Gendered Habitus in Engineering: Experiences of Brazilian Students

This paper discusses the ways in which an ‘engineering habitus’, that in the first instance presents itself as a predominantly masculinized habitus - because its inclinations, competences and dispositions are homologous to the cultural repertoire traditionally associated with men – may change with the growing presence of women in the field. We draw from the perspective advanced by Bourdieu, in particular the key notions of habitus, capital and field, to explore how particular competences, dispositions and classificatory principles operate in the field of engineering. The study is based on qualitative in-depth analysis of the socialization trajectories of 10 students (five men and five women) enrolled in an engineering degree in a publicly-funded Brazilian university, as well as on quantitative secondary data about the students. This is placed in broader national and international contexts. The socialization trajectories of both women and men studying engineering demonstrate that the experiences of women are patterned by a double bind in cultural repertoires, which affect traditional associations with gender. An engineering gendered habitus not conforming to the stereotypical and dominant masculine is in evidence, as women not only develop competences and dispositions homologous to the traditional masculine habitus, but also show inclinations and affinities commonly associated with femininity. The study advances the hypothesis that the growing participation of women in engineering drives this process, challenging traditional gender divisions and propelling a more flexible gendered engineering habitus in the field. We propose that the phenomenon discussed here deserves further investigation

Relational Analysis of the Phenomenon of Early School Leaving: A Habitus Typology

Although there is an extensive body of literature on the causes and consequences of early school leaving (ESL), little is known of how early school leavers cope with their situation after having left the education system. This paper's main objective is to fill this research gap. At first we look at developments in the social positioning of early school leavers in Austria that show that their situation has deteriorated not only because of changes in the labour market (e.g. due to globalization) but also because of displacement processes that are influenced by habitus formation and capital endowment. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and capital, we explored the situation of young people who had left school early. We used a multi-perspective approach and conducted 123 narrative interviews which we analysed by grouping cases that demonstrated similar social practice and perception patterns generated by a set of socially learned dispositions. Thus we were able to reconstruct a habitus typology consisting of seven different types: the "ambitious", the "status-oriented", the "non-conformist", the "disoriented", the "resigned", the "escapist" and the "caring". How young people experience stigmatization is the common thread that runs through all seven habitus types

“You Bring It, We’ll Bring It Out” Becoming a Soldier in the New Zealand Army : A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Massey University Manawatū, New Zealand.

The transition from civilian to soldier is a process of identity acquisition. Based on participant-observation, this thesis follows a cohort of new soldiers through the first year and a half of their careers in the New Zealand Army, from their first day of Basic Training to their first overseas deployment. Both the Army as an institution and its individual soldiers are explicitly self-reflexive, and I use not only academic theory but also soldiers’ own theories of identity and identity acquisition to make sense of the experience of becoming a soldier. I show that although recruits undergo change in becoming soldiers, they simultaneously retain pre-service identities. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, I argue that civilians join the Army because of a shared “primary habitus”, a pre-existing identification with action, productivity and continual self-improvement through facing challenges that forms recruits’ earliest embodied understandings of themselves. The relationship between this “practical” habitus and the new soldier habitus to be acquired is key to understanding the civilian-soldier transition. While civilians draw on and thus fulfil the primary practical habitus in becoming soldiers during initial training periods, once socialised they find the Army much less challenging, and therefore may find that their need to be involved in meaningful action is not met. Although the practical habitus is behind and can make sense of the cohort’s actions, it is a mode of identity that has not often been recognised as such by academics, due to the fact that they do not share it. However, I show that it is more important in generating soldiers’ practice than the modes of identity that are usually employed to understand them: gender, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality. Therefore, I argue that anthropologists should not limit analysis to traditional axes of identity

Early Modern Guildhalls : Habitus in transition?

