Search

Based on a qualitative study of school-to-university transition focused on working-class first-generation university students, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, it illustrates the multiple intertwining dimensions of the process of moving from school to university within an 'open-door' admission policy context such as the Italian one. Second, it emphasizes the role of students' social networks and secondary school institutional habitus in differentiating how working-class students experience university decision-making. Using a Bourdieusian framework, this paper show that family habitus and cultural capital influence the decision to transition to university. However, the paper also shows that these influences are mediated by schools' institutions according to their positions within the Italian tracking structure. In this respect, it is argued that institutional habitus constitutes a relevant heuristic to provide deeper understanding of barriers encountered by working-class students to access to university and to acknowledge the existence of important dimensions of differentiation among these students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that processes of marginalisation experienced by white working-class students provide insight into systemic problems with the English education system. White British students eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) are a low attaining group. This research investigates factors affecting their engagement and achievement. Fieldwork in three comprehensive secondary schools in a London borough used qualitative methods to gather data on the perspectives of staff, students and parents. Using Bourdieu's conceptual tools to guide the analysis, the study found that performance pressure and funding cuts can result in an institutional habitus which privileges academic attainment, side-lines the social and emotional aspects of learning and misrecognises working-class capitals. Such habitus fosters pedagogic practices which reduce levels of felt safety and limit opportunities to actively engage and exercise agency in the classroom. These conditions often make fragile the learner identity of white working-class students (and others) and prompt disengagement from school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools are critical spaces for young men from refugee backgrounds. They play an integral role in literacy development, educational attainment, and providing a sense of belonging. Inclusive education practices for this group are largely absent in Australian schools. Research shows focusing on these young men from a non-deficit position assists with inclusivity. There is a lack of research exploring the agentic practices of young men from refugee backgrounds within schools. This paper explores the symbolic value of swagger for a group of young men from refugee backgrounds at a high school in Australia. A Bourdieusian theoretical framework guided critical awareness of power in schools. This research shows how a group of young men found a meaningful way to acquire social and cultural capital. Despite the school's constraints, this group developed a group identity reflected in their clothing and embodied dispositions referred to here as swagger. Our findings demonstrate the complex power relations at work, including the opportunity for the young men to resist and be included. In the spirit of Bourdieu's concern for reflexivity our findings point to the need for schools, teachers, and education policy makers to consider the workings of power in schools in more considered ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western liberal media theories often neglect to recognize “news translation” as one of the journalistic practices. This paper problematizes this dominant understanding of journalistic practice and expands the Bourdieusian media sociology project beyond western media systems by applying it to Indian agency journalism. A case study of the United News of India Urdu (UNIU) serves as the basis for this examination, drawing on an ethnography of news production practices, and supplemented with in-depth interviews conducted with Muslim journalists from 2018 to 2020 across four major Indian cities. Through this investigation, the paper asserts that “news translation” is indeed a vital but contested component of media work within the sphere of Indian-language journalism. The paper uses “media work” as a key concept to demonstrate that UNIU’s journalists are anchored in the field of journalism, as is evidenced by their institutional-cum-organizational location and their application of the elements of journalistic practice to their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French law 2004-228 and Quebec's Bill 21 has prohibited wearing conspicuous religious symbols while discharging public duty, especially as teachers in public school. This has aroused robust public debate because it disproportionately affects Muslim women wearing hijabs. This paper investigates the philosophical/ethical argument on both sides of the debate. The key research question is whether liberal feminists have the justification to support the hijab ban. The paper outlines different types of liberal feminism and their views on just social arrangements. The paper uses Gheaus's concept of gender justice and Kabeer's definition of gender empowerment to structure the debate, stating that feminists will support the ban if it enhances empowerment and makes society more gender-just or internal working of social arrangements, at least procedurally just. The paper draws on the utilitarian argument, Nussbaum's and Sen's articulation of the Capability Approach and the importance of identity, and Bourdieu's concept of Habitus, Doxa, and Symbolic Violence. The paper argues that there are strong arguments on both sides. Still, liberal feminists concerned about structural inequalities, economic empowerment, and individual freedom may not be convinced that the Hijab ban makes society more gender-just or improves individual empowerment. [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]

