Burnell, I. (2015) ‘Widening the participation into higher education: examining Bourdieusian theory in relation to HE in the UK’, Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 21 (2): 93-109.

1. Gradually, universities have opened their doors and encouraged participation by a diversity of non-traditional students including women, working-class, minority ethnic groups and disabled learners. pp94

2. some of his theories are particularly relevant to this field of research: cultural capital, habitus and social reproduction.  pp94

3.Bourdieu claimed that each class has a different habitus, and these will deter- mine the values, practices and beliefs that that class possess and play out.  pp95

4.‘people are limited in what they can think and do because of these really effective limits to what they know about what is possible for them’ (1990: 443).    pp95

5.The clash occurs because one’s habi- tus, lifestyle, expectations of particular social groups, and a set of dispositions are embodied and internalised, as asserted by Bourdieu (1986 cited in Nash, 1990). The conflict, or clash, in certain situations, leads to feelings of not belonging, of being like a ‘fish out of water’. However, that does not deter everybody. Two concepts used in sociology to help explain human behaviour are ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. As individuals, we can act as free agents and have individual choice; however, society’s structures restrict us and impact on the choices that we make.  pp95

6.When Bourdieu and Passeron wrote Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (1977), they used the field-habitus clash theory to suggest that working- class people did not enter HE because they did not feel comfortable in this social field, it did not match the structure of their habitus.  pp96

7.The working class student maybe able to change their habitus but they will remain at a disadvan- tage, having no cultural history or identity in the field.  pp96

8.However, the difficulty is that ‘differentials in habitus ensure that not everyone plays the game on equal terms’ (Ibid.: 126).  pp97

9. Bowl’s research demonstrates that new habitus is laid over old (2003), which is not so much changing habitus as Bourdieu suggests but adding to the existing one. This may mean that the old habitus would still be there, and practices from a new habitus would be overlaid.  pp98

10.However, Bourdieu did not account for individual differences within the working class, and that some people may aspire to different goals. Individualism or ‘new individualism’ (Haralambos & Holborn, 2008: 492), is the theory that we are individually responsible for ourselves and overturns no- tions of class and the opportunities that may be available or restricted according to one’s social class.   pp106

References

Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London, UK: Sage Publications.

Bowl, M. (2003). Non-Traditional Entrants to Higher Education. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books.

Haralambos, M. & Holborn, M. (2008). Sociology Themes and Perspectives. London, UK: Harper Collins.

Nash, R. (1990). Bourdieu on education and social and cultural reproduction. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 11(4), 431–447.