pupil identities

• Bourdieu > habitus


  -dispositions, tastes, attitudes & values individual acquires through socialisation & experience
• middle class habitus

  -power to define its habitus as superior

  -impose it on education system

  -school puts higher value on middle class tastes, preferences...

  -linked to Bourdieu's cultural capital > middle class students have advantage
• symbolic capital

  -status

  -recognition

  -sense of worth

  -we're able to obtain

  -especially those of similar class position to us
• symbolic violence

  -harm done by denying someone symbolic capital
• Archeret al (2010)


  -working class habitus incompatible with middle class 'school' habitus

  -working class denied symbolic capital by school
• Archer et al - choice


  working class has choice

  -abandon working class habitus to gain symbolic capital from school

  -seek alternative ways of creating self worth, status, value
• Archer et al - how working class gains capital


  -investing heavily in 'styles' > consuming branded clothing

  -'Nike' identities

  -play part in working class pupils' rejection of higher education
• how does working class see higher education

  -unrealistic

  -undesirable
• Evans

  -working class girls reluctant to apply to elite universities

  -the few that applied felt sense of hidden barriers & not fitting in