources of social capital, defined as resources and key forms of social support which enable students to increase control over their life, to accomplish important life goals, and to learn to build to their own self-empowering social networks. Stanton-Salazars latest published work focuses on how access to resources and social supportamong low-status students and youth--is significantly dependent upon the network characteristics, network-related capacities and skills, and networking orientations of those institutional agents devoted to supporting and empowering these low-status students and youth.
PROFESSIONAL HISTORY ________________________________________________________________________ Associate Professor, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 2000-May, 2011 Research Consultant, Center for Urban Education, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, 2009-May, 2011 Associate Director, Center for American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California, 20012002 Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, 1992-2000 Elementary School Teacher, National School District, San Diego, CA. Grades taught: 3, 4, 5, 6, model "bilingual maintenance" program; 1980-83.

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