Educ Stud Math (2014) 87:221239

DOI 10.1007/s10649-013-9468-4

Structural exclusion through school mathematics:

using Bourdieu to understand mathematics
as a social practice
Robyn Jorgensen & Peter Gates & Vanessa Roper

Published online: 7 February 2013

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract In this paper, we explore a sociological approach to mathematics education

and offer a theoretical lens through which we can come to understand mathematics
education as part of a wider set of social practices. Many studies of childrens
experiences in school show that a childs academic success is a product of many
factors, some of which are beyond the control and, sometimes, the knowledge of the
classroom teacher. We draw on the sociological ideas of Pierre Bourdieu to frame our
analysis of the environment in which the pupils learn and the ways in which the
practices help to create parallel worlds which are structured quite differently inside
and outside the classroom. Specifically, we use Bourdieus notions of habitus, field
and capital. Using two cases, we highlight the subtle and coercive ways in which the
practices of the field of mathematics education allow greater or lesser access to the
hegemonic knowledge known as school mathematics depending on the cultural backgrounds
and dispositions of the learners. We examine the childrens mathematical learning trajectories
and reflect on how what they achieve in the future will, in all likelihood, be shaped by their
social background and how compatible this is with the current educational climate.
Keywords Bourdieu . Sociology . Equity . Habitus . Field . Capital

1 The marketization of education

For some years now, there has been a belief within government circles around the world that
there are problems within national systems of education and that the route to improving
R. Jorgensen (*)
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
e-mail: r.jorgensen@griffith.edu.au
P. Gates
The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
V. Roper
Nottinghamshire Local Authority, Nottingham, UK

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standards lies in applying the commercial concept of a free market, in which schools will
improve by being in competition with each other for students. In such a free market system,
schools are measured on various criteria, ranked into league tables and are encouraged to
see themselves in competition for scarce resources and urged to raise themselves up these
league tables. In both the UK and Australia, national testing has become the measure that
defines the success of schools. In Australia, all students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are tested in
literacy and numeracy. Scores for schools are then published on a national website
(ACARA, 2010). At this stage, there are no formal rankings or interventions for underperforming schools which is in stark contrast to the UK where the effect of national testing
has become so powerful. In spite of some recent and limited retrenchment, the results of
testing in the UK can effectively move a school into a category requiring significant
improvementsometimes through the removal (or resignation) of the head teacheror
it may ultimately be closed.
These failing schools are a product of the political system, and often, the reason they
fail is due not to bad teaching or leadership, but to the structures of the education system;
rarely are failing schools located in middle-to-affluent suburbs. Most frequently, they are
located in poor, working-class and/or multicultural areas (Bell, 2003; Lupton, 2004). That is
not to say that we can absolve leaders and teachers from responsibility for poor practices.
Rather we seek to understand the systemic failure of disadvantaged students and communities which becomes reified in curriculum and through testing and management processes. By
understanding how these practices are structured to marginalise particular social and cultural
groups in ways that are coercive and invisible, we will be better able to change those
practices. When the normalised practices within education are not challenged and the status
quo is preserved, then the most disadvantaged groups suffer through symbolic violence
(Bourdieu, 1972) whereby they take on board the value-laden processes of education and
become victims of those approaches through which they are effectively excluded and
marginalised.
In writing this paper, we draw on our experiences in working-class and culturally diverse
classrooms to illustrate the ways in which social practices work to marginalise particular
students in their study of school mathematics while preserving the hegemony of the
dominant classes; the same sort of pupils tend to succeed, and the same sort of pupils fail.
The structuring of the field of education is a result of strategies engaged in by pupils and
teachers within the specific field of school mathematics.
The political rhetoric in favour of the current policy direction suggests that testing,
accountability, league tables, etc. are strategies to drive up standards, and in this way,
state education will be improved for allwith the high-profile successful schools pulling
up those seen as failing. At the same time, however, there is also a policy discourse about
the need for social justice with a consequent drive to support learners from less affluent
backgrounds.
Research, however, does not support the claim that current policies are reducing
social exclusion. Whitty argued these structural shifts are policies that do nothing to
challenge deeper social and cultural inequalities (Whitty, 1997, p. 58). In fact, the
shift towards a free market in education seems to have made little change at all to
these inequalities (Power, Halpin & Fitz, 1994, p. 39). The education system
continues to favour those whom it has always favouredthose of higher socioeconomic status and those who know how to work the system and have a feel
for the game (Bourdieu, 1990, p.9). We would argue that this privileging does not
happen through oversight or accident but is a result of some deliberate, though
possibly covert, strategies.

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2 Using Bourdieu (1): introducing the habitus