Career development theory is critical in understanding how individuals make transitions through education and the workplace. However, despite evidence of the importance of geographical place in shaping individual trajectories, limited theoretical work has focused on the topic. In this paper, the potential for the development of a theoretical framework of career development that explicitly addresses the role of place is explored. This paper starts by outlining the limited ways that place has been conceptualised in existing career development literature, and then explores potential developments utilising the theoretical tools from careership theory and the work of Pierre Bourdieu and integrating insights from contemporary spatial theorists. The paper finishes by drawing together a spatio-relational framework for career development which both encompasses insights from the existing literature and extends this work arguing that place is a salient dimension in career development to a much more significant extent than has been previously recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For refugee migrants, proficiency in the language of their host country is a significant factor affecting their chance of integration and employment in their new society. For this reason, many Western nations provide host-country language training for such migrants. Australia thus offers English language training within its Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector to assist in refugee settlement. This study draws on qualitative interview data collected from a group of male Muslim refugee migrants attending these Australian training programs. Applying a Bourdieusian analysis to the data, the study's findings suggest that language training alone does not meet their linguistic and vocational needs. The paper argues first that the current language training programs need to be reconceptualised to consider the intersection of language training, work experience and vocational qualification; and second, that there must be a confluence of these three factors if refugee migrants are to have any chance of gaining meaningful employment opportunities. The notion of capital as 'vocational currency' is proposed as a new term to identify the complex relationships within this confluence. The article concludes with discussion of the implications of this study for language training within these VET programs. [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]

This paper examines the persistent, growing popularity of Canadian French immersion (FI) programmes. Critics charge that FI programmes are elitist, diverting already limited resources from other areas of the education system. We begin with a brief overview of the benefits of FI in Canada and enrolment trends. Next, sources of FI-related inequality – lack of access, transportation costs, funding issues and types of learners most likely to enrol in FI – are scrutinised. Then, available evidence is weighed for and against the charges of FI elitism. Lastly, demand for FI is viewed through a Bourdieusian social reproduction lens to understand the persistence of socio-economic status (SES) inequalities. The paper concludes that higher SES parents are more likely to have the inclination (parentocratic habitus) and resources (economic, social, and cultural capital) to enrol their children in, and benefit from, FI. The paradox of publicly funded FI education in Canada is that as long as demand outstrips supply the benefits will continue to be unequally distributed. The result is a stalemate between proponents and critics, with each camp's solution – whether it be making FI universally available or removing it completely from the public purse – bound to meet with stiff opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I develop the idea of cosmopolitan stances – one 'intellectual' and the other 'aesthetic' – to examine conceptions of cosmopolitanism within a range of university strategies. Recent research into cosmopolitanism has adopted a Bourdieusian lens, understanding it as cultural capital, which acts as a locus of stratification in the global system. By examining the strategies in 11 London-based universities, this paper sought to identify which cosmopolitan stances are mobilised. Following a thematic analysis this paper argues that those stances privileged by the global middle class are often implicit and generated incidentally as a function of other initiatives such as inclusivity and diversity, global citizenship, placement opportunities and graduate attributes/outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge 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.)

The provision of sports opportunities for youths in schools has expanded beyond traditional competitive offerings, with activities such as skateboarding and surfing now considered important avenues for youth development. This trend follows the recent expansion of action or ‘lifestyle’ sports provision into various community and educational contexts. This paper concomitantly explores how surfing, in particular, is now being formally utilised by schools as a viable sporting opportunity for both boys and girls. Research is lacking in terms of understanding how activities such as surfing may promote specific gender relations. This line of research is critical given that surfing in its unstructured format typically privileges masculine ideals and codes of practice, with women being considered secondary participants. In this paper, then, we highlight data findings about gender relations based on a study of boys’ and girls’ surfing programmes located in coastal regions of California and France. Through our interrogation of semi-structured interview and field observation data, we illustrate how school-based programmes that incorporate surfing served to reproduce gendered hierarchies and power relationships during training sessions and competitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been an international call for action from the United Nations secretary general, individuals' abilities to engage with climate change and actions to mitigate it can vary. In 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 and related school closures caused significant upheaval across the world; schools made immediate shifts to remote delivery, increasing workloads and decreasing access to outdoor spaces and opportunities to connect with nature. In this paper we will explore a rural, mid-Wales school's approach to climate change education (CCE), and their experiences running the CCE programme 'You and CO2' through interviews with teachers and analyses of creative interactive digital narratives (IDNs) the students created on the programme. The paper will discuss what the school was doing before the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of the pandemic on CCE in the school, and how the You and CO2 programme raised the aspirations and confidence levels of the school's humanities department for teaching CCE. The findings in this study highlight the importance of localised knowledge, and engagement with local groups in successful delivery of CCE programmes, which was reflected in students' IDNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the admissions practices of an 'Elite Traditional International School' (ETIS) in a large city in Japan. The school is seeing falling enrolment from its traditional clients e.g.'transnational capitalist class' families working for Embassies and its alumnus, whilst attracting an emergent aspiring locally-based body of parents representative