Hail the "open concept"

I have to begin by saying that even though I recognize that I am not fully understanding the entire context from which Bourdieu drew his ideas. I find them exciting - like I want to sit down with him and say, "yes, yes, that's what I was thinking," while nodding my head furiously. Now I don't pretend to have conceptualized even 75% of his ideas, I have found frustration in the "binary distinctions" we make as citizens, educators, and nations, and I tend to fear the positivism that Swartz continually reminds us that Bordieu rejects. Because of where my head - and my heart - is at, and has been for some time, I framed the reading entirely through the lens of issues of equity. Yes - that is the author's intention, but I don't get the feeling that Bordieu addresses equity in terms of race and gender. In fact, I think he would find that to be arbitrary.

I did make connections in this way, however, which I guess is natural. Immediately in chapter one, Schwartz tells us that Bordieu believes that "all cultural symbols and practices . . . embody interests and function to enhance social distinctions"(p. 6). Which is really a matter of "othering", which I see as at the root of so many equitable issues. How does one define a man? By not being a woman. What does "acting White" mean? What is a tomboy? What does wearing a cross around one's neck mean? All of these things are making distinctions about and from other groups.

Also in chapter one, Scwartz comments that Bordieu believes that we must expose the "social unconscious" because he feels that "their public exposure will destroy their legitimacy and open up the possibility for altering existing social arrangements" (p.10). I immediately thought of critical literacy in the English classroom. I use critical theory with my students to help unfold the constructed belief systems that are subconsciously perpetuated through the author's work - and the institutional backing of this work. This helps students see themselves in a new light and combat much of the negativity they have internalized about their cultural backgrounds. It "opens up the possibility" that maybe the pervasive view is biased.

In chapter four, Bordieu's concept of cultural capital is exactly what I see in many of my students of color every day. They have not been let in on what other students have managed to accumulate just by the nature of being White. And we (the teachers) privilege the this capital that White students have accumulated - just by being White - just like Bordieu describes the French teachers doing to students who modeled appropriate language, etc. He also speaks of "symbolic capital" which is, I believe, White privilege - again what I see so many of our students unconsciously take advantage of. They get power from it. They can walk down the halls without someone stopping them for a pass. They can turn in homework late, argue with a teacher, return from lunch well past the appropriate time - and it is just kid behavior. Our kids of color do not have the same luxuries.

This leads right into the "habitus" or self-fufilling prophecy that is talked about in chapter five. Claude Steele's research on Stereotype threat supports this completely. So many of our students who have lived with the anxiety of representing the stereotype that embodies a group of which they belong, deal with that anxiety by just giving up. They check out of school - and thus fulfill the prophecy. This is the "collective disillusionment which results from the structural mismatch between aspirations and real probabilities"(113). We set our students up to fail, and on a conscious level, many teachers and students aren't even aware of it.

Again - this goes to chapter six and the "fields" that people find themseleves in based on their "combinations of capital"(122). In the educational field, these distinctions, mismatches, and imbalances in capital result in our students of color being inappropriately placed in Special Ed. classes, assigned a disproportionate amount of referrals, and in many cases, sent into the juvenile system for "crimes" that are handled much differently for White students who are in the appropriate field for White, middle class institutions.

The part that sits uncomfortably with me is my place in it all - and I've thought about this quite a bit. I am the intellectual that is supposedly above all this that Bordieu criticizes as well. I recognized that immediately when I read it. I've felt that in reading works by Freire as well. Is my strive for equality self-less. No way. I know that. My actions are motivated by what benefits me. Now it is the level of this that is floating around in my mind. Injustice makes me angry, sad, horrified. So on a simplified level, I fight it to remove myself from those negative feelings. Yet - why would I feel those feelings? Because I recognize that the irrationality of injustice makes it such that at any time it could be turned on me and my family. And that makes my actions selfishly motivated.

I didn't really talk about the "open concept" idea and why I like that, so maybe that will come out in class. In short, it is hard to take the fear out of making things racially and gender equitable without acknowledging the binary opposition that exists with that concept - that White men have to lose in order for others to gain. The open concept allows for other realities. I like it.