A socially critical stance sees that more affluent parents are more likely to have the informal
knowledge and skill to be able to decode and use marketized forms to their own benefit
(Apple, 2000, p. 248). Such parents do what they can for their children through both explicit and
implicit practices, and informal and formal procedures by drawing on their own sets of dispositions, habits and preferencestheir taken-for-granteds. Bourdieu defines these dispositions as the
habitus (Bourdieu, 1984)a collection of informal skills and knowledge which participants
have constructed over time. But Bourdieu argues these are rather more than mere preferences as
they are operationalised by class positions. Consequently, learners engage in an activity (such as
learning mathematics) with a habitus that has already been shaped by their early socialisation
within the family, home and immediate environment, and this shapes the way they act in and
interpret their worlds. Although the habitus is to a large extent durable and stable, it can be
reshaped or transposed (Bourdieu, 1979, p. vii) by practices and sets of rules and expectations.
Consequently, if students are to be positioned as successful, it is a task of schools to align the
individual habitus with the field, bringing their dispositions in line with those of the ideal pupil.
These dispositions then operate to construct the pupil as like a fish in water (Bourdieu &
Wacquant, 1992, p. 127) making sure they fall in line with expected practices. It has been observed
that the habitus of more affluent parents often coincides with that expected in schools since
the match between the historically grounded habitus expected in school and in its
actors and those of more affluent parents, combined with the material resources
available to more affluent parents, usually leads to a successful conversion of economic and social capital into cultural capital. (Apple, 2000, p. 250)
This means that the children equipped with the right habitus are able to gain an advantage in
school and can exchange their dispositions for other rewardsgrades, certificates and so forth.
Effectively, this means that the embodied culture, or as Bourdieu prefersthe habitusnow
becomes a form of capital, or in his terms cultural capital, that can be exchanged for other
goods within the economy of the school. Effectively, this process aids success in school
whereby those who are most likely to benefit are those from the groups whose class habitus
aligns with the practices of the school. These students are generally not those from the lower
socio-economic classes. This explains, in part, why the marketization of education has done
little to change the traditional models in place. The class with the habitus to take advantage of
the market consists of those whose values are actually best reflected by the current system, and
therefore, it does not require or even desire change. Conversely, those whose class habitus does
not resonate or align with the practices of school mathematics are in need of a reconstruction of
the familial habitus if they are to be successful in school.
For society more generally, as well as for many parents, the subject of mathematics is
traditionally held as importantas a gatekeeper to travelling successfully through the educational
system and as an inherent marker of intellect. Mathematics has been described as a badge of
eligibility for the privileges of society (Atweh, Bleicher, & Cooper, 1998, p. 63) which itself begs
the question of how this privileging works. Mathematics acts as a marker of success in schools,
and consequently, mathematics is a useful context in which to explore the inequality apparent in
the education system as a whole because it performs a role of social segregation.
Mathematics education fails too many children; it fails children on the margins of
society, it fails children from ethnic minorities, and it fails children from social and
cultural backgrounds that are different from the majority of mathematics teachers.
(Gates, 2001, p. 7)

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With this in mind, the field of mathematics education can provide us with a critical lens to
observe the day-to-day processes that lead to social segregation, and it is this process we
explore in this paper.

3 Using Bourdieu (2): introducing the field

We have already outlined the significance of the habitus as a key construct in understanding
learning of mathematics. However, Bourdieus stance is that because our dispositions are
historically and socially constructed and sustained, the habitus does not operate in isolation;
it operates within a set of socially organised rules through which power and control are
dissipated and legitimised. This set of rules defines what Bourdieu calls the field of power,
and for a Bourdieuian analysis, the field is a key organiser. Social fields are described as the
system or set of objective social relations of power between those holding different positions
within the field, but who share a related set of dispositions. In a social field, such as
mathematics education, various individuals interact, and these encounters produce the
accepted social practices that typify the field (Griller, 1996, p. 6). In our case, the field of
mathematics education is a particularly appropriate unifying field because it encompasses
and defines a clear set of rules that hold the discipline together. For example, the mathematics curriculum is structured in a particular way that privileges certain forms of thinking
(Walkerdine, 1988; Apple, 1979), pedagogy is structured to distinguish between different
learners, expectations become organised around visions of different futures, behaviours are
shaped around the image of the ideal pupil, relationships with parents place teachers in very
specific positions of authority and so on. All of which, when taken together, define the
practices we see in classrooms and relations between the learner and teacher, the home and
school contexts and between government and schools. Mathematics holds a privileged place
in the school curriculum, and ability in mathematics is highly prized and valued, defining
learners as can do or cant do. The way in which the social practices then become
organised and reified is defined by the balance between these points and among the
distributed social capital that groups of individuals have (Mahar et al., 1990, p. 8).
We feel comfortable locating our analysis within what we argue is a field of mathematics
education because the practices within mathematics education are often unique to this field.
For example, mathematics has an almost unique place in the school curriculum of all
countries; it draws on specific language patterns, its teaching is heavily structured and it
can be represented as a set of hierarchically organised skills usually divorced from applicability. As another example, literacy educators often see the practice of reading a numeracy
problem as a literacy event. However, in the field of mathematics education, it is much more.
The reader/student needs to have a very specific interpretation of the world which the field
accepts as legitimate (Cooper, 2001). Not only does the student need to read, interpret and
respond to the literacy event per se, but he/she also is required further cognitive work that
goes beyond literacy. Unlike literacy, the numeracy aspect requires significant mathematical
interpretation of the task in order to be able to solve it, which extends the literacy event in
ways that are beyond a typical reading. Why are we being asked the question? Who wants to
know the answer? What will you do with the answer? What assumptions are behind the
givens? The role of language in shaping mathematical understanding for diverse groups has
been extensively studied by Cooper (2001), Cooper and Dunne (2000) and Dowling (1998).
The field will have particular practices that value and convey status on particular
dispositions and learning. The accepted and common practices within mathematics education will differentially acknowledge what is seen as valued within that field, and the field

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will organise itself by imposing an objective structuring upon pupils and teachers through
curriculum, pedagogy and the organisation of learners. For example, the students who are
able to enter the field with a habitus that has been shaped by familial interactions that are
valued within the field will have those displays of language sanctified within the field. The
practices within the familial context, which include language, dispositions, knowledge
systems, become internalised by the child, who then enters the school with these attributes
embodied as their cultural backgroundtheir habitus. Within the field of mathematics
education, the students who enter formal schooling with a linguistic repertoire (or linguistic
habitus) that has a middle-class register are more likely to experience success (Zevenbergen,
2000, 2001). Consider the middle-class families who, as Brice-Heath (1983) showed, engage
in the standard classroom triadic dialogueinitiationresponsefeedbackcommonly used
by teachers of mathematics. These students are better able to engage with the interactional
style found in school than their working-class peers whose familial habitus is one where
parents engage in declarative interactions.

