Agency as the Acquisition of Capital: the role of one-on-one tutoring and mentoring in changing a refugee student's educational trajectory

Current research into the experiences of refugee students in mainstream secondary schools in Australia indicates that for these students, schools are places of social and academic isolation and failure. This article introduces one such student, Lian, who came to Australia as a refugee from Burma, and whom the author tutored and mentored intensively during his final year of schooling. The article provides an empirically derived understanding of how one-on-one tutoring and mentoring became a platform through which this student was able to succeed in a structure which systematically tried to exclude him. Here, agency is conceptualised in terms of Bourdieu's concept of capital. The analysis highlights the ways in which one-on-one tutoring and mentoring provided the necessary platform by which this refugee student was able to acquire the necessary capital that effected a positive change in his educational trajectory

Collaboration and contestation in further and higher education partnerships in England: a Bourdieusian field analysis

Internationally, ‘College for All’ policies are creating new forms of vocational higher education (HE), and shifting relationships between HE and further education (FE) institutions. In this paper, we consider the way in which this is being implemented in England, drawing on a detailed qualitative case study of a regional HE–FE partnership to widen participation. We focus on the complex mix of collaboration and contestation that arose within it, and how these affected socially differentiated groups of students following high- and low-status routes through its provision. We outline Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’ as a framework for our analysis and interpretation, including its theoretical ambiguities regarding the definition and scale of fields. Through hermeneutic dialogue between data and theory, we tentatively suggest that such partnerships represent bridges between HE and FE. These bridges are strong between higher-status institutions, but highly contested between lower-status institutions competing closely for distinction. We conclude that the trajectories and outcomes for socially disadvantaged students require attention and collective action to address the inequalities they face, and that our theoretical approach may have wider international relevance beyond the English case

The political phenomenology of war reporting

Drawing on interviews with war correspondents, editors, political and military personnel, this article investigates the political dimension of the structuration and structuring effects of the reporter’s experience of journalism. Self-reflection and judgements about colleagues confirm that there are dominant norms for interpreting and acting in conflict scenarios which, while contingent upon socio-historical context, are interpreted as natural. But the prevalence of such codes masks the systematically misrecognized symbolic systems of mystification and ambivalence – systems which reproduce hierarchies and gatekeeping structures in the field, but which are either experienced as unremarkable, dismissed with irony and cynicism, or not present to the consciousness of the war correspondent. The article builds on recent theories of journalistic disposition, ideology, discourse and professionalism, and describes the political dimension of journalistic practice perceived in the field as apolitical. It addresses the gendering of war correspondence, the rise of the journalist as moral authority, and questions the extent to which respondent reflections can be defensibly analytically determined

Celebrity advocacy and public engagement: the divergent uses of celebrity

This article sounds a cautionary note about the instrumental use of celebrity advocacy to (re)engage audiences in public life. It begins by setting out the steps necessary to achieve public recognition of a social problem requiring a response. It then presents empirical evidence which suggests that those most interested in celebrity, while also paying attention to the main stories of the day, are also least likely to participate in any form of politics. However, this does not rule out the possibility of forging a link between celebrity and public engagement, raising questions about what would potentially sustain such an articulation. After discussing the broader cultural context of celebrity advocacy in which perceived authenticity functions valorised form of symbolic capital, the article outlines a phenomenological approach to understanding the uses audiences make of celebrity advocacy, using the example of a Ewan McGregor UNICEF appeal for illustration. It concludes that while media encounters with celebrities can underpin a viewer’s sense of self, this is as likely to lead to the rationalisation of inaction as a positive response to a charity appeal

The uses and functions of ageing celebrity war reporters

This article starts from the premise that recognition of professional authority and celebrity status depends on the embodiment and performance of field-specific dispositional practices: there’s no such thing as a natural, though we often talk about journalistic instinct as something someone simply has or doesn’t have. Next, we have little control over how we are perceived by peers and publics, and what we think are active positioning or subjectifying practices are in fact, after Bourdieu, revelations of already-determined delegation. The upshot is that two journalists can arrive at diametrically opposed judgements on the basis of observation of the same actions of a colleague, and as individuals we are blithely hypocritical in forming (or reciting) evaluations of the professional identity of celebrities. Nowhere is this starker than in the discourse of age-appropriate behaviour, which this paper addresses using the examples of ‘star’ war reporters John Simpson, Kate Adie and Martin Bell. A certain rough-around-the-edges irreverence is central to dispositional authenticity amongst war correspondents, and for ageing hacks this incorporates gendered attitudes to sex and alcohol as well as indifference to protocol. And yet perceived age-inappropriate sexual behaviour is also used to undermine professional integrity, and the paper ends by outlining the phenomenological context that makes possible this effortless switching between amoral and moralising recognition by peers and audiences alike

