Search

Purpose: This paper proposes a way of reflexing on how we think within critical disaster studies. It focuses on the biases and unthought dimensions of two concepts – resilience and development – and reflects on the relationship between theory and practice in critical disaster studies. Design/methodology/approach: Premised on the idea of epistemic reflexivity developed by Pierre Bourdieu, and drawing on previous research, this theoretical article analyses two conceptual biases and shortcomings of disaster studies: how resilience builds on certain agency; and how development assumes certain political imagination. Findings: The article argues that critical disaster scholars must reflect on their own intellectual practice, including the origin of concepts and what they do. This is exemplified by a description of how the idea of resistance is intimately connected to that of resilience, and by showing that we must go beyond the capitalist realism that typically underlies development and risk creation. The theoretical advancement of our field can provide ways of thinking about the premises of many of our concepts. Originality/value: The paper offers an invitation for disaster researchers to engage with critical thought and meta-theoretical reflexions. To think profoundly about our concepts is a necessary first step to developing critical scholarship. Epistemic reflexivity in critical disaster studies therefore provides an interesting avenue by which to liberate the field from overly technocratic approaches and develop its own criticality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than a decade, the importance of urban social movements has been systematically increasing in the Polish public sphere. However, available theories of social movements cannot account for the variety of forms of urban mobilization or for the ideological differences between organizations. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the relevance of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social class for research on urban movements. Using the concepts of "capital" and "habitus," the paper explores the social vision and process of the emergence of two activist organizations in Warsaw, Poland. The study is based on qualitative research conducted from 2016 to 2019, which included an analysis of secondary resources and individual in-depth interviews with members from each organization. Bourdieu's theory of social class facilitates consideration of different aspects of the functioning of urban social movements, including the role of resources and competences, ideological divisions, and chances of success. The theory also provides an explanation for the importance of class within urban social movements. The article shows that, even though the demands of social movements appear to be values-led, in fact, they are based on the class interests of their members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of transgender individuals often focus on the transgressive nature of their identities and practices or on experiences of transphobia, rejection and violence. Rather than focusing on transgression or marginalization, this paper offers insight into practical knowledge, presenting a feel for the game that young nonbinary individuals develop out of social necessity, as the social world, with its gender binary social structures, remains resistant to nonbinary identities and practices. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 12 nonbinary participants in Slovenia and Bourdieu's concept of practical knowledge, this paper analyses skilful practical strategies for coping with anticipated and experienced misrecognition. These strategies encompass tactful playing along with the binary rules of the game, pushing the rules into a state of limbo and directly engaging and confronting the rules of the game. Moreover, a differentiated domain of strategies emerges, according to the parameters of safety, anticipation of achieving recognition and affective investment in the relations. Overall, the data show that nonbinary individuals are skilful agents who apply a range of practical strategies to manoeuvre through a gender binary world. The article enables insight into young people as actively engaging with objective conditions that are not of their making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a debate on why Bourdieusian scholars have never fully embraced the "Introduction/Literature review/Data & methods/Results/Discussion" (ILDRD) article format which is mainstream in North American Sociological publications. This paper attempts to argue that Pierre Bourdieu, Jean‐Claude Chamboredon, and Jean‐Claude Passeron developed a different writing format – inspired by Gaston Bachelard's "applied rationalism" ‐‐ and which became more influential among French scholars. The Bourdieu inspired different writing patterns and reasoning, I argue, can be traced in the flagship journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. This paper invites further debate on the differences in approaching article formats in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pierre Bourdieu is one of the most important social scientists of the twentieth century. However, the intersections between his work and geography largely remain to be investigated. This paper explores the place of spatiality in Bourdieu's models of the social world. It first offers a critical analysis of the ternary model elaborated in his article entitled "Site-Effects," in which "physical space" is theoretically central (a model that Bourdieu later seemed to retreat from). It then builds upon another triad, developed in "The Three States of Cultural Capital," to submit a model in which the three "states" can be extended to the social world at large and correspond to three modes of "crystallizationc" of social relations, which all have a spatial dimension. The generalization of the triad leads to a consistent theorization of the intrinsic spatial dimension of the social world, thus overcoming the misleading dualism between society and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019 Ofsted introduced cultural capital (CC) into the Early Years Inspection Handbook and defined it as 'essential knowledge' related to 'educated citizenship'. This paper