4 Using Bourdieu (3): integrating habitus and field

The habitus becomes a form of culture that is now exchanged for capital which is reified
through practices (such as assessments) which effectively impose structure upon those
participating in the field. The field values particular dispositions over others, and these
become entrenched into part of the habitus that can be exchanged for forms of capital.
However, Bourdieu sees that cultural capital exists in three forms:
the embodied state, i.e. in the form of long lasting dispositions of the mind and body;
in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries,
instruments, machines, etc.) which are the trace or realization of theories or critiques of
these theories, problematic, etc.; as in the institutionalised state, a form of objectification which must be set apart because, as will be seen in the case of educational
qualifications, it confers entirely original properties on the cultural capital which it is
presumed to guarantee (Bourdieu, 1983, p. 243.)
Using Bourdieus framework, we are in a better position to understand the systemic
failure of students from marginalised backgrounds rather than looking at the problem as a
result of individual deficiencies on the part of particular pupils and parents. By using
Bourdieus framing, therefore, we are taking a move away from deficit and individualised
thinking to a more encompassing and systemic approach. By analysing practices within
school mathematics, the reification of social disadvantagesocial, cultural or linguistic
can be challenged because we can see it as an arbitrary set of responses by individuals with
power rather than a natural state of how things just are.
To explain how power is enacted in a field, Bourdieu relies on the games metaphor which
enables us to offer a theorisation of how the practices within the teaching of mathematics
give some students greater access to mathematical knowledge while excluding others.
Through this game analogy, Bourdieu is able to describe how capital is realised within a
field because the kinds of capital, like trumps in a game of cards, are powers which define
the chances of profit in a given field (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 230). How well one succeeds in
the game (or field) is determined by the overall volume of the capital and the composition of that capital (ibid., p. 231).
Using this metaphor, we see that learners enter the field of mathematics educationsome
of whom will be very aware of how the game is played in that field, while others have little

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idea and must learn the game if they are to be constructed as successful learners. Consider
young preschool children whose parents have walked down streets talking about the
numbers on houses. These experiences position them well when they encounter the mathematics classroom. Not only do they have knowledge about numbers, but some sense of
what bigger numbers mean and perhaps an intuitive sense of place value, and a sense of odd
and even numbers. Collectively, these experiences rest well with the curriculum they will go
on to experience. Furthermore, the informal teaching games that the parents or caregiver
have used to immerse the student in these number experiences are likely to resonate with the
pedagogical practices the teacher will use in the classrooms. Already these students come to
school with knowledge of number and teaching episodes. These experiences are likely to
have been embodied by the children as part of their culture or as part of their habitus. These
children, when playing the game of schooling, are more likely to be able to participate in the
pedagogical practices of school and to display knowledge valued by the teacher, thus
positioning them as somewhat more knowing than peers who have not had such
experiences.
Bourdieu (1984) argued that those players with the most resources are able to exert the
most force over how the game is played. One only has to consider the power of the teacher,
in comparison with the young students working in a classroom, in defining how interactions
are played out, or what is seen as desired in activities or responses. Bourdieu also argued,
it is often the state of relations of force between the players that defines the structure of
the field (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 99). In this case, the teachers and students are
able to exert and display what is seen as valued mathematical knowledge and ways of being
in the classroom that ensure that the field, with its inherent practices, remains intact.
For students coming in from middle-class families, their exposure to particular language
practices provides them with better/more trump cards than their working-class peers.
Walkerdine and Luceys (1989) work has shown how the motherchild interactions of
working-class and middle-class families resonate less or more with the discursive practices
of schooling. For example, they found that middle-class mothers were more likely to use
both more and less in their interactions with their children whereas working-class
mothers were more likely to use only the signifier more. This discursive positioning enables
middle-class students to enter the field of mathematics education with a linguistic habitus
that is more closely aligned to the practices within the field than their working-class peers.
Considering early childhood settings, teachers rely considerably on the use of the
signifiers more and less to develop many mathematical conceptswhich number is 2
more than 3; which group has more; what number is less, 3 or 5; and so on. Where early
learners have access to this discourse, they are able to engage with the substantive learning
as well as perform on test items that reflect this language. The converse is the case for
students who do not have this linguistic repertoire when they enter schooling. This example
illustrates some of Bourdieus key concepts that are integral to analysing the systemic
exclusion of some social and cultural groups in their learning of school mathematics.

5 Language and social classsocial heritage and the linguistic habitus

In this section, we draw on these concepts to explore how significant practices are allowed to
operatethe ways in which language and the linguistic habitus are differentially acknowledged and rewarded in mathematics. In doing so, students are effectively included or
excluded on the basis of their backgrounds, and use of language is a key aspect of that
background. Language is not merely a form of communication, but is a relationship that

