Abstract
This chapter explores the Bourdieusian concept of habitus. The chapter examines how habitus is the combination of the elements and aspects of someone’s life that they are born into, raised in, and surrounded by throughout their life that shape them as an individual. It examines how someone’s history, and their family’s history, creates a cultural trajectory that predisposes them to having a certain type of life, having interests similar to those with similar habitus, and how habitus can tell researchers a lot about someone’s life, current situation, and future. The chapter also provides a solid grounding for those unfamiliar with Bourdieu’s concepts, and provides the first step as future chapters explore capital and field, and how these three concepts work together to provide distinct ways to think about the higher education sector.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bhopal K, Brown H, Jackson J (2016) BAME academic flight from UK to overseas higher education: aspects of marginalisation and exclusion. Br Edu Res J 42(2):240–257. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3204
Bourdieu P (1990) In other words: essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford University Press, Stanford
Bourdieu P, Wacquant L (1992) An invitation to reflexive sociology. Polity Press, Cambridge
Bourdieu P, Chartier R (2015) The sociologist & the historian (trans: Fernbach D). Polity, London
Bourdieu P, Passeron JC (1977) Reproduction in society, education and culture (trans: Nice R). Sage
Bourdieu P (1977) Outline of a theory of practice (trans: Nice R). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste (trans: Nice R). Harvard University Press, Boston
Bourdieu P (1986) The production of belief: contribution to an economy of symbolic goods. In: Collins R, Curran J, Garnham N, Scannell P (eds) Media, culture and society: a critical reader. Sage, London
Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo Academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Polity.
Bourdieu P (1990b) The logic of practice (trans: Nice R). Stanford University Press, Stanford
Bourdieu P (1993) Sociology in question (trans: Nice R). Sage, London
Bourdieu P (1994) In other words: essays towards a reflexive sociology (trans: Adamson M). Polity, Cambridge
Bourdieu P (1996) The state nobility. Elite schools in the field of power (trans: Clough LC). Polity, Cambridge
Bourdieu P (2000) Making the economic habitus. In: Algerian workers revisited (trans: Nice R, Wacquant L). Ethnography 1(1):17–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/14661380022230624
Grenfell M (2014) Pierre Bourdieu: key concepts. Routledge, Abingdon
Heffernan T (2020) There’s no career in academia without networks’: academic networks and career trajectory. High Educ Res Dev. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1799948
Hurd K, Plaut V (2018) Diversity entitlement: does diversity-benefits ideology undermine inclusion? Northwestern Univ Law Rev 112(6):1605–1636. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol112/iss6/12
Hurst A (2010) The burden of academic success: managing working-class identities in college. Lexington Books
Ingram N, Abrahams J (2016) Stepping outside oneself: how a cleft habitus can lead to greater reflexivity through occupying “third space.” In: Thatcher J, Ingram N, Burke C, Abrahams J (eds) Bourdieu: the next generation: the development of Bourdieu’s intellectual heritage in contemporary UK sociology. Routledge, London, pp 140–156
Lampert J, Burnett B, Lebhers S (2016) More like the kids than the other teachers’: One working-class pre-service teacher’s experiences in a middle-class profession. Teach Teach Educ 58:35–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.04.006
Laurison D, Friedman S (2016) The class pay gap in higher professional and managerial occupations. Am Sociol Rev 81(4):668–695. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122416653602
Manstead A (2018) The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. Br J Soc Psychol 57(2):267–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12251
Marsh H, Parker J (1984) Determinants of student self-concept: Is it better to be a relatively large fish in a small pond even if you don’t learn to swim as well? J Pers Soc Psychol 47(1):213–231. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.47.1.213
Meekosha H, Jakubowicz A, Rice E (1991) “As Long As You Are Willing To Wait”: access and equity in universities for students with disabilities. High Educ Res Dev 10(1):19–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/0729436910100103
Mirza HS (2018) Racism in higher education: what then, can be done? In: Arday J, Mirza HS (eds) Dismantling race in higher education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy. Palgrave Macmillan, pp 1–7
Nash R (1990) Bourdieu on education and social and cultural reproduction. Br J Sociol Educ 11(4):431–447. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569900110405
Reay D (2001) Finding or losing yourself? Working class relationships to education. J Educ Policy 16(4):333–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930110054335
Tamtik M, Guenter M (2020) Policy analysis of equity, diversity and inclusion strategies in Canadian Universities—how far have we come? Can J High Educ 49(3):41–56. https://doi.org/10.7202/1066634ar
Thomson P (2017) Educational leadership and Pierre Bourdieu. Routledge, Abingdon
Wacquant L (1989) Towards a reflexive sociology: a workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociol Theory 7(1):26–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/202061
Wacquant L (2016) A concise geneology and anatomy of habitus. Sociol Rev 64(1):64–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954x.12356
Webb J, Schirato T, Danaher G (2002) Understanding Bourdieu. Sage, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Heffernan, T. (2022). Habitus. In: Bourdieu and Higher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8221-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8221-6_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-8220-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-8221-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)