of a 'global middle class' likely seeking advantages, and a new, distinct identity. The resultant tension, between dealing with market-led change (reflecting the reality) and trying to maintain and protect legitimacy as an ideologically driven institution serving the privileged 'international community' (reflecting the vision), creates a platform (the nomos) for admission practices that are potentially biased and largely hidden. Utilising a methodology grounded in the work of Pierre Bourdieu we identify how the school adopts a number of 'unwritten rules', to 'guard the gate'. Moreover, the imagined 'international community' emerges as a major field of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon research from six volunteer projects in Cambodia, this paper explores the volunteer host community as a 'space' that has its own rules and normalized ways of behaving that influences the assistance prospective beneficiaries receive. Underpinned by Bourdieu's theory of field's, qualitative interviews and participant observation is conducted with both volunteers and hosts. This paper concludes that volunteer project rules are not homogeneous and that normalized ways of behaving can lead to unregulated and unsustainable practice but also integrated and productive outcomes. This suggests a more regulative and structured approach to volunteer tourism led by media and volunteers themselves may enhance the sustainable foundation of the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research highlights the importance of seamless transitions between early childhood services and schools to ensure a positive start to school for young children. Drawing on an ecological model of transition where positive outcomes for children depend on the relationships formed between key players in their transition, this paper examines cross-sectoral relationships between the professionals involved. It categorises interactions taking place within the transition then utilises Bourdieu's field theory to explore and illuminate the social processes involved in the pre-school/school relationships. Data are drawn from field visits and interviews with early childhood teachers at 12 services and primary school teachers in 11 schools across the state of New South Wales, Australia. The findings show that not all categories of professional relationships are apparent when classified through transition activities, with personal experiences and historical positionings accounting for such differences. This paper argues that more effort and support is required to build collaborative partnerships that move from being unidirectional to mutually respectful and responsive. This move will enable teachers to engage in professional dialogue and build sustainable professional networks; however, for this to occur teachers need to become aware of how their practices have been shaped by their habitus, capital and the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VET colleges in China are positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, absorbing the 'left-over' students with 'less desirable' academic records. VET students are stereotyped as 'stupid and lazy' youths suffering considerable prejudice in Chinese society. Drawing on Bourdieu's theoretical insights, this paper investigates the experiences of students in VET colleges and their teachers' perspectives on them. I explore how teachers' stereotyping habitus is practised in VET colleges and how it affects their students' learning experiences. The findings demonstrate that the teachers' pedagogic practices in class impose a designated cultural arbitrary via a hidden curriculum. The students adopted 'passing time' attitudes in class as a response to their teachers' 'misrecognition'. The paper examines how a system of unequal power relations in Chinese VET college is maintained and legitimised, which contributes to the 'transmission' and reproduction of the very culture that has shaped the standing of VET in Chinese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specialty coffee is increasingly produced and consumed as part of routine life in many cities in modern China, but the social and cultural shifts it has engendered yet to be systematically examined. By examining the intersections between social media and the operations of independent Chinese coffeehouses in the field of taste, this paper puts forward the idea of new taste among Chinese millennials, which comprises individual subjectivity, heterogeneous social relationships, and forms of class distinction. Using taste-oriented keyword searches on WeChat official accounts, 20 articles were returned and analyzed in terms of their textural and visual orientations to examine the processes underlying how taste is influenced in the consumption of specialty coffee in China. Findings suggest the importance of taste makers in this process, from routine creation of aesthetic ambience in the coffeehouses to the construction of affective taste spaces online, and the establishment of taste cycles from online to offline, which all underpin class privilege. Moreover, the emergence of an 'urban café community' appears to be characterized by specific forms of belonging resulting from a productive effect of the interplay between independent coffeehouses and consumers in everyday urban life in which a set of aesthetic boundaries reside. Second, these digital consumers distinguish themselves socially by positioning themselves as having a cosmopolitan taste grounded in coffee appreciation instead of merely consuming coffee for physiological benefits. These findings extend taste propositions through engagement of Chinese digital millennial consumers to uncover the underlying cultural classifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse cultural processes through an alternative and combined theoretical and methodological framework. We use the distinctive theoretical lens of organizational habitus to explore the negotiation of culture within a sports charity. Our contribution here is to provide analysis borne both out of theoretical novelty and by adopting a practical application of this in context. Ethnographic data collection drew upon several tools which upon a retrospective analysis took place. Findings suggest that the cultural and expressive elements prioritized by the collective of individuals enhance practices which are deemed important, while resisting practices that are deemed to be incompatible with a perceived worldview concerning the operations of the charity. This novel lens, considered from our emic perspective has the potential to enhance our understanding of organizational culture, leading to practical, context-appropriate findings that reveal how sometimes innocuous aspects of organizational life can influence collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ofsted, the