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determines certain behaviours between individuals and groups, and thus defines power
structures that in turn define the shape of the field, the forms of the habitus and the
acquisition of social capital.
Language acts in numerous ways to define the forms of practices acceptable. For
example, one needs to know how to read mathematical questions as real or imaginary
contexts (Cooper, 2001; Cooper, & Dunne, 2000; Dowling, 1998), and by extension, one
needs to learn to interpret examination questions to be successful at certification; hence,
show, prove, find, etc. each carry specific nuanced calls for type of mathematical
thinking and behaviour. Yet, understanding what is expected in school mathematics is a
much larger issue than just understanding test questionsthe problems of interpreting
language within test questions is symptomatic of a difficulty with understanding the
language used within the school mathematics. Zevenbergen argues
The rich language of middle-class parents prepares children for the language they will
encounter in school mathematics. Conversely, working-class children encounter forms
of language in the home environment different from that which they encounter in the
school. (Zevenbergen, 2001, p. 43)
Hence, it is not simply what is being said but the structure of how it is said that constitutes
linguistic competence (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Such competence is a form of capital
that can be exchanged for success in the classroom. Middle-class children find the structure
of classroom interactions familiarthey already have a large amount of linguistic capital
from home. To working-class children, the structure is much more confusing.
Without substantial reconstruction of their familial habitus, effective participation in
the mathematics classroom is transitory and intangible, making access to mathematics
and success difficult to achieve. (Zevenbergen, 2000, p. 220)
The need to fully understand the broader meaning behind mathematics tasks has serious
repercussions for working-class children who are placed in higher-ability sets. This has also
been theorised by Bernsteins ideas of linguistic competence and restricted codes.
Forms of spoken language in the process of their learning initiate, generalize and
reinforce special types of relationship with the environment and thus create for the
individual particular forms of significance. (Bernstein, 1971, p.76)
The idea of a restricted code is a less formal form of talk, structured on shorter phrases
often with tags such as you know and know what I mean. Forms of language drawing on
elaborated codes have a sentence structure that draws on more complex forms, often using
unusual words and phrases, but also in the orientations to meaning (Bernstein, 1966). This
orientation to meaning is most obvious in the moves towards abstraction and generalisation
which is in contrast to meanings that are bounded by context specificity.
Boaler found that the lessons taught to higher-ability children proceed at a fast pace
(Boaler, 1997a), which means those who are struggling with familiarising themselves with a
new linguistic structure may get lost and hence fall behind before they have had a chance
find their feet. Here, the childrens social and linguistic capital serves as a filter, and one sees
that the cultural capital a child possesses must impact heavily on their success within school.
Language is an integral part of the social heritage that is brought into school mathematics
and becomes reified through various objective structuring practices. Language, in very broad
terms, not only conveys particular concepts but also provides a medium through which those
concepts are conveyed. It is therefore important to consider not only the concepts that are
being considered but also the medium of instruction. The subsequent success (or failure) of

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students is most frequently interpreted as an innate ability that facilitates, or not, success in
coming to learn the disciplinary knowledge within the field of school mathematics. The
ways in which failure and success are organised become an entrenched and nave belief
within the field and one that is exposed through Bourdieus framework.
To better understand the processes by which the home habitus of working-class students
clashes with, and constrains their access to, school mathematics, the work of Bourdieu can
be useful to theorise the symbolic violations that occur when the clash between school and
learners is foregrounded. While his focus was on social class, Bourdieu explains that
educators need to understand the processes around the conversion of social and cultural
backgrounds into school success. He argued that:
To fully understand how students from different social backgrounds relate to the world
of culture, and more precisely, to the institution of schooling, we need to recapture the
logic through which the conversion of social heritage into scholastic heritage operates
in different class situations. (Bourdieu, Passeron, & de Saint Martin, 1994, p. 53)
The notion of social heritage thus becomes a central variable in coming to understand the
differential successes in school mathematics. Using a Bourdieuian framework, the lack of
success for some social groups becomes a non-random event; it is a product of institutionalised practices of which participants may be totally ignorant.
School mathematics represents a particular and powerful example of how social heritage
converts to academic success. Language is an integral part of the social heritage that children
bring into school mathematics and is part of their virtual school bag (Thomson, 2002).
This becomes reified to be seen as an innate ability. We do not subscribe to this view of
innate ability, but it is an entrenched and nave belief within the field. The language, in very
broad terms, not only conveys particular concepts but also provides a medium through
which those concepts are conveyed. It is therefore important to consider not only the
concepts but also the medium of instruction. In many disadvantaged communities, the clash
between the culture of school and the culture of learners contributes significantly to the
failure to experience success of many learners.

6 Social class and ability grouping as social filters

One particularly pertinent issue within mathematics education is that of the dominant
practice of ability grouping, and this is a significant part of the structuring capability of
school mathematics. What we describe later in this paper are the detailed ways in which this
process works at a micro level and how it acts as one element of a larger set of social
practices. Using Bourdieus framework to understand the implications of ability grouping
(Zevenbergen, 2003, 2005) has shown how the objective and subjective structuring practices
of ability grouping make for stratified learning. In this paper, we extend this work to
explicitly address issues of social class looking across two national cultures.

7 Applying Bourdieus theory

In the remainder of the paper, we draw on two illustrative cases which are drawn from a
larger study and are used here to exemplify the concepts within Bourdieus theory and how it
can be applied to mathematics education. The larger study looked in detail at a group of
learners in a school and in particular at how social demographic patterns are linked with

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achievement. As part of this larger, more comprehensive study of the students, a range of
data collection methods were employed. Mathematics lessons were observed, and pupils
were followed in other subjects. Pupils were interviewed and talked to informally, and
parents were contacted at parent consultation evenings and followed up through interviews
in the home. Demographic data were obtained on where pupils lived. Whilst this larger study
focussed on how pupils were organised and distributed through the structure of teaching
groups, for this paper, we just focus on two pupils who are in starkly differing social and
school positions. We use some demographic data but largely draw on interview data with
pupils and parents to enable the application of Bourdieus model to understand the positioning of the students through the practices to which they were exposed as part of their
school mathematics experiences. In our analysis, we looked into patterns of language, forms
of representation, as well as understandings of self and others.
Ethically, the study was approved through the procedures of the university, participants were
invited to take part and all names are pseudonyms. The third author was a teacher of
mathematics at the school and obtained approval from the head teacher and head of department
to undertake the study. Particular care was taken over the power relationships in data collection.
The two pupils we focus on, a boy (Cory) and a girl (Caitlin), come from the same school
in the UK. The school population is diverse, so the cases serve to illustrate the manifestation
of practices within the field and how they can position students as learners of mathematics.
We particularly draw on Bourdieus constructs to illustrate the application of his theory to
better understand the marginalisation and reification of students in and through school
mathematics. It is our intent to focus on the social demographics of the students as these
were the basis for the selection of these illustrative cases. Ability grouping is standard
practice in UK schools, much more so than in Australian schools or indeed other countries
where the practice is outlawed. While we are opposed to the use of the term ability grouping,
due to its alignment with the hegemonic discourses of innate ability, we use the term here as
it is one that is adopted by teachers and educationalists. Our intent is to explicitly disrupt the
use of such a term that reifies social characteristics as being somehow innately related to
achievement or ability. The correlations between ability grouping and social background,
as is made possible through Bourdieuian lenses, enable a serious challenge to one of the
most hegemonic discourses in school mathematicsthat of ability. The analysis that we now
undertake highlights the power of a social theory to critically appraise a taken-for-granted
practice in school mathematics.
Caitlin

