Bourdieu, Culture, Education and Me

Bourdieu, Culture, Education and Me

The Secret

On page 199, Schwartz states Bourdieu’s findings on education and social inequality by claiming, “The higher education system reproduces, rather than redistributes, the unequal distribution of cultural capital.” I have the urge to wipe my hands together with finality and say, “That’s all I’ve got. I’m done here.” To me, this is it. This is at the heart of the reason I am in this class and that I have entered the Culture and Teaching program here at the University of Minnesota. Reading about Bourdieu’s sociology has grounded so much of what I have witnessed, believed and lived these past years, and has given me cause to reflect on the path I currently find myself charting. I like this. It balances me and reaffirms that the choices I have made and continue to make are not without merit.

So as I reflect on why and how I find myself entangled in an educational world that Bourdieu himself (if he were alive) could employ as the perfect illustration of his social theories, I think of “The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrne. I dislike the basic premise of this book – that we create our conditions by the law of attraction – simply because of the privilege that such an idea entails. I find it hard to believe that genocide, poverty, child abuse, rape, racism – all the suffering that have been forced upon innocents - was somehow the result of negative thinking. (This is how I get the reputation as a fun-killer by the way. I just can’t seem to help myself.) What I do appreciate about this idea is the rewards of maintaining focus on one’s passions. I have found that by staying true to who I am and what I believe, related opportunities have unfolded, unforced, before me. And when I am confronted with said opportunities, I take them, because I can trust they arose for the right reason - which brings me to Bourdieu, culture, education and me.

Meeting Them Where They Are At

I became a teacher for many of the same reasons my peers became teachers. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to have an impact on the lives of young people. I wanted to change the world. Only here is the thing – I really wanted to change the world – at least the world of education. I had many ear problems growing up that required a number of surgeries and extensive absences from school. Without going into too much detail, I can firmly attest that these health problems significantly affected the way I viewed the world – my habitus – if you will. I knew what it felt like to be different, and I could clearly see the shortcomings of the educational system when it came to those who did not hold symbolic capital. So I wanted to change that.

I entered the classroom knowing the importance of meeting my students where they were at – no matter what their background – no matter what they brought to the table. I was not, however, equipped with the proper tools to do so. At that time, Howard Gardner and Isabell Briggs Meyers were my only expert sources for assessing the needs of my students. I had nothing else from which to draw. Learning styles were the trend. Teachers were recognizing the need to differentiate – we were just stuck in the same old mode of how it should be done – which Bourdieu would say is to be expected. He believes, “Habitus tends to shape individual action so that existing opportunity structures are perpetuated” (p. 103). We did not know what we did not know.

I did recognize that learning and personality styles were not the end all, be all of individualizing instruction. I made efforts to bring multiple perspectives into the curriculum, and I worked to give students agency in the class, but I knew I was missing something. Intuitively, I sensed the innate unfairness in the curriculum, but I did not have the language or the experience to adequately teach the inequities. I made stabs at having students rewrite pieces from various perspectives, but it did not work. I know now that they could not begin to even recognize another perspective, because they, too, were limited by their habitus, and the very field that served to blind them to the lives and experiences of others. “Fields elicit assent to existing social arrangements and thereby contribute to their reproduction to the extent that they engage actors in field autonomy” (p. 128). There was no way for them to deconstruct any of the literature, because they were not provided with the tools to first recognize how it was socially constructed. It was four years into my teaching experience when all of this was to change.

Reading the World

It was a staff development day, and all of the English teachers in the district were packed into a stadium-style lecture hall at one of the district high schools. Agendas were doubling as fans, and the air was thick with coffee breath and body odor. Bored eyes rested expectantly on the wild-haired red-headed woman dressed all in black, as she patiently waited for the stragglers to find a home in whatever empty space was available. When the room was settled, our then curriculum director introduced her as Deborah Appleman, professor at MaCalester College. It wasn’t two minutes into her presentation before she had us laughing, and not more than five before we were hooked. She introduced us to using literary theory in the secondary classroom. To illustrate the feminist theory, she questioned a veteran teacher about the characters in Of Mice and Men, specifically asking him the name of Curly’s wife. He thought for a moment, and then understanding dawned in his eyes, “Curly’s wife”, he responded, and his tone held admiration. She provided example after example of how using theory gave language to the inequities presented - or suggested – within the language of our texts, and in the world around us. More importantly, she justified why it matters to do so. The veteran teacher she had questioned shook her hand before he left; telling her it was the best staff development he had ever experienced. I left there knowing I had found what I had been missing.