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Seishin Habitus: Spiritual Capital and Japanese Rowing

Sport occupies an important place in educational curriculum, such as club activities in Japanese schools and universities; is it also imbued with what Bourdieu suggests are guaranteed capital properties? That is, can physical education help to accrue capital and can such capital become cultural and economic capital? Further, is this capital similar to that resulting from academic education? Although Western culture recognizes Cartesian differentiation, mind and body are seen as one in the Japanese understanding of the individual, unified by the concept of spirit (this is different to the concept of soul). Recognizing this concept of the body is crucial in addressing the question of transferring educational (in this case physical) capital into forms of cultural capital. This paper investigates the responses of members of a Japanese University Rowing club when addressing questions dealing with various uses of the body in rowing and perceived opportunities for future employment

Bourdieu and Postcommunist Class Formation

This article suggests that Bourdieu's model of class, framed in terms of cultural capital and habitus, is particularly valuable in understanding the restoration of capitalism under postcommunist conditions. Following the analyses of Szel�nyi and his collaborators, it is suggested that post-communist managerialism is still strikingly more pronounced than in the West. This and the notion of habitus in particular are perhaps the main elements of Bourdieu's thinking on which we can draw in theorizing postcommunist transition.Bourdieu, Class, Postcommunism

Wash Corporate Heads! Business Practice can be Changed via the Dispositions of Executives: Re-socialization towards Implicit Eco-sustainability

The present paper is the synopsis of my doctoral dissertation, which assumes that – in addition to rational factors – the dispositions of management also decisively affect business decisions, and thus business executives' mindset and behavioral patterns (their 'habitus') should be the target of the influence of society whenever societally important changes depend on current business practice. I outlined an institutionalized framework of re-socialization to influence the CEO subculture (and suggest it as part of the CSR agenda). The ecological sensitivity and awareness of industry are treated as a societal issue in the thesis. I have carried out research into the presence and functioning of dispositional logic (the Bourdieusian habitus) in managerial practice with the help of a few narrative interviews.disposition, Habitus, business practice, executive subculture, ecological responsibility, CSR, eco-sustainability, voluntary standard, logic of collective action, mindset, interplay as collusion, controlled influence, practice constructing community, auxiliary socialization, re-socialization, strategy-as-practice, stewardship, fiduciary duty, social engagement, organizational choreography, professional identity, executive mask, meaning negotiation

Habitus and Reflexivity: Restructuring Bourdieu's Theory of Practice

Contrary to Bourdieu\'s thesis, it is not only when a subject\'s habitus does not fit a field\'s positions that s/he becomes more reflexive. Reflexivity is also enhanced by intra-habitus tensions, by more general incongruences between dispositions, positions, and interactive/figurational structures, as well as by situations unrelated to them. Because of his ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to transcend the objectivist-subjectivist divide in the social sciences, Bourdieu underemphasizes the interactive dimension of social games, and this creates serious problems for his conceptualization of the linkages between habitus, reflexivity, and practices. The way to make Bourdieu\'s theory of practice less functionalist and/or deterministic is to restructure it so that it seriously takes into account not only the dispositional and positional but also the interactive dimension of social games. It then becomes obvious that reflexive accounting, conscious strategizing, and rational calculation are not exceptional but routine, constitutive elements of human action.Reflexivity, Dispositions, Positions, Figurations, Practices

Habitual reflexivity and skilled action

Theorists have used the concept habitus to explain how skilled agents are capable of responding in an infinite number of ways to the infinite number of possible situations that they encounter in their field of practice. According to some perspectives, habitus is seen to represent a form of regulated improvisation that functions below the threshold of consciousness. However, Bourdieu (1990) argued that rational and conscious computation may be required in situations of ‘crises’ where habitus proves insufficient as a basis for our actions. In the current paper, I draw on a range of evidence which indicates that conscious intervention (including self-reflective sensory consciousness) is required not only at points of crises but also as skilled performers engage in the mundane actions/practices that characterise their everyday training and performance regimes. The interaction of conscious learning and unconscious schemata leads to the development of a reflexive habitus which allows performers to refine and adapt embodied movement patterns over time