Cory

Gender

Girl

Boy

SES/class status

Middle/affluent

Working/disadvantaged

Maths group

High-ability group

Low-ability group

8 Case study 1: Caitlin

Caitlin was placed in the highest-ability group in year7the first year of secondary
education in the UK. She was put into this group on the basis of achieving a 5a in her UK
National Standard Assessment Test taken in the final year of primary school (year6), this
being the highest possible level she could have achieved. This already gives Caitlin an
advantage through the dividend of being in a top set.

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The benefit of being in a top set rather than a low set was particularly strong in
mathematics, where on average the top set dividend was just under one grade at
GCSE. (Ireson, Hallam, & Hurley, 2005, p. 455)
Caitlin came over in class as an articulate and confident girl with a high degree of
mathematical skill and in general achieved well on tests and other markers within the school
context. She was described by her teachers as a student of high intelligence. She is
involved in many extra-curricular activities in school including playing for a netball team
and performing in school productions. Her year6 teacher described her as precocious, and
her year7 form tutor described her as a very prominent member of the form who was
elected by her peers as the class representative on the School Council. Caitlin is an only child
who lives with her mother. She is clearly very close to her mother and spends time with her
out of school doing a range of activitiesshopping, swimming and visiting different
places. She regularly visits her estranged father. The most recent such visit consisted of
going to a small music festival and seeing all her friends and family from dads side.
Caitlins mother has just completed a PhD and is taking up a teaching post in
university; Caitlin talks about this with a lot of pride. She explains that they have had
money troubles because her mother has been completing this but that it is worth it.
Interestingly, she identifies not only future financial rewards but also the personal
satisfaction her mother has gained. Caitlin sees education as an important part of life.
Caitlins mother identifies happiness and her goals as being what she hopes Caitlin
achieves at school, and this seems to sum up Caitlins attitude towards school; she
believes learning can provide personal fulfilment as well as professional goals but
feels no pressure to quantify these goals.
In spite of a relaxed attitude towards school, Caitlin does have a healthy desire to achieve
highly. Having just completed the end-of-year mathematics examinations, she made the
following comments:
It is frustrating because I know I could have achieved a 6a. I needed two more marks.
It was just because I didnt pay attention to the units.
She was not worried by making mistakes but was keen to talk about her errors and
explained that she found working out why she made mistakes interesting and added, It
means I can do better next time.
Caitlin professes both to enjoy mathematics and to believe that it will be important in the
future, although, beyond numeracy and computers, she cannot quite explain why it will be
useful and just expresses a belief that it will important for her to have an all-round education.
Functionality and utilitarianism here do not matter; the key is to be successful and to trust in
the system to bring that success.
Both Caitlins mother and her father influence Caitlins positive attitude towards mathematics. In spite of describing mathematics as not my strong point, Caitlins mother is very
pleased that her daughter is achieving highly in mathematics. Echoing the importance Caitlin
attached to mathematics, she describes mathematics as:
One of the most essential and basic requirements of education, particularly in a
meritocracy.
Caitlins father is clearly keen on mathematics as a subject. Caitlin says,
My Dad tells me a lot of stuff. I have a head start in maths because he is very good at it
and likes to talk to me about it. Sometimes he will mention something and Im like
Ive never seen that before and he will explain it to me.

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Caitlin attended parents evening with her mother and contributed fully to the conversation.
Caitlin clearly felt her opinion was valued and equally valued her mothers and her teachers
opinion. This linguistic competence and confidence is part of Caitlins habitus. She is clearly
used to conversing in this way at home; she has a respectful manner but participates as an equal.
This style of conversation is most compatible with interactions that take place in her mathematics classroom and clearly illustrates a high level of agreement between home and school
habitus; she has a strategic feel for the game (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 9).
Having a feel for the game is important; it enables the player, in this case the student, to
be able to read the game, predict the expectations, anticipate actions and engage in activities
in a meaningful way. Caitlins parents were creating opportunities for her to engage in the
game of school mathematics in ways that were enabling. In so doing, they were creating the
possibilities of a mathematical habitus whereby Caitlin could engage with and experience
the game in productive and meaningful ways. Part of the habitus includes aspects of
language whereby not only the spoken and written language are valuable, but also the ways
of interacting become important. Bourdieu refers to this as the linguistic habitus. A specific
example of the linguistic capital Caitlin has received from home came when Caitlin
described how her father helps her with homework when she is staying with him.
Caitlin: If I ask him a question, he asks me to read it out and he goes you know this
one what is it about? Then he makes me work it out for myself and just keeps asking
questions to help me. Its frustrating. [She laughs]. No, I know its a good thing really.
This description could have been about a teacher helping a student. The use of questioning to help scaffold a students thinking is common in most classrooms. Caitlin is already
familiar with that structure from home and even recognises it, albeit a little reluctantly, as an
effective technique. The linguistic capital is utilised in school. The transference of the
habitus she has developed through her interactions with her father has enabled her to engage
with the game played by the teacher. In so doing, this habitus is recognised and validated by
the practices within school mathematics, thus positioning Caitlin as a successful learner in
the context of school. This is evident when she talks about the experiences within her group
and her interactions with the tutor:
Caitlin: I just get along with everyone. Theyre of the same ability and can understand
what you say. If you work in a group in the tutor group sometimes you have to explain
things to them and they have to explain things to you.
Her comment indicates fluency and familiarity with the discursive practices adopted by
the school and was evident in her interactions with her father. The linguistic habitus she has
been able to create through her familial interactions are exchangeable within the economy of
the school.
While it is not possible to argue here with any certainty, it would appear that her
fathers questioning techniques may also have created a habitus in which Caitlin has a
strong sense of mathematical processes and questioning. Many of the practices in
school mathematics require individual work and problem solving. As is the case in
both the UK and Australia, students are expected to engage with problems that are
novel so they need to have a repertoire of skills that enable them to sustain interest in
order to solve the task. It would appear from our interactions with Caitlins family
that such attributes have been fostered. Caitlin enjoys working independently and,
says I quite like tests actually. I know people dont but I like it because its
independent. She displays a high level of self-motivation and has a series of
strategies to employ in a test situation.