inspection authority in England, has told schools to ensure that all students have access to cultural capital, taken as a canon of music, literature and art. In this paper, we trouble this guidance by analysing conversations with 1447 senior secondary students. The students reported that the arts offered considerable personal benefits, as well as creative self-expression (visual art) and vocational and networking skills (performing arts). By bringing Bourdieu to the dataset we offer a field analysis that shows how arts cultural capitals might follow the logics of the education field. We speculate that, despite the likelihood that these elite cultural capitals were not of equal value to all students, arts capitals and dispositions might support wider resistances to logics of practice in other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractGlobal education policy discourse is based on an unshakable belief that more and improved skills will promote economic prosperity, global competitiveness and social inclusion. In England, the Further Education and Skills sector (FES) has emerged as the vehicle to deliver these skills. However, the portrayal of FES as focusing primarily on vocational education for people often adjudged to be ‘not academic’ positions the sector at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, with negative ramifications for those who teach and study in it. This paper applies a case study approach to explore the lived experiences of five trainee FES teachers completing their initial teacher education (ITE). Drawing on contemporary interpretations of Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, I develop Morrin’s notion of hauntings to explain the psycho-social, historical and spatial influences on the trainees’ responses as they re-enter the field of education as teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates alcohol consumption within cultures of football fandom through the innovative combination of theories of the carnivalesque and Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital. Focus groups (n = 79) were conducted with football supporters in England and Scotland. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15) were also conducted with key organizational stakeholders. Research explored the importance and role of alcohol consumption for supporters when watching or attending matches.. Participants confirmed the cultural significance, perceived normalcy and historical links between football and alcohol consumption. Supporters highlighted the importance of the sociability, friendship, and social capital aspects of alcohol consumption. Participants believed football supporters are perceived differently in comparison with supporters of other sports, arguing that legislation surrounding alcohol consumption at other sports allowed supporters to enhance the carnivalesque by drinking alcohol, whereas football fans were more restricted. Participants agreed the habitus of excessive drinking and violence associated with football supporters led to a bad reputation, however, this view was outdated. Participants also recognized a growing drug culture in football. The findings draw attention to the alcohol-sport relationship and the contested relations, and diverging interests and influences, within the social field of football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research has investigated international graduate employability in home or host countries. However, limited studies have accounted for such employability across the home and the host. Drawing on Bourdieu's relational and reflexive sociology, this paper critically examined the first author's narrative of his employment experiences as a doctoral graduate navigating across Chinese and Australian academic fields after completing ten years of higher education and research training in Australia. While he encountered various challenges due to capital deficiency and habitus-field mismatch, he also reflexively learned to capitalise on his transnational academic dispositions and decode different logics of practice across different academic fields. Thus, he underwent constant changes of identity, agency, and belonging in his cross-field employment journey, which potentially shaped his transnational habitus. This Bourdieusian reflexive narrative contributes to research and practice on graduate employability and reflexivity from a sociological perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper approaches Transnistria ghettos from a social perspective looking to recuperate the networks accessed by those ghettoized. My hypothesis is that networking was instrumental for survival and it was conditioned by local conditions, pre-dispositions inherited from pre-war times and the capacity of those ghettoized to adapt the latter to the former. The approach is both historical and sociological with the emphasis put on Cole’s argument for a spatial dimension of Holocaust survival and Bourdieu’s conceptualization of the ‘social space.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers in Lady Agatha's Boarding School (Lady Agatha's) find teaching Sex and Relationships Education (RSE) uncomfortable. This paper investigates one aspect of the discomfort that they feel, namely the impact RSE has on their professional status as teachers. I use focus group data to reflect on the professional and personal location of teachers at Lady Agatha's and to explore their understanding of RSE through the recurring themes of professionalism and professional reputation as symbolic capital; deprofessionalisation and risk as symbolic violence; and the connects and disconnects between the doxa and illusio of the school. Findings suggest that by interrogating the sites of symbolic violence which generate RSE discomfort, we can start to unpick the fabric which creates discomfort about RSE, allowing both for a deeper understanding of RSE discomfort in teachers and an opportunity to address this discomfort as a barrier to RSE delivery at Lady Agatha's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precarity of journalistic labour has received significant scholarly attention globally, leading to a plethora of studies that attempt to theorise changing journalistic roles, practices, and norms. Whereas precarity in newswork is formulated as the "new normal" in the Global North, the precarious situation of marginal(ised) newsworkers in the Global South has been simply normal. Based on ethnographic research in two small-town formations in South India, this article presents how stringers working in Indian-language newspapers have developed a complex professional identity and shared norms through journalistic and extra-journalistic practices to survive in the field. In doing so, we develop, in a novel way, Bourdieu's concept of illusio to understand the formation of a professional