Understanding behaviour change in context: examining the role of midstream social marketing programmes

This research examines how midstream social marketing programmes that adopt a relational and community-based approach create opportunities for individuals to make incremental changes to health behaviour. Specifically, it applies Bourdieusian theory to explore how interactions between community healthcare workers (CHWs) and members of the public generate impetus for change and foster individual agency for improved health. Qualitative interviews were carried out with members of the public and CHWs engaged in a Smokefree homes and cars initiative. The findings suggest that although CHWs are challenged by resource constraints, their practices in working with individuals and families build trust and enable dialogue that bridges smoking-related health insight with home logics. These interactions can promote individual agency with a transformative effect through small changes to smoking-related dispositions, norms and practices. However, tensions with the habitus of other household members and other capital deficits can inhibit progress towards embedding new practices. The study concludes that interventions built upon community relationships show potential for addressing limitations of information-focused campaigns but there is a need to also respond to key social structures relating to the field of action for new health dispositions to become embedded in practice

The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries

Using British and Dutch interview data, this article demonstrates how people from different social classes draw strong symbolic boundaries on the basis of comedy taste. Eschewing the omnivorousness described in recent studies of cultural consumption, comedy audiences make negative aesthetic and moral judgements on the basis of comedy taste, and often make harsh judgements without the disclaimers, apologies and ambivalence so typical of ‘taste talk’ in contemporary culture. The article demonstrates how, in particular, Dutch and British middle class audiences use their comedy taste to communicate distinction and cultural superiority. We discuss several reasons why such processes of social distancing exist in comedy taste and not other cultural areas: the traditionally low status of comedy; the strong relation between humour and personhood; the continuity between comedy tastes and humour styles in everyday life; as well as the specific position of comedy in the British and Dutch cultural fields

‘Jugglers’, ‘copers’ and ‘strugglers’: academics’ perceptions of being a head of department in a post-1992 UK university and how it influences their future careers

This study investigates the experiences of academics who became department heads in a post-1992 UK university and explores the influence that being in the position has on their planned future academic career. Drawing on life history interviews undertaken with 17 male and female heads of department, the paper constitutes an in-depth study of their careers in the same university. The findings suggest that academics who become department heads not only need the capacity to assume a range of personal and professional identities, but need flexibility to regularly adopt and switch between them. Whether individuals can successfully balance and manage such multiple identities, or whether they experience major conflicts within or between them, greatly affects their experiences of being a head of department and seems to influence their subsequent career decisions. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual framework and typology to interpret the career trajectories of academics that became department heads in the case university

The two stories of the habitus/structure relation and the riddle of reflexivity: A meta‐theoretical reappraisal

This article argues that two key puzzles arising from the theories of Bourdieu are inter-related. One is the question of how Bourdieu analyses the relationship between structure and habitus, and the other is the place of reflexivity in Bourdieu's work. We contend that it is only by carefully analysing Bourdieu's theoretical structure to grasp the relationship between these elements that one can understand whether or not his work offers useful resources for analysing the relation between routine action and self-reflection. This paper argues that there are two narrations of the structure/habitus relation in Bourdieu's work, and that the concept of self-reflective subjectivity is a residual element of the first narration and does not appear in the second. We then contend that this residual and under-developed concept of self-reflective subjectivity should not be confused with Bourdieu's analysis of epistemic reflexivity. These moves allow us to contribute to ongoing debates about the relation between routine action and self-reflection by arguing that the concept of the “reflexive habitus” – which some have argued is characteristic of social agents in high/late modernity – is both conceptually confused and is not a logical extension of Bourdieu's theories. In this way we try to clear the ground for more productive ways of thinking about routine action and self-reflection

Reproduction and transformation of inequalities in schooling: The transformative potential of the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu

This article is concerned with the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu and their contribution to understanding the reproduction of social and cultural inequalities in schooling. While Bourdieu has been criticised for his reproductive emphasis, this article proposes that there is transformative potential in his theoretical constructs and that these suggest possibilities for schools and teachers to improve the educational outcomes of marginalised students. The article draws together three areas of contribution to this theme of transformation; beginning by characterising habitus as constituted by reproductive and transformative traits and considering the possibilities for the restructuring of students’ habitus. This is followed by a discussion of cultural capital and the way that teachers can draw upon a variety of cultural capitals to act as agents of transformation rather than reproduction. The article concludes by considering the necessity of a transformation of the field to improve the educational outcomes of marginalised students