Taking education seriously : developing Bourdieuan social theory in the context of teaching and learning medical ethics in the UK undergraduate medical degree

This thesis offers a social theoretical development of Bourdieu' s habitus in order that it might be used to 'take education seriously'. It is conducted from within the later Wittgenstein's view of language and according to a Winchean methodology for 'doing social theory'. The context used for this theoretical exercise in UK medical education, particularly ethics education. The first aim of the thesis is to develop a more cognitive aspect to the habitus and to this end I draw on the idea of 'thinking dispositions.' I argue that 'thinking dispositions' should be considered the product of enculturation rather than socialisation and that former is implied by Bourdieu's construal of this latter process as a 'collective process of inculcation.' I then give a historical account of the development of medical education in the UK over the past 30-40 years making particular reference to the General Medical Councils document Tomorrow's Doctors (1993, revised 2003, 2009). Subsequentially I return to the more theoretical ground which is the central concern of this thesis and attempt to give more definition to the idea of a cognitive habitus through a consideration of the reflective practice and education of medical professionals, the concept of meta-cognition (drawn from science education research), and the idea of a cognitive apprenticeship emerging from socio-cultural learning theory, a branch of Vygotskian psychology. The final chapter returns to Bourdieuan grounds and considers the relationship between enculturation, a cognitive apprenticeship and the habitus. In the conclusion I consider some reflexive implications of my thesis for medical ethics education delivered as part of a medical education and for applied ethics considered as a branch of philosophy which seeks to extend its insights beyond its disciplinary borders as, for example, in medical ethics education.