identity that spans adjacent fields. This paper's critical engagement with the difficult working lives of stringers and their invisible labour has learnings for analysis of precarity in journalism across the Global North and South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research indicates that white middle-class families' engagement with urban schools in gentrifying localities is often characterised by strategies of dominance and control, which support claims of belonging and identity, as well as securing educational advantage for their children. This is referred as 'class colonisation' or 'school gentrification'. However, there has been a neglect of educators' perspectives and responses to urban social change and middle-class parental practices. In this paper, I offer an institutionally-focused analysis of class colonisation as a feature of educators' working lives. I argue that class colonisation produces organisational 'turmoil' through parental practices and interactions which unsettle staff's social and cultural control over key aspects of their work situation and institutional boundary maintenance. This turmoil is experienced as disruptive of the social order, generating staff cynicism, conflict, ambivalence, and alienation. I draw on ethnographic data with teachers and teaching assistants from a gentrifying inner-London primary school to empirically specify these arguments. Theoretically, this paper integrates elements of Bourdieu and micro-sociology, to foreground how agents use their unequal resources to negotiate their interpersonal institutional realities, and in the process, re-produce classed and racialised boundaries and relations within the changing contexts of urban education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on social class occupies a particular pedestal in British sociology. However, recent research into the connections between religion and social position is conspicuously absent. Using a UK-wide survey, I employ Bourdieu and various statistical methods to investigate the complex cultural capital compositions of various religious identities. The findings identify a four-group typology of cultural engagement. I also identify those holding multiple religious identities as a new and prominent religious identity in the UK today, one that is highly culturally active. I explain these results through neo-Bourdieusian theories of the reconfiguration of distinction in the forms of openness and cosmopolitanism, and through arguments for the importance of cultural and social variety in accumulating capital. The unique group that has these multiple religious identities is also a prime candidate for further research into how religious dispositions may operate as its own form of cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scant sociological attention has been given to the role of luck within social mobility/reproduction. This paper helps address this conceptual gap, drawing on insights from over 200 longitudinal interviews conducted with 20 working-class young people and 22 of their parents over an 11-year period, from age 10–21. We explore the potential significance of luck within the trajectories of 13 educationally mobile young people who were the first in family to go to university, six young people who achieved similar educational levels to their parents and one young person whose status was less clear cut. Our analysis suggests that particular forms of luck may be instrumental in creating opportunities for social mobility, although the consequentiality of these are mediated through interplays of agency, structure, habitus and capital. We conclude that paying further attention to luck may help augment sociological understandings of structure/agency and Bourdieusian understandings of social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on theorisations of popular culture as a site of cultural hegemony and Bourdieu's sociology of taste, this paper is an analysis of social media discourses about Skhosana Buhlungu's song Dlala ntethe. Our main thesis is that the song became the locus of expression and contestations about ethnic identity. We demonstrate how the song, like all forms of popular culture, became implicated in the ideological battle for cultural hegemony in a highly ethnicised Zimbabwean society. The paper is based on purposively sampled Facebook and Twitter posts gathered via manual web crawling using the hashtags #Dlala ntethe and #Ntethe. A thematic analysis of the data reveals that aesthetic endorsement of the song became a marker of ethnicity. Findings demonstrate that taste for Dlala ntethe was subordinated to the logic of an essentialist Ndebele ethnic solidarity. Additionally, it emerged from the analysis that when it was expedient to do so, Ndebele identity was framed as a fluid cultural construct that is conferred or revoked depending on one's disposition towards Dlala ntethe. Relatedly, debates about the aesthetic quality of Skhosana's music reveal an ethnic double standard where similar musical offerings by Shona and South African musicians are not subjected to the same standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the forms of, and the reasons for developing extracurricular activities by fellow participants in an alternative teacher preparation programme in China. We frame the paper through Bourdieu's sociology. Our interviews with 16 fellows reveal that fellows manoeuvre their capital portfolio to develop both academic and non-academic forms of extracurricular activities. Reasons for developing extracurricular activities include using available resources through capital conversion, expanding students' horizon through contemptuous habitus; and taking into account the local needs. Despite fellows' good intention to compensate local students, we call for reflexivity to transform their contemptuous habitus into one that realises local values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobilisation of assets from one national field to another is a topic that has attracted significant sociological attention. In this paper, we investigate migrant physicians who obtained their medical degrees outside the EU/EEA and trace the process of validating their degrees in Sweden. The study is inscribed in Bourdieu’s sociological tradition and is based on a questionnaire and interviews with physicians. Analysing the mobilisation of cultural capital across national borders, we emphasise the importance of distinguishing its different states in the context of migration. Based on our case, we argue that the time physicians spend in the ‘waiting room’ challenges their ability to maintain and perform their medical craft. We show that the time it takes to institutionalise assets and accumulate capital in another national context can lead to the risk of losing its embodied