investigates Ofsted's use of CC to critically examine the potential implications for early years work. Due to the feminised nature of early years work, a critical feminist approach is engaged to explore the potential impact of introducing CC into the regulation of the sector. This paper examines the differences between Ofsted's use of CC, CC's theoretical origins, and analyses sector responses. Our contention is that how Ofsted have employed CC may represent 'symbolic violence' against the working-class women working in the early years, by further devaluing their habitus and sustaining the stratification of society through forms of capital. This paper is the first to interrogate CC in Ofsted's early years documentation, and will have an international impact for any countries following UK education practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Choice is a key part of the culture of the United States. Americans believe deeply in the personal and social usefulness of being able to make many choices. Hence, all sorts of efforts have been made to increase students' options, whether by creating many different kinds of schools and colleges, offering a great array of majors and degree programs, or allowing multiple modes of attending higher education. However, this proliferation of choices reproduces social inequality in two crucial ways. First, the provision of many options produces social inequality: people often make choices that do not serve their interests as well as they might wish, particularly if they are faced with many options and do not have adequate information. Second, the provision of many choices legitimates social inequality: the more one thinks in terms of choices in the context of a highly individualistic culture such as that of the United States, the easier it is for dominant groups to blame nondominants as creating their own troubles through feckless choices. Purpose: This paper focuses on one particularly important realm of choice—higher education—because it has come to play a central role in the transmission and legitimation of social inequality. Four higher education choices are of particular interest: whether to enter higher education, which college to attend, what major to choose, and what modality to attend college (for example, part time versus full time or in person versus online). Analyzing this choice-making process, the paper focuses on the impact of inequitable access to high-quality information. Beyond analyzing how choice proliferation and information inequity join to produce and legitimate educational inequality, the paper lays out detailed recommendations for what can be done to reduce this inegalitarian impact. Research Design: The paper draws on a wide variety of social science literatures including sociology of education, critical race theory, behavioral economics, and cognitive and social psychology. More particularly, the paper synthesizes sociology of education research inspired by Pierre Bourdieu and work drawing on critical race theory. Although there are major tensions between these two bodies of work, they can be fruitfully combined to both illuminate and overcome the ways information inequity produces and legitimates educational inequality. Recommendations: To reduce the role of information inequity in producing and legitimating educational inequality, the paper recommends four strands of change. One strand involves providing high-quality information more equitably through restructured and much more pervasive school counseling and other forms of information provision during middle school, high school, and higher education. A crucial component of this more equitable information provision is drawing on the community cultural wealth of nondominant communities. Second, it is important to design an "architecture of choice" that simplifies choice making and nudges students toward better choices by such means as simplifying the financial aid process, improving credit articulation for community college transfer students, and building guided pathways through college. A third strand involves reducing the harms of suboptimal choices by creating the means to monitor student progress and intervene when students might or actually do go off course. Finally, because suboptimal choices will still occur, it is important to enlighten student choosers and their observers about how choice making under conditions of information inequity produces and legitimates social inequality and to empower them to combat that stratified and stratifying process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with Manuel DeLanda's Deleuze-inspired 'assemblage theory' from a perspective sympathetic to Pierre Bourdieu's field theory. It first outlines DeLanda's proposed new 'philosophy of society', focusing on his major works in this vein, and registers some scepticism as to its originality for sociology. It then introduces and responds to DeLanda's critique of Bourdieu. Rather than simply reject assemblage theory outright, however, I draw on selected insights from DeLanda to push field theory in new directions. More specifically, I conceptualise the interplay of fields and assemblages and use notions of 'exteriority' and 'possibility space' to help conceive individual plurality of social positioning and its effects for subjectivity and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of transnational and transcity education consumption suggests the increasingly important role of the capability to move in order to access quality schooling. Studies have examined the multidimensional inequalities underlying translocal education consumption. However, the role of mobility itself is not sufficiently understood. Two questions are rarely asked: (1) How is the capability to move acquired and practised to bring about translocal schooling consumption? and (2) How does the disparity in the capability to move restructure the established intergenerational capital transmission mechanism conceptualized by Bourdieu? This paper answers by theorizing a mobility-mediated, education-based intergenerational capital transmission mechanism. This framework is built upon a theoretical engagement among John Urry, Pierre Bourdieu, and Neil Smith. We substantiate this framework by examining a student migration regime in