Theory in Practice

I have to admit, it took me a number of years to understand, apply, and teach literary theory, but I worked at it, and my methods have changed significantly from when I began. For example, Bourdieu’s concept of class, which Schwartz states, “takes into account other stratifying factors such as gender, race or ethnicity, place of residence and age” (p.154), is more or less the way I originally taught Marxist theory. It was not until I was introduced to Cultural Theory that I recognized how limiting Marxism really was – which Bourdieu rejects as class reductionism. I also did not do Derrida’s theory of Deconstruction the justice it deserved. I knew it even then, but I did not let it phase me. When kids started claiming that my class changed their lives – that they liked themselves better now – that they felt like they were finally learning something they could use in real life, I took that as my sign to continue.

Our Changing Demographics

It was not long after I started using Literary Theory that Coon Rapids went through a huge population change. In five years time, we went from 5%students of color, to 25%. The change in the demographics of our students brought about the change in the attitudes of our faculty. Teachers whom I would normally consider to be student-centered, caring, and conscientious became threatened by their inadequacies in meeting the needs of all of our kids.

No Child Left Behind with its AYP and teacher accountability placed expectations on educators unlike any they had ever experienced. Instead of reflecting on their own teaching styles, they turned their frustration on the kids, blaming them, their backgrounds, and their lack of cultural capital for all of the problems in the school and specifically in their classrooms. Phrases like, “Our changing demographics”, “These populations”, and “Our subgroups”, became acceptable euphemisms for blatantly racist comments. They taught and still teach students of color with what Richard Valencia and other researchers describe as the deficit approach. They assume that if students of color do not assimilate to the educational values of White schools, it is their fault if they do not succeed. This approach does nothing but serve to cause conflict. As Bourdieu suggests, “Orthodoxies generate heterodoxies. . . Challengers oblige the old guard to mount a defense of its privileges; that defense then becomes grounds for subversion” (p.124). As it turns out, the students were not the only challengers to the old guard.

Threat to the Curators of Culture

Students have a way of identifying allies within an adult population, especially when the alliance is necessary to their feelings of safety. Since I began using literary theory, the word has spread that I am the multicultural teacher, or the peace teacher, or just the fair teacher. I do not claim to be the only teacher who is fair and equitable in the school, but I can say with assurance that I am one of two (the other teacher is my best friend) who openly advocate for fair and equitable practices and curriculum, and model this in our own classrooms. So we both get kids who love our class – or who love to come and hang out after school, or who simply need someone to listen.

Because of my success with students, I have been asked to take part in a number of projects both at the building and the district level. These projects have been well received, and have opened up more opportunities to work on issues of equity – as I stated before. In the past few years, I have worked with Curriculum and Instruction and Student Services on researching and applying teaching strategies to close the achievement gap – in addition to becoming the kind of go-to person for using literary theory and now Critical Literacy in the classroom. I neglected to say that despite the warm reception to Deborah Appleman’s presentation that day, and subsequent sessions after, very few teachers across the district actually use literary theory - and none do to the extent that I have. This is less a positive reflection on me, than a negative one on my peers. Schwartz claims that Bourdieu, “rejects a rational model of action” (p.70) in regards to actors perpetuating hierarchy and social inequality, and to some extent, I agree. I know that because of their firm belief that the fault lies with our students of color (which is irrational), teachers are more unwilling to become “creators of culture” rather than “curators of culture” (p. 124). Still, the outright hostility I have confronted for advocating for kids, suggests to me otherwise. One of my initiatives, a professional learning community organized to help teachers begin to use multi-cultural books in their classrooms, was sabotaged by my own department leader. Besides relaying false information, she has called many of these Pulitzer Prize winning novels of little literary value, and announced at a department meeting that most of them were X-rated and could not be taught. I would say that Bourdieu’s acknowledging of “degrees of awareness” (p. 70) might be a bit understated.

A Path Defined

Despite how painful my department leader’s betrayal was for me, it was an eye opener. In the year prior to this incident, I had pulled away from the rest of the department. I was working part time with Student Services besides teaching at the high school, so that in itself, served to divide us. In addition, they would stop talking when I entered the lounge – not because they were talking about me, but because they were talking about kids, and they did not want that to get back to Student Services. So I avoided the lounge all together seeing them mainly at department meetings – where I remained vocal about my concerns, but in what I thought was a professional manner. After the sabotage, I realized my mistake. I had assumed that we could have professional differences without any repercussions. That was not the case, and because I had pulled away, a really good program died. No matter what the reason my department lead had for doing what she did, she did it. Had I been working to build bridges, the outcome might have been different.

I came to another realization through this process. School districts should not have to be using precious funds to train teachers on what they should know coming out of school. “Habitus is fairly resistant to change” (p.107), Bourdieu contends, and my own experiences concur with this. Pre-service teaching programs are not adequately preparing teachers for the classroom, They walk in with their own habitus that “tends to reproduce those actions, perceptions, and attitudes consistent with the conditions under which it was produced” (p.103) (namely the educational institution from which they came) and therefore “bring the properties of their location in a hierarchally structured social order into each and every situation and interaction” (p. 145). The research I have read on the Achievement Gap asserts that the teacher is the deciding factor in the success of students. Knowing that teachers are not being properly trained to serve all our kids, gave me cause to reevaluate my path. I realized that I could continue to try and affect the students in my classroom and to work with the district on projects that may or may not be effective depending on who is on the receiving end, or I could try to make change on a greater level. I decided on the latter and applied to the Critical Pedagogy program at The University of St. Thomas.