state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that class-privileged students value learning for its own sake and study the liberal arts, while working-class students believe college is a means to an end. However, recent studies indicate that these associations are weakening. This paper investigates the link between class background, college values, and curricular choices, specifically course selection. In interviews with 68 working- and upper-middle-class liberal arts majors at two public universities in the northeastern U.S., nearly all students endorsed liberal education values (the belief that higher education is for personal edification) which they claimed to value above labor market outcomes. Working-class students chose courses in accordance with those values; however, upper-middle-class students chose courses for perceived career relevance or those rumored to be an 'easy A'. Although it appears that college logics have flipped, I argue that they remain rooted in social class. I then consider implications for social reproduction: while working-class students' adoption of traditional HE values and practices suggests some leveling of the playing field, it means little if privileged students have moved the goalposts to maintain advantage. I apply Sigal Alon's theory of effectively expanded inequality, whereby the privileged classes adapt to increased access and competition by deploying new strategies to secure their class position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professionalism in the English Further Education (FE) system has been traditionally discussed in terms of superior teaching practices, attitudes and behaviours. The concept of 'good work' is therefore central to this paper's analysis. Following a Bourdieusian tradition, professionalism is treated as a 'site of struggle' between FE teachers and managers, where managers hold the power to change the definition and substance of 'good work'. This has implications for how teachers understand and speak about professionalism and highlights the discord that arises when teachers hold different viewpoints from managers. Drawing on a survey of 461 responses, the analysis makes three contributions: first, professionalism is theorised as a form of symbolic capital which actors attain by acquiring and deploying cultural, social and economic capital. Second, it shows how inequalities in capital can affect teachers' perceived opportunities for professional recognition. Finally, it reveals that senior managers, with the greatest power, enforce a compliance model of professionalism based on the production of 'good data', which is the legitimate capital in the FE field, even when this is shown to be deprofessionalising to teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a paucity of research into female-identifying dancers as parents, how the transition from dancer to pregnancy to parent is managed, and whether and how a dancing parent can maintain a career in dance. This paper shares findings from a qualitative interview study with (n = 30), predominantly female professional contemporary dancers that have become parents and are working within the contemporary dance industry in the UK. It uses Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual framework of belief and practice to make greater sense of how the dancers navigate becoming parents and the disruption to their dancer's habitus and embodied identity, as they attempt to manage work-family conflicts within contemporary dance. Findings reveal that when the dancers became a parent the disrupted taken-for-granted norms and expectations of the dancer's habitus and identity as a dancer, intensified the fragility of lives and livelihoods and brought new physical, psychological, social and economic vulnerabilities. The dancers in the study shared experiences of barriers, but also enablers for dancers that are parents within the contemporary dance industry in the UK, with examples of managing transition, evolution of identities and capital gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors study 19 Global Middle Class (GMC) families currently residing in four global cities: Hong Kong; London; Buenos Aires; and Tel Aviv. Through qualitative in-depth interviews, they sought to gather insights about GMC parenting strategies, specifically drawing attention to the decision-making processes of school choice. To facilitate their analysis, they draw on Bourdieu's theory on types of capital and Ben-Porath's notion of bounded rationality. From the inductive analysis of their interview data with mobile GMC parents, they identified a subtype of cultural capital they called 'cosmopolitan start-up capital'. The overall argument in the paper is that the accumulation of cosmopolitan start-up capital is a specific strategy guiding the GMC families' school choice practices, set within a frame of mobilities. Given the growing number of mobile families who continuously enter and exit local education systems, focusing on this group is pertinent for policy makers and practitioners around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of widespread initiatives to improve access to education for girls, substantive concerns remain. While there is a rich and growing body of literature on gendered experiences of school in majority world contexts, absent is a focus on how this intersects with children's out of school lives. Further, research with children in rural communities is limited, including those who are in the earlier years of their schooling. This paper addresses these gaps, focusing on gendered dynamics in the everyday lives of children in five rural communities in Northern Sierra Leone. Drawing on Bourdieu, it explores the dialectical interplay between gendered and generational structures, understood as the gendered habitus, in a wider context of structural poverty, uneven and fragile post-colonial restructuring and development. This sets the groundwork for children's gendered dis/positioning, and ultimately capacity to engage with schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enrolment of Chinese middle-class children in elite international kindergartens is a big education industry in China. Our paper is situated in the broader sociology of elite schooling which has yet to fully explore how middle and upper middle-class parents are increasingly sending their children to elite international kindergartens. We present a case study from Shenzhen, China with a view to showing how the curriculum and the routine of its practices are used to cultivate the elite child for competitive advantage in the educational rat race in China. The approach of Bourdieusian accumulation of capital theory is used to unravel the categories of capital embedded in the curriculum.We term these 'start-up capital' which has exchange value for students to gain competitive advantage