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A disposition for perseverance and engaging with a problem is a key characteristic

for success in many classrooms. Caitlin appears to have developed such dispositions.
These can be seen in her dialogue when she talks about how she solves mathematical
tasks:
I: What do you think you need to do to be successful in maths tests?
C: You need to go through everything in your mind when youre stuck on a question.
Or work out a few different ways if you cant remember how you did it before. Like
the question about the cake in the test, I didnt understand it at first but ended up
getting it correct.
I: How do you think you did that?
C: First I tried to ask myself the question in different ways so I understood it better.
Then I worked it out in a few different ways and got different answers and then
decided what was the most logical one.
I: Why do you think youre able to work question out that way?
C: I dont know it just comes to me. When I dont really understand the question,
Ill work the completely wrong answer out but then itll bring me closer to the real
answer.
What is clear from Caitlins case is that her parents have been inducting her into
particular patterns of practice, enabling the construction of a particular mathematical
habitusone that aligns well with the practices within her high-ability group. She has
developed a mathematical habitus that aligns with the recognised practices of the
mathematics classroom so she is able to exchange these dispositions for rewards, and
a healthy concept of herself as a learner of school mathematics. However, in addition,
to the school she becomes positioned as able and receives the privileges that
become associated with such a label.

9 Case study 2: Cory

Our second illustrative case is of a boy, the same age as Caitlin but who is placed in
the lowest-ability group. Like Caitlin, he lives with his mother and two siblings, and
sees his estranged father on a regular basis. Cory is hoping to be a sports coach and
his mother hoped he would be able to achieve the grades to enable him to go to
college. The language of hope here is indicative of the perceived lack of control
and agency in this process. We see this language of hope as a recognition that the
system is already positioning Cory and his family as having little control of their
education. Unlike Caitlins family, Corys family had a very different position on
school and mathematics as evident in his mothers comment:
I dont think a lot of the maths taught are necessary as most of the kids will never use
the difficult stuff again. I think people like Cory should be taught and concentrated on
practical and everyday maths.

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233

Unlike Caitlin, he is uncertain about his fathers opinion and indicates that he rarely
discusses school with his father. Corys mother has a strong opinion against homework:
I dont like the idea of homework. I think it should only be sent home when absolutely
necessary and then with clear guidelines of how to do it, since Cory sometimes cant
explain what he needs to be able to do. Maybe a help leaflet for parents to jog their
memory could be sentits twenty years since I left school and I cant remember how
to do much of the stuff. Also, he needs longer to do some pieces because Im not
always there to help him.
The familial habitus that is potentially created by Cory is one that is incongruous with the
demands and expectations of schooling, thus positioning him outside the practices of
schooling. Cory is less likely to be rewarded by the school and hence has less chance of
being seen as successful.
The ethos within Corys mathematics classroom is quite different. The group is small but
challenging so that not only is there an impoverished offering of mathematics, but the
engagement by the group is not with mathematics. It is far more social. This creates a very
different scenario for Cory than for Caitlin in terms of possibilities for construction of a
mathematics habitus, and the recognition of dispositions that are validated within the
structuring practices of school mathematics.
In the maths class there are some people who I get distracted by. They make me laugh.
In contrast to Caitlins experience, where her family habitus had positioned her well for
the practices within her mathematics classroom, Corys habitus was not aligning with the
dominant and powerful practices of school mathematics. Unlike Caitlin, Cory often
appeared to understand part of the question but to lack the confidence or ability to infer
the full meaning from this. In fact, when referring to some questions he had left unanswered,
he said that he thought thats what it meant but that he wasnt sure. This lack of
confidence seems fuelled by his belief that to be good at mathematics you need to
remember a lot and work stuff out quickly. Whilst Caitlin saw and utilised the interrelated
structure of mathematics, Cory has a compartmentalised view of the subject as a series of
facts and methods to be memoriseda viewpoint which makes it much more difficult to
succeed.
Within a Bourdieuian framework, we see one of the structuring practices of the field, in
this case ability grouping, has created an environment for the constitution of a particular
mathematical habitus. Within this, the subjective structuring practices, in this case Coreys
sense of himself as a learner of mathematics, which have come about as a result of the
structuring practices of assessment, have created a learner who is not confident of himself as
a learner of mathematics. This is seen when he describes the important values within the
field as being linked to being able to remember and work quickly. These dispositions convey
power in Coreys mind, and so without them, he lacks what is seen as valued, thus
positioning him as a not-so-strong learner of mathematics.
Another problem for Cory was in responding to the numerous questions that require
students to Explain your answer. When interviewing Cory, it was clear that he did
understand how and why he had given the answers he had. However, the explanations he
gave were not always immediately clear, and he needed to be prompted to give further
clarification. Again, in subsequent discussions with Cory, it became apparent that in lessons,
he was usually given few, if any, mathematical prompts; it was more that he needed answers
to be given some linguistic structure. Clearly, this would translate to problems when trying
to write down a written explanation.

