Fields of change: Bourdieu and higher education

Grenfell, Mike , Higher Education Research Group (2007) Fields of change: Bourdieu and higher education (Higher Education Research Group: Pedagogy and the Student Experience) Southampton, UK. University of Southampton 17pp.

Record type: Monograph (Working Paper)

Abstract

Bourdieu published three major works on education. The first was La Reproduction (1970), which was the culmination of his studies of the student population. The focus here was academic discourse – cultural capital – and the nature of the systems which produced it. The second was Homo academicus (1984) in which he analysed his own academic – intellectual – field and the cause and effects of May 1968. The third appeared in 1989 and was entitled La Noblesse d’État (1996b/89). In this paper, I focus on this latter, his major study of French Higher Education. The main body of the paper gives an account of the way Bourdieu saw Higher Education changing; considered in terms of various levels of analysis – from individual mental structures to the structures of institutions, HE policy, and the relationship between HE and the state. This is an example of Bourdieusian method in practice and the paper deals with each of these in terms. I then consider two aspects of this approach of HE; firstly, what this knowledge implies in terms of practical action; and secondly, the extent to which his analysis is applicable to other national contexts. There is also reference to HE policy. Finally, I offer some other extensions of Bourdieu’s work as a Coda to the paper as a way of indicating how this line of reasoning about HE might be extended and what it buys us in terms of its processes of change and their outcomes.

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