in their application to key primary schools and their onward schooling trajectories in China. Our case study provides a window into how social advantage and class are reproduced as soon as the child sets foot in an elite international kindergarten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internationalisation of educational trajectories has emerged as a new form of cultural capital in education systems. Research suggests that the 'international capital' offered by language enrichment programs has become appropriated primarily by middle- and upper-class families investing in new forms of educational distinction. However, little is known about the appeal of international capital to different class fractions. In this paper, I draw on Bourdieu's theory of class and administrative data on French students and schools to examine the role of international certification in class practices of school choice. The analysis reveals that specific fractions of the upper-middle and upper classes are over-represented in schools offering international certificates. I use the findings to discuss the role of family resources and education system structures in the making of educational strategies. I conclude by highlighting the importance of empirically grounded analyses of the sociological significance and limits of international capital in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an on-going study of grassroots language-planning engagement in the Chinese transnational communities in the UK. It explores how a group of Chinese mothers organise playgroups for their children to socialise with each other in linguistic and non-linguistic plays to enrich their children’s cultural and linguistic environment. Guided by Bourdieu’s signature concepts of habitus and capital, this study attempts to understand grassroots organisations in the Chinese communities through a socialisation lens. It examines how organisers’/mothers’ sociocultural disposition about, practical knowledge of, and cultural attitudes towards socialisation become unintended forms of social and cultural capital for heritage/community language development. Data sources include observations, recorded playing activities, and unstructured interviews. Using discourse analysis and narrative enquiry as analytical framework, the study focuses on the types of activities organised, language functions and forms in socialisation, and the sociocultural dispositions articulated by the parents. The study highlights how heritage languages can be developed despite symbolic structural constraints that are unfavourable for heritage language learning. The study contributes to the field of FLP by illustrating how parents use their social, cultural and economic capital in locating and using accessible resources to help their children build a transnational cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Checking in' at or 'tagging' oneself to various places on social media constitute online representations that contribute to the classification, or 'making', of places. At the same time, users are also classified based on what they (show that they) do where. In this paper, we deploy Bourdieusian cultural sociology to the realm of place-exposing geomedia practices to understand social reproduction on social media. The study uses multiple correspondence analysis on a national survey deployed in Sweden (n=3,902). Various place-exposing practices are analyzed in relation to the contemporary Swedish class structure. Results reveal a connection between various forms and volumes of capital and the places that people visit and chose to put on display for online audiences. We are thus able to verify how the socio-technological regime of geomedia, with its new arenas for online exposure, extends deep-seated dynamics of socio-cultural reproduction and even reinforces the classificatory linkages between spatial appropriation and social identity work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My forthcoming book Bourdieu in the City: Challenging Urban Theory (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2023) is not intended as an eclectic combination of the structuralist and the phenomenological takes on the city rehearsing Pierre Bourdieu's influential critique of the deadly antinomy of objectivism and subjectivism. Nor does it aim just to make room for the author of Distinction in the pantheon of theorists before which students of the city are expected to genuflect. I intend the book, not as an addition, but a challenge to the urban canon and a springboard for a possible reconstruction of urban theory and inquiry around what I christen the Bourdieusian trialectic of symbolic space, social space, andphysical space. In this paper, I provide a compact characterization of the trialectic and then draw out its implications for the theory and comparative study of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of Bourdieu and postfeminism, this article analyses extant tensions between young women's gendered habitus and the health-related learning spaces of Physical Education (PE) and Instagram. We draw on data from a two-phase qualitative research project with thirty-seven young women (aged 15–17) from three secondary schools in Spain who self-defined as physically active and engaging with exercise content on Instagram. Data obtained through focus groups and semi-structured interviews reveal how these young women's subjectivities are formed through negotiating the gender 'rules of the game' within these key pedagogical fields. Notably, most participants were critical of their learning in PE, which mainly remains a traditional masculine field. By contrast, they valued Instagram as an engaging space in which to learn about fitness to transform their bodies toward the feminine ideal. This involved a constant process of self-optimization, including the development of the 'right' mental dispositions, fitting strongly with their gendered habitus. Within this paper, we have developed the concept of 'postfeminist habitus' to explain the participants' engagements with health-related content on Instagram, which through language of choice and empowerment, disciplined the young women to achieve the normative body as a marker of success. We argue that while there are notably different patterns of engagement with PE and Instagram, in both spaces there is evidence of symbolic violence that reproduces the gender order. We conclude by suggesting changes that might make PE a more meaningful and hybrid learning space for young women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the increasingly popular leisure pursuit of indoor rock climbing amongst young women in the UK. Adopting a Bourdieusian perspective, we draw on the concepts of field, habitus and capital to explore the factors associated with young women's propensities to start, and continue, engaging in this activity. