Pupils class identities & the school

• Habitus:


  Bourdieu: dispositions/ways of thinking shared by a social class- although one isn’t better than another, m/c impose habitus on education = advantage.
• Symbolic capital vs violence:

  As m/c habitus is favoured, they gain capital, while w/c gain violence - devalued and clash between w/c and school.

  • Archer: w/c have to change to succeed.
• Class identity & exclusion

  w/c who don’t go to uni is a result of self-exclusion.

  • Evans: 21 w/c girls from south london reluctant to apply to oxbridge in fear of not fitting in - Bourdieu links to habitus.
  • Evan’s also found attachment to locality - 4/21 moved away.
  • w/c forced to choose identity OR success.
• Nike Identities


  w/c symbolic violence leads to find alternative ways of self worth. Branded clothes - clash with school.

  • Archer: school m/c habitus stigmatises w/c identity.
  • Nike identity = m/c rejection and w/c self-exclusion.
• W/c identity & educational success:

  Ingram: 2 groups of w/c catholic boys from deprived areas of Belfast: grammar school vs state school

  • W/c identity difficult to seperate from w/c locality.
  • Grammar school boys ridiculed on non-uniform days - forced to abandon identity for success.
• Internal & External link:

  Poverty (ext) can lead to bullying and stigma (int) which can lead to truancy and failure.

  Both internal & external linked - not just one.