Sichuan, China. Attention is paid to the inclusion/exclusion of hypermobility-based schooling consumption regime. Empirical analysis is performed by the comparison of two social groups: (a) the middle-class households who employ mobility to chase after the footloose prime schooling resources and thus materialize their class reproduction strategy and (b) the immobile remainder who are stuck in a location deprived of quality schooling resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative translation has the potential to complicate our understanding of the translation process with the epistemology of the multi-agent and the multimodal. However, translation theories have been dominated by 'myths of singularity,' and its collaborative dimension has received limited scholarly attention. The present research is an attempt to explore the issue of authority in collaborative translation, with the (pseudo-)collaborative translation conducted in the National Theatre Movement in China in the mid-1920s as a case in point. Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of orthodoxy/heterodoxy, symbolic power, and disinterestedness are used as a theoretical lens to examine the discourse by which the movement's proponents attempted to legitimate the heterodox 'aesthetic paradigm' through resorting to collaborative translation. Countering the concern that collaborative translation multiples the translator's authority or constitutes a source of division, this paper argues that collaborative translation can enhance collective status by projecting 'disinterestedness,' but it may well enact a hierarchical power structure that diminishes individual contribution and even exploits the vulnerable. The case of the National Theatre Movement also brings to our attention the phenomenon of (pseudo-)collaboration, which sheds light on the understanding of the notion of collaborative translation in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej is the property of Redakcja Przegladu Socjologii Jakosciowej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction: The present research investigates the activity of Kolberi in the border villages of western and northwestern Iran, specifically in the Kurdish area of Nosud in Kermanshah province. Kolberi, a form of labor in these regions, subjects individuals to severe risks, including painful death or lifelong physical injuries, bringing considerable suffering and hardships to the Kolbers and their families. This study explores the narratives of Kolbers' mothers regarding their children's Kolberi experiences through Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework of social suffering. Methods: This qualitative study employs interpretive phenomenology to examine the lived experiences of mothers in the Nosud border area. Twentytwo Kolbers' mothers were selected using purposive sampling. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews and participant observation, continuing until theoretical saturation was achieved. Results: Content analysis of the interviews revealed eight basic themes: (1) occurrence and aggravation of physical and mental complications, (2) reproduction of poverty and misery, (3) marginalization of the field of education in border areas, (4) emergence of structural determinism alongside environmental determinism, (5) weakening of the social status of Kolbers, (6) Kolber and bare life, (7) structural dehumanization of Kolber's position, and (8) unique experiences of mothers regarding Kolberi. Discussion: The findings highlight the unique and often neglected experiences of mothers related to Kolberi, emphasizing the economic struggles in Iran's border areas. These experiences unveil hidden aspects of Kolberi, suggesting potential avenues for further research and contributing to the revitalization of activism among Kolbers' mothers in border regions. The study underscores the importance of addressing the socio-economic conditions that perpetuate Kolberi and its associated sufferings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Cultural capital" and "field" are Pierre Bourdieu's most popular concepts, applied in sociological research around the world, including China. Yet, Bourdieu's overarching theory of reproduction in education implicitly bore the imprint of a culture-field connection specific to French schooling and society circa 1960–1980. This essay has two broad aims. First, it sketches a comparative framework for connecting cultural resources to their surrounding fields. Second, it applies that framework to three populations of Chinese students: domestic students in China, Chinese international students in North American universities, and Chinese first generation and immigrants in North America. Those populations are used to illustrate several arguments. First, domestic students in China and their diaspora in North America highlight how rationalized competitions in stratified systems trigger intensive "adaptations." Second, Chinese immigrants have inadvertently triggered new "valuation contests" in North American education. Third, international Chinese students exemplify emerging transnational strategies of opting out of intensive competitions by switching fields. Future directions for research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is designed to examine the effect that Netflix English subtitles might have on the way English-speaking viewers receive Saudi dark humour. To achieve this, the researchers analyse Netflix's English subtitling of two episodes of the Saudi adult animation Masameer County, which is known for its humorous discussion of sensitive issues in Saudi society. This study hypothesises that, partly due to sociocultural considerations, the humorous elements found in the Saudi animation is more appreciated and understood by Saudis than English speakers. It is also hypothesised that the inaccurate translation of specific humorous elements by the non-Saudi subtitler further aggravates the difficulty English-speaking audiences understanding the animation's dark humour. To assess these hypotheses, the active role of the subtitler is considered. This is achieved by employing the sociological lens of habitus developed by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. To understand the subtitler's habitus, the