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On further observation, the lessons taught to the lowest-ability group contained less
complex language; questions were usually closed and easily understandable, single step;
explanations were accepted without pushing for greater clarity when there was a feeling of
having seen evidence of understanding. Consequently, Cory is not exposed to the richer
language common in Caitlins classroom. This means he is not given so many opportunities
to develop his linguistic competence, which will continue to adversely affect his test results.
It also affects his understanding of what it means to do mathematics. Perhaps a greater
emphasis on explanations, with greater exploration of the why, might allow Cory to make
more connections between concepts and to develop understanding which would move him
away from seeing doing mathematics as memorising facts and methods.

10 Discussion
This examination of these two pupils differing learning trajectories in mathematics focuses
on the influences of familial habitus and linguistic capital alongside the environment,
namely the ability group, they are taught in. The ability grouping of both students in many
ways is already showing how it is starting to determine their future attainment.
The consequences of setting and streaming decisions are great. Indeed, the set or
stream that students are placed into, at a very young age, will almost certainly dictate
the opportunities they receive for the rest of their lives. (Boaler, 1997b, p. 594)
It is unlikely that either pupil will change ability group even at this early stage of their
secondary education, as this grouping seems in many ways to be a product of much more
than mathematical knowledge. In fact, it seems to be the grouping that has an effect on the
type of mathematical knowledge the two are presented with and consequently how far they
are able to attain. Yet this form of organisation becomes natural and normal to the school and
the teachers, so much so that, in the UK at least, it is inconceivable to many/most
mathematics teachers to consider how it might be otherwise. Furthermore, there is evidence
that teachers extend this to their beliefs about pupils capabilities, The pupils such as Cory,
who do not fit the ideal pupil mould, experience a mathematics education that is considerably structured, restricted and controlled, by teachers who assume such pupils are not
(cap)able of higher-order thinking (Zohar, 1999; Zohar, Degani & Vaaknin, 2001; Zohar
& Dori, 2003).
Caitlin shares many similarities with her classmates. She lives in a similar area, uses
similar language and has similar values. Her mother may not currently possess a huge
amount of economic capital, but this does not hold her back. She and Caitlins father have
endowed their daughter with much social, cultural and linguistic capital. As she enters the
educational field, she has distinct advantages; her capital earns her an enhanced reputation, a
comfortable position in the highest-ability set and high attainment. As Grenfell summarises,
Capital attracts capital, but, as in the case of education, we do not enter fields with
equal amounts, or identical configurations, of capital. Some have inherited wealth,
cultural distinctions from up-bringing and family connections. Some individuals,
therefore, already possess quantities of relevant capital bestowed on them in the
process of habitus formation, which makes them better players than others in certain
field games. Conversely, some are disadvantaged. (Grenfell, 1998, p. 21)
Here we can see how Caitlin is systematically and structurally privileged and
how her progression through the schooling system has been thoroughly efficient.

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235

Her familial habitus is in close agreement with that of the school and has required
little adjustment. The linguistic structure at home and school shares many commonalities. The attitudes towards education, largely derived from parental opinion and
actions and experiences Caitlin has had, are compatible and help to create a
productive approach towards learning mathematics. Her experiences have effectively
created a habitus that aligns with the structuring practices of school mathematics,
that is, the field. This enables Caitlin to exchange aspects of her habitus for the
rewards of the field so that her culture becomes a form of capital valued within that
field.
Corys progression unfortunately has not been so smooth, and he has not achieved
the same degree of academic success as Caitlin. There is no extreme friction between
Cory and the school system, but they do not fit together as naturally as Caitlin and
the school seem to. As with Caitlin, Corys attitude towards education echoes his
mothers opinions and his impression of his fathers disinterest. His view of education
is narrower than Caitlins; he sees the purpose of schooling as purely functional and
looks at individual skills and knowledge as opposed to the value of an all-round
education. Although schools often emphasise the functionality of what they teach, it is
the case that they more fully embrace the middle-class notion of the importance of
being well educated. In Corys case, his familial habitus is not resonating strongly
with the practices of the field, and his culture has little value within the field, so he
has been positioned as a poor learner of mathematicsand he himself accepts this.
The conventional is thus taken as natural by all partiesit is the way it is and has to
be. In this way, Cory becomes the willing victim of his own limitations. Here, we see
Bourdieus idea of symbolic violencewhich he sees operating though The complicity of
those who do not want to know they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it
(Bourdieu, 1991, 164).
Specifically, Bourdieu sees this as how the dominated come to accept their own
domination as legitimate (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 167) in exactly the way
Cory does. In the field of mathematics education, symbolic violence has been enacted
against Cory, but such violence works only when the participants willingly accept the
practices and outcomesit is particularly insidious due to the fact that it is exercised
with the agents full complicity (Nolan, 2012, p. 205). This is the case with Cory
and his family. His position in the low setting or ability group and the reification of
his lack of success act as a form of symbolic violence against the culture that he
brings to school. This process, whereby both sides of a social power divide (the
orthodox and heterodox in Bourdieus terminology) adopt a tacit acceptance of the
dominance within the field, is termed by Bourdieu as the doxa and is described as
The set of core values and discourses of a social practice field that have come to be
viewed as normal natural and inherently necessary (Nolan, 2012, p. 205) and
representing where There is a correspondence between the objective order and the
subjective principles of organization the natural and social world appears as selfevident (Bourdieu, 1972, p. 164).
A Bourdieuian analysis allows us to conjecture patterns in the practices adopted
by those occupying similar positions in the field. We can expect therefore the
experiences of Cory to be not too dissimilar from others who share his engagement
in the field.
On a more practical note, Corys mother is less well equipped than Caitlins father to help
with mathematics homework. In fact, the whole issue of homework in some ways discriminates against Cory. Whilst Caitlin receives additional knowledge and develops linguistic

