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The consequence is that certain forms of cultural capital become entrenched, as those who possess such capital either implicitly or explicitly defend its value. The varied forms of capital are similar in that each “takes time to accumulate and which, as a potential capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded form, contains a tendency to persist in its being” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 46). In doing so, we draw on his notion of cultural capital, in particular, to argue how school science could better contribute to the remediation of social inequalities.įor Bourdieu, cultural capital “represents the immanent structure of the social world,” determining at any given moment what it is possible for any individual to achieve. In this paper, we seek to explore what Bourdieu's ideas imply about both the implicit and explicit values that are used to justify the value of a science education.
Cultural notion definition how to#
One of the challenges of education in general, and science education in particular, is how to increase a student's stock of the dominant cultural capital, regardless of the nature of any prior capital they may, or may not, already have acquired. In contrast, students who possess cultural capital of a form that is incongruent with the culture of the school, or who lack it altogether, are at a distinct disadvantage. In addition, research shows that the habitus of such students enables them to acquire substantial additional capital in informal contexts (Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2007 Tavernise, 2012).
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Formal education is important because it can be viewed as an academic market for the distribution of cultural capital: Those who enter the classroom with sufficient cultural capital of the appropriate, dominant type-capital that fits well with the discourse and values of schools-are well positioned to increase their cultural capital further. (Bourdieu, 1986), in particular by the family. Bourdieu conceives of “habitus” as a set of social and cultural practices, values, and dispositions that are characterized by the ways social groups interact with their members whereas “cultural capital” is the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are transmitted to an individual within their sociocultural context through pedagogic action 1 1 Bourdieu and Passeron's conception of pedagogic action or work is a term that is applicable to any attempt to educate another in any context, e.g., home, work, and not just schools. Two of the concepts he proposed-“habitus” and “cultural capital”-provide a unique perspective from which to analyze the function of education. Drawing on Bourdieu's ideas, we develop a perspective to critique current practice and identify the possible contributions science education might make to remediating social injustice.ĭuring his lifetime, the Frenchman Pierre Bourdieu tackled a number of seemingly eclectic issues, which, when combined, paint a picture of how individuals conduct their lives in the social and cultural context in which they exist (Webb, Schirato, & Danaher, 2002). Bourdieu's concept that the primary function of education is to sustain the culture and privilege of the dominant groups in society offers a lens that helps to identify how and why these apparent contradictions exist. Third, given the policy emphasis on educating the next generation of scientists, it fails to exploit the one major element of cultural capital that science education is currently seen to offer by scientists, the public, and its students-that is the value that science qualifications have for future employment. Second, it fails to see itself as a means of developing the critical dispositions of mind, which are the hallmark of a scientist but also useful to all citizens. First, science education commonly has a poor understanding of the nature of embodied capital that it offers, failing to communicate the cultural achievement that science represents. This analysis suggests that science education misses three opportunities to establish its value to its students and the wider public. His notion of “embodied,” “objectified,” and “institutionalized” cultural capital is used as a theoretical lens to identify both the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge and its extrinsic value for future employment. This paper argues that Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital has significant value for identifying the “worth” of a science education.