subtitler was interviewed to reveal the personal/social factors that affected her translation's decisions regarding specific humorous scenes. The outcome of these decisions is assessed by examining their reception by English-speaking viewers. A questionnaire was conducted with English-speaking viewers asked to watch the two episodes of Masameer County under examination. The questionnaire shows that the English-speaking viewers did not receive the Saudi humour with all its sociocultural associations. The findings reveal that the subtitler's habitus exerted powerful effects on her translational choices, which led to a loss of the Saudi humorous sense in the English-speaking viewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational stakeholders have long been concerned about teacher attrition's negative effects. Teach For America (TFA), in particular, has garnered attention for this reason, yet many of its teachers quit even before the program's two-year commitment ends. Drawing on Bourdieu, this longitudinal qualitative study explores heretofore neglected insights from TFA teachers (n = 5) who leave early. We find that while quitters are motivated to teach, their forms of cultural and social capital within the educational field lead many to quit. The paper argues that some of these limitations are attributable to TFA's programmatic design, raising critical questions about its continued approach. • A small but significant number of Teach For America's teachers quit before the program's end. • Scant studies explicitly explore these teachers' experiences, and Bourdieu's theories support a novel analysis of attrition. • Teach For America's program design draws on its teachers' inadequate cultural and social capital, impacting their retention. • While the teachers' habitus is important, it is insufficient to sustain teaching in under-served schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social stratification engenders intricate disparities within social strata, denoted as "differentiation" in accordance with Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual framework. Consequently, urban buildings exhibit diverse facades, thereby exerting a profound influence on the city's aesthetic presentation. This study elucidates the pivotal role assumed by architects in aligning residential building facades with the discernment of citizens, drawing from Bourdieu's differentiation theory. Employing an applied and qualitative approach, the research method underscores the purposeful nature of the inquiry. The findings of this research categorize the perspectives of most Iranian architects on the notion of "citizen's taste in residential buildings" into four overarching themes: "building structure," "facade harmony with climate," "facade alignment with building function," and "visual aesthetic appeal of the facade". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the conditions under which it is possible for neoliberalism to render itself invisible to the economic field that created it, allowing that field to define the discourse as a paranoid construction of the left. In addressing the issue, the text aims to extend the reach of Bourdieu's field theory by infusing it with aspects of Lacanian psychoanalysis. This construction facilitates the use of the example of neoliberal economics to suggest wider principles of field functionality. It is suggested that the main purpose of any field is not the generation of new knowledge but the preservation of its doxa, which is protected by a series of self-legitimation strategies. In the example of neoliberal economics, the strength of these systems has allowed that field to close its eyes to the catastrophic failure of its knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the power relations in the field of German economics. By incorporating the capital and field theory of Pierre Bourdieu, the study investigates the distribution of economic, social, and symbolic capital on economists in Germany. In a first step, the three forms of capital have been defined and operationalized on publicly available information. This leads to eight main samples of economists. In a second step, information on these economists have been collected to derive indicators regarding their paradigmatic stance and institutional background. The findings indicate a monopolization of mainstream economics and concentration of resources on the large economic departments. Furthermore, these characteristics relate to an increased importance of Colander's Edge, an almost complete marginalization of heterodox economics and a significant center-periphery disparity. Thus, in the field of economics in Germany, a social structural verticalization and elitism of universities as well as a paradigm monism can be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) has started to gain popularity within sociology as a method of mapping 'fields' and 'social spaces' in the style of Pierre Bourdieu, its capacity to document multidimensional geometric relationships within data being a snug fit for the relational mode of thought he championed. There is a risk, however, of over-relying on MCA when the data suggest alternative methods and, as a result, drawing unsound conclusions. As a case in point, I take a recent analysis of political attitudes in the UK using MCA that drew bold inferences about the relationship with social class and reanalyse the same data with categorical principal components analysis (CatPCA). The results suggest the opposite conclusion to what was originally argued. I thus urge greater methodological flexibility and openness among those wishing to chart fields and social spaces and, more specifically, I make a case for CatPCA as a tool of geometric data analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private educational activities designed to enhance student outcomes outside the formal schooling system are increasingly referred to as shadow education. In Japan, shadow education traditionally consists of for-profit cram schools or juku. Juku take many forms in Japan, yet their primary function is to offer students extra educational opportunities. As such, there is a strong belief that investment in shadow education leads to a higher educational level, thereby strengthening educational