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with 12 women (aged 18–25), who had been regularly engaging in indoor climbing for at least six months. Thematic analysis of the transcripts led to the construction of three themes: preconceptions of a masculine field; habitual feelings of intimidation and inferiority; and deploying and accruing 'climbing capital'. The findings indicate that climbing's deep-rooted classification as a 'man's sport' initially facilitated feelings of intimidation and inferiority amongst the women, inhibiting their propensity to participate. However, having been introduced to climbing (often by men, such as their boyfriends or brothers), the women found that the social aspects of the activity, along with the sense of achievement they felt when participating, meant they re-evaluated their preconceptions of the field. Their access to various forms of capital facilitated their continued engagement in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the reactions of English pupils who were preparing for GCSE and A-Level examinations to the 2020 exam cancellations resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing so, it addresses a gap in international research related to high stakes testing by presenting pupils’ perspectives. It uses a Bourdieusian framework to explore the role that exams played within the everyday educational experiences of four secondary school pupils. I demonstrate that pupils displayed an exam-oriented habitus which both recognised and was critical of exams as part of the wider ‘game’ of education. The 2020 GCSE and A-Level exam cancellation disrupted this habitus, leading participants to critically question and challenge an exam-focused education system. With the current uncertainty regarding the 2021 GCSE and A-Level exams in England, this paper argues that listening to the voices of young people also has two implications for wider consideration. Young people are uniquely positioned to comment critically on the quality of education systems which focus on high stake assessment. Listening to such criticality realises the potential for equity, engaging with voices which have previously gone unheard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an East London Kickboxing/Muay Thai gym, this paper explores how fighters at Origins Combat Gym seek to reject race as a discursive category in favour of constructing each other as the same, bonded by years of intimately training alongside one another. Drawing upon Bourdieu, I conceptualise a racial habitus to argue that such processes are constrained; my field-site is not a racial utopia, even if it does allow for new possibilities. Nonetheless, my interlocutors' attempts to reject the logic of ethnic absolutism through forging complex localised solidarities offers hope in anti-immigrant times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a multilevel perspective by combining meso and micro levels of analysis to examine change within a field of disability sport. What is the impact of policy shifts on the power relations between organizations in a field of disability sport? How does change prompt action at the micro-level of disability sport management? A longitudinal, ethnography of organizations involved in managing disability cricket is conducted during the inaugural implementation of Sport England's Whole Sport Plans. Semi-structured interviews with 17 managers and participant observations in the form of field notes were the main tools of data collection. While the appearance of structural management relations within the field did not appear to change, the underlying power dynamics did. Shifting power relations at the meso-level and the availability of new economic capital to reinforce this power shift, created a series of implications for agents operating at the micro-level, and on the lived experience of disability sport managers. Much of the resistance to change that occurred could have been avoided by better communication between agents. Greater effort should be made policymakers to understand the experiences of those who work to develop sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western societies, feminisms are being taken up in new and exciting ways. We are seeing a range of feminisms being expressed in the mainstream media and through alternative sites. A unique aspect of contemporary Western feminism is the take up by men, particularly those with profiles in public life and the media, and how this can build male feminist capital. This "bloke turn" has been welcomed by some as sign of the building of alliances for the feminist project; however, it has also been criticised as an encroachment on women's spaces by men. Through case studies of three high-profile men occupying media spaces—Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian television host Karl Stefanovic, and British actor Benedict Cumberbatch—this paper examines how men who identify as feminism-friendly are positioning themselves in this emerging terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overrepresentation of independently educated athletes amongst Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics was described as 'One of the worst statistics in British sport'. Whilst the ensuing debate referred to independent schools en masse, the sector is far from homogenous. Within the UK independent (private) sector, a small subset of schools has educated a significant number of international sportsmen and women. Despite this record of success however, little research exists on young athletes in independent schools. Answering calls to study independent school sport, this paper uses semi-structured interviews with pupils and staff involved in sport in six independent schools in England to explore why some schools consistently produce international athletes. A dual theory framework combining the Eliasian notions of process and figuration, with Bourdieu's concept of distinction is employed to offer a sociological perspective on the sporting success of the schools studied. The findings reveal striking differences in institutional attractiveness, coaching, the sporting potential of the pupil intake, and facilities between the least and the most successful schools studied, where a number of intra and inter school practices contribute to an increasingly professionalised sporting environment. In concluding, a novel and more variegated perspective on the under researched and often difficult to access field of independent school sport is offered. The proposition being that through reconciliation of the notions of distinction and status rivalry, we are better able to understand the repeated success of some independent schools in supporting the development of talented young athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]