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capital through completing homework with her fathers input, Corys mother struggles to
help him. In one family, it is an opportunity to share and develop the childs education; in the
other, it is more of a burden. As de Carvalho comments
Indeed, from the family point of view, homework may be seen either as a
legitimate need and a desirable practice, or as a burden and an imposition,
depending on variable material and symbolic conditions of diverse families.
(De Carvalho, 2001, p. 116)
Language also plays a huge role in the disparity between Caitlin and Cory.
Within the mathematics classrooms, legitimate participation is acquired and achieved
through a competence with written or spoken texts, or both. To be constructed as an
effective learner of mathematics, students must be able to display a competence with
these forms of texts. (Zevenbergen, 2000, p. 202)
Caitlin has a significant amount of linguistic capital supplied from home. In
addition, the classroom environment she learns in is rich in language. Drawing on
Vygotskys idea of social learning, we see that Caitlin learns in an environment better
equipped to facilitate learning, which from this perspective is the internalisation of
social interactional processes, most commonly realised through language (Peterson,
Janick, & Swing, 1981). Cory does not possess the linguistic capital that Caitlin does
as a result both of social background and classroom environment, as Bourdieu
explains that habitus is an evolving concept, and in that process, habitus and field
act on each other (Wacquant, 1989). Cory enters the school field with less linguistic
capital and is placed in the lowest-ability group. Then the school field, in particular
the classroom setting, which is advantageous for Caitlin, fails Cory. Corys classmates,
in all likelihood, possess similar linguistic competence, and the teacher, in a double
bind, has few options but to attempt to pitch the work correctly and so fails to
enrich the language they are exposed to. This, in turn, has fostered a limited and
unproductive view of mathematics, which contrasts with the more positive model
Caitlin has constructed.
One important effect of the disparity in linguistic capital is performance in tests. Caitlin
has developed a successful approach to tests; she has the ability to independently decipher
test questions and respond to them clearly. Cory, on the other hand, under-achieves in a test
situation as he fails to understand questions, applies an incorrect level of appropriateness
(Cooper, 2001) and is unable to structure coherent explanations. As a result, Cory was
placed and remains in the lowest-ability group, and through this, comes the creation of
futures.

11 Conclusion
What we have tried to illustrate in this paper is the application of Bourdieus theory to two
illustrative cases. It is an example of how the dominant power relations in the field of
mathematics are operating to convey an expected orthodoxy (that set of behaviours and
relationships demonstrated by Caitlin) and marginalising any heterodoxy (that set of behaviours and relationships demonstrated by Cory). So what is actually only one set of responses
(Caitlins) is seen as taken for granted and natural. By offering this misrecognition of the
arbitrary as the natural way of things, it forces actors to accept as legitimate that which is
possibly against their best interests. Cory and his family accept his lot; he is just a struggler

Structural exclusion through school mathematics

237

forced to play a game and yet accepting of playing a game that is not in his best interests. As
Bourdieu says:
The earlier a player enters the game and the less he is aware of the associated learning,
the greater his ignorance of all that is tacitly granted through his investment in the field
and his interest in its very existence and perpetuation and in everything that is played
for it, and his unawareness of the unthought presuppositions the game produces and
endlessly reproduces, thereby reproducing the conditions of its own existence. (Bourdieu,
1990, p. 67)
Cory and Caitlins position within the mathematics setting system seems to have been
determined by far more than mathematical ability. The differences originate in social status
and familial habitus. Research suggests this fact is not restricted to these individuals, and
certainly, the groupings in this one school demonstrate that working-class students are overrepresented in the lower ability sets. A vicious circle has developed: working class students are
disadvantaged on entering the school field as they have a less compatible habitus; this manifests
itself in underachievement in tests and in less impressive contributions in the classroom, which
results in placement in lower ability sets. Here, they are surrounded by pupils with similar
habitus and linguistic incompatibility with the school mathematics discourse, which results in
slower progression and continued underachievement in assessments, thus widening the gap
between these students and the, largely middle-class, pupils in the higher sets.
What these detailed case studies of Caitlin and Cory suggest is that there is some
substance to the joke about how to be more successful at schoolchange your parents.
For as our analysis has indicated, the parents as the primary socialisers have endowed their
child with success or struggle (habitus) in an education system (field) that is providing
advantages for some and restrictions for others (capital).
We might ask how we can do something about this process of exclusion in the field of
mathematics education because it is exercised not only with the complicity of those who
ultimately suffer (the Corys of this world) but with the implicit and explicit complicity of
teachers of mathematics. Nolan (2012) used a Bourdieuian analysis to look at the practices of
mathematics teacher education where she reminds us that the school is a site of reproduction
and regulation (p. 213) where teachers have their own sets of dispositions shaped by their own
journey through education and professional training. She argues there is a set of professional
discourses that orient the field to operate in such a way to create Caitlins and Corys. Nolan
suggests (2012, pp. 206211) (and we paraphrase only slightly) that mathematics teachers are
pressed for time to deliver a curriculum devoid of creativity and innovation which draws largely
from traditional pedagogical paradigms where testing and competition are paramount. This
process creates the Corys and the Caitlins who become self-fulfilling prophecies of the success
and failure; Caitlin cannot be a success without the failure of Cory.
A problem here for mathematics education research is that it often (re)presents a field
which has incongruencies within the field of mathematics education. By exposing conflicts
within current practices, we offer a heterodoxy to schools and classrooms which serve as the
orthodoxy. A possible way forward would be to broaden teacher education courses to
encourage new teachers to examine the nature of social conditions in schools and theorise
the lack of fit between some but not all pupils and the demands of mathematics education.
Furthermore, though, we ought to be prepared to expose the lack of fit between school
mathematics and mathematics teacher education (Adkins, 2004, p. 191; Nolan, 2012,
p. 212). This process of self-reflection, however, is not assisted by the failure of much
mathematics education research to recognise the importance of social backgrounds in
mathematics educational achievement.

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