inequality by unfairly advantaging families of higher socio-economic status (SES). By applying Pierre Bourdieu's theories of social reproduction and symbolic violence, this study seeks to elucidate the extent to which neoliberal policies and a lack of guidance from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) have allowed shadow education in Japan to sustain anti-meritocratic access to higher education. The study critically analyses how laissez-faire policy-making decisions, a reliance on juku attendance, and an emphasis on English language as a test subject operate in conjunction with neoliberal policies to disadvantage lower SES families through uneven access to educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conceptual article, we present the idea that the physical education (PE) teacher is, out of professional necessity, a scholar—practitioner. To substantiate and evolve this idea, we develop a Deweyian pragmatist view of the scholar—practitioner which also embraces criticality. This stance collapses the binary notion of theory and practice and instead embraces theory and practice as a duality. We add a critical dimension to this duality through recognising that scholar—practitioners (especially leaders) require criticality and cultural awareness to raise questions over knowledge conventions and the mitigations of contextual factors their learners may face. We then turn to the critical and practical sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to illustrate how the use of theory may help PE scholar—practitioners enhance their criticality and cultural awareness. More specifically, we draw on Bourdieu's primary concepts of field, capital and habitus to show how the application of this theory can help PE scholar—practitioners position themselves in relation to their profession and how they might know their field; be aware of their, and their students', capital worth in relation to that field; and know themselves (their personal—professional habitus). In conclusion, we suggest that for PE scholar—practitioners, theory-based learning and its applied use might be considered a form of professional learning and not be limited to Bourdieu's theory but extended to include a range of other aspects of critical social theory. We finish by suggesting that this approach to the PE scholar—practitioner is even more pertinent due to the field of PE becoming increasingly a third space—something which requires additional research and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous scholarship highlights the importance of cross-class alliances between intellectuals and workers in past social-democratic and labor movements, the growth of right-wing populism may signal the breakdown of this political alignment today. We investigate the extent to which intellectuals and workers remain politically aligned through a case study of political developments in the state of Wisconsin, which pioneered social-democratic reforms in the US in the early twentieth century and then turned toward right-wing populism in the twenty-first century. We draw on Alvin Gouldner and Pierre Bourdieu to theorize intellectual-worker alliances. We then present historical evidence that an intellectual-worker alliance played an important role in the earlier period. Logistic regression analysis with survey data shows continued political antagonism between the state's wealthiest and most highly educated citizens in the later period, as well as an enduring political alignment of highly educated and working-class Wisconsinites. Our results demonstrate that right-wing populism prevailed in Wisconsin despite an intellectual-worker alliance, not because the alliance broke down. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings imply about contemporary right-wing populism beyond Wisconsin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Dating apps are digital platforms that mediate meaningful relationships and facilitate digital intimacies. This study examines the construction of social capital by dating app users in Indonesia. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s and Robert D. Putnam’s concepts of social capital as well as the virtual ethnography method, this study focuses on how heterosexual and homosexual users of dating apps in heteronormative Indonesia manage to build digital intimacies and accumulate social capital. This study shows that dating app users in Indonesia assemble social capital through networked individualism and automated connectivity. The results demonstrate that dating app users exploit digital intimacies as resources to expand their networks, which enables them to gain certain benefits. Additionally, homosexual users build digital intimacies to gain a sense of acceptance and belonging in digital space. They show more efforts towards being inclusive and active in accumulating and exchanging social capital than their heterosexual counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of habitus, as introduced by Pierre Bourdieu, serves as a lens to understand the subjective dispositions and perceptions that influence decision-making within the social realm. This study delves into the intricate relationship between urban planners' habitus and the commodification processes inherent in a neoliberal society. Through thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 27 Chilean urban planners, this research identifies typologies that capture their disciplinary stances on three pivotal urbanism facets: the city's conceptualization, the nuances of urban practice, and visions of utopia. A salient finding is the palpable tension urban planners experience, torn between the aspiration to foster a well-conceived city and the commodifying forces that shape decision-making. This commodification of the planner's ethos emerges as a byproduct of entrenched neoliberal institutional practices. This study delineates three distinct habitus typologies: the public, private, and academic urban planner, each exhibiting varied perspectives on the commodification of urban planning. Collectively, these insights shed light on the profound ways in which neoliberal paradigms influence urban planning, revealing both its disciplinary boundaries and inherent contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]