I was accepted to the program, but I was told that it was to be merged with the Leadership program. Eight months later, the department chairs of Leadership clarified that the term “merged” really meant “taken over” not “combined”. Critical Pedagogy could be a concentration, but it was not the degree, and it was certainly not “merged” into the content of the Leadership courses. I left the program. It was an easy decision for me, because I know what I believe (as I stated earlier). Besides the fact that the coursework was not what I wanted, what they did was unethical. I cannot knowingly stand behind an unethical institution. I emailed Dee Tedick, got the approval to apply, and came over to Culture and Teaching - and Bourdieu.

Bourdieu, Culture, Education and Me

As I said at the start of this paper, Bourdieu’s sociology weaved together a number of the ideas that had been previously floating through my thoughts as unrelated threads. His ideas of cultural capital, habitus, field, and the role the intellectual plays in each are significant to education and my role in changing it.

Bourdieu believes that “Cultural Capital . . . is the key to the intellectual field” (p. 122). I absolutely agree with this, yet it is also important to remember that Bourdieu assertion that “social space is multi-dimensional and does not reduce to a single causal mechanism” (p.146). I highlight this point for two reasons. The first relates to my earlier example of teachers taking the deficit approach to teaching students of color – and students of lower socio-economic backgrounds. Reflection on cultural capital is as much about who is privileged as it is about who has been under-privileged. The second reason is simply because I so appreciate Bourdieu’s assertion that a person’s situation is related to a cross-section of reasons, and cultural capital is but one.

Bourdieu’s acknowledgement of a person’s habitus again reaffirms the notion – in education in particular – that understanding students requires “multi-faceted” analysis. I specifically think of the works of Ruby Payne and poverty, John Ogbu and oppositional identity formation, Claude Steel and stereotype threat, and Gloria Ladson Billings when she describes the “Educational Debt” that students of color have inherited. The values of each of these works are respectable in their own right and for singular purposes, but together they allow for the multi-dimensional analysis of diverse, rounded individuals.

Bourdieu argues that “Fields specify power relations and hierarchy” (p. 292). That alone is reason to pay attention. Our students – all of our students – internalize the conditions that are passed on within the educational field. For historically privileged students, these conditions are that of superiority and entitlement over underserved populations, specifically students of color. Students of color, by reason of marginalization, internalize low expectations, discriminatory practices, and the belief that their culture has had little to offer to the greater good. Educational fields “help create the ‘misrecognition’ of power relations and thereby contribute to the maintenance of social order” (p. 126). The social order that currently exists in education is harming all our children, but most specifically our children of color. It is imperative that teachers look beyond the classroom to a more macro-level perspective. Bourdieu alleges that “Macro-level patterns of social class inequality and unequal distribution of cultural capital are linked to micro-level processes of pedagogy, evaluation, and curriculum” (p.202). If this is true, then the same works for the reverse. Pedagogy, evaluation and curriculum in schools are contributing to social class inequality in the world outside. We as teachers need to accept this responsibility and act upon it. The role of the intellectual must move beyond perpetuating hierarchy to balancing inequity – which leads to my final thoughts.

Schwartz criticizes Bourdieu for not clearly defining how his sociology will help “subordinate groups” in their “struggle against elites” once they understand their own subordination. He does not see what the actual catalyst for change would be (p. 294). This conclusion suggests to me that Schwartz may not be very familiar with the educational field. Teachers are the catalyst. We have to be. Ultimately this means that higher education is where “the unequal distribution of cultural capital” needs to be interrupted. We as teachers need to first recognize our own habitus – not in the context of “normal” or “right”, but as the influences that have led us to internalize our social conditions. Recognizing that, we fix the field. We disperse the symbolic capital, we acknowledge the cultural capital that students already possess and we re-legitimize existing social order. It can be done, but not without first acknowledging our role in the inequities that currently exist in education.

As I stated in the first paragraph, I find a level of balance in how all these ideas have come together. Reading Bourdieu has been like a little mental nudge telling me, “See, you’re okay. You’re on the right track”, and now I can reply sheepishly, “Yeah, I guess I so” and feel good about it. I want to make sure I am making myself clear. It is not at all about being “right” in the sense of winning. Because there is only one other person in my immediate proximity who sees things the way I do, and she just happens to be my best friend, I have a tendency to doubt myself - or worse yet, to feel overwhelmed to the point of hopelessness. Bourdieu’s sociology has served the same purpose as Deborah Appelman’s instruction on brining literary theory into the high school classroom did some years ago. It has given me sound academic language to articulate my passion for educational change and comfort in knowing I am learning what I need to ensure that happens.