Work in Progress: Can Bourdieu’s Habitus provide a
theoretical framework for Engineering Education
Research?
Jo Devine
Agricultural, Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, Australia
devinej@usq.edu.au
Abstract— This paper explores the use of Bourdieu’s Theory of
Habitus as a theoretical framework for a PhD study on the
dispositions enabling non-traditional students to succeed in their
first year of engineering studies. It provides a review of
Bourdieu’s sociological Theory of Habitus and the application of
this framework to higher education settings and in particular to
engineering education.
Bourdieu’s theory of Habitus provides a framework for exploring
and analyzing the behavior of individuals within a particular
environment. It can provide insight into the behavior, and
subsequent academic performance, of an increasingly diverse
student cohort in the Australian higher education system.
Bourdieu’s theory offers researchers the opportunity to
understand the complexity of human interactions within the
education system. Moreover it is currently an underutilized tool
for developing research methodologies as well as providing a
framework for subsequent analysis [1].
Keywords- Bourdieu, habitus, disposition, student diversity
I. INTRODUCTION
Pierre Bourdieu was a renowned French intellectual of the
late 20th century. He had a passion for social justice and much
of his work involved the study of social inequality and the
ways in which it is perpetuated, mostly without conscious
recognition [2-4]. Bourdieu drew on the fields of philosophy,
social anthropology and sociology [2] to develop his own
sociological theories dealing with the stratification of
contemporary society and its implications for individuals. His
writings were voluminous and not terribly accessible to the
those who are new to his work [4], which may explain why his
concepts have been widely used in sociological explorations of
higher education but not yet been widely adopted within the
field of engineering education research.
II. BOURDIEU’S THEORY OF HABITUS
Bourdieu is notorious for not succinctly defining the
concepts on which his theory is based and for using them in a
fluid manner throughout his writing. However a working
description of habitus, which is appropriate for the intended
application, is that it is a collection of mostly subconscious
dispositions which an individual initially acquires in early
childhood via familial interactions and which are then
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constantly modified by subsequent life experiences [4]. An
individual’s dispositions will be expressed as their thoughts,
preferences, beliefs and aspirations, concerning themselves and
the structure of the social world around them [5]. These
dispositions then influence how a person will behave in a
particular situation. Habitus is both shaped by the social
structures within which it is formed and regulates the actions of
an individual within those social structures [6]. Thus,
individuals from a particular socio-economic group will
usually have many dispositions in common. A person’s
dispositions will include beliefs about their chances of success
in a given endeavor. Bourdieu postulates that one’s aspirations,
and subsequent actions, are then adjusted to the perceived
chances of success. He refers to this idea as the “causality of
the probable” [4].
Bourdieu uses his concept of ‘Field’ as a metaphor for all
the organizations and individuals involved in a particular social
or cultural arena and the interactions between them [4]. He sees
every field as a situation of struggle, competition or conflict,
the objective for each individual being to optimize their
accumulation or retention of ‘capital’. Bourdieu’s concept of
capital extends beyond mere economic capital to also
encompass symbolic, cultural, social and linguistic capital.
Each of these types of capital has a social value and can be
‘inherited’, through the circumstances of one’s early
upbringing, or accumulated, exchanged and leveraged much
like economic capital [4].
Bourdieu’s work is acclaimed by Rogers Brubaker [6] as
one of the most significant attempts to adapt sociological
theory to the empirical study of contemporary society. He
articulated a ‘reflexive, post-structuralist’ position whereby
individuals influence the fields within which they operate while
concurrently being influenced by their own habitus; a construct
of societal structures (including various fields) both past and
present within which they have interacted [4, 6, 7].
III. BOURDIEU AND EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS
Bourdieu sees the sociology of education as the foundation
of sociology; a key setting through which cultural stratification
is perpetuated. Bourdieu sees education as a form of cultural
capital, which can be acquired through time, effort and money
and which can be exchanged for a prestigious and profitable
career [5]. Cultural capital can be acquired through education,
but more easily so by students already possessing large
amounts of cultural capital through inherited wealth and/or
position [4, 8]. Educational settings are also responsible for
reinforcing the social class system or hierarchy through the
classification systems adopted (admission & assessment) [5].
Bourdieu proposes that the educational decisions made by
students (where and what to study) are the result of their
dispositions, which in turn have been developed as a result of
their personal habitus [5]. Student achievement or success is
also addressed by Bourdieu. He proposes that whether students
stay in school or drop out is largely determined by their
perceptions of the probability of success for students of their
background [4]. This is reflected in current expectancy value
theory studies showing the importance of student expectations
on academic achievement (e.g. [9]). Bourdieu further argues
that a child’s expectations of education and career are largely
determined by their parents and early educational influences
during the formation of their habitus.
Having been used by Bourdieu in the context of the French
educational system the validity of Bourdieu’s theories for
applications in other cultures has been raised [7]. However
Bourdieu was very interested in the applicability of the
particular to explain the universal in society and his latter
writings address the adoption of his concepts by English
readers [7]. Reay [1] and Robbins [7] both point to extensive
use in British educational sociology research. Berger [10]
discusses the increasing popularity in the USA of Bourdieu’s
framework for exploring inequities in educational achievement,
higher education organizational studies, student persistence and
retention.
It has been argued [1, 7] that Bourdieu’s theories have been
widely misused, particularly by English speaking sociologists,
who tend to examine their data using Bourdieu’s theories rather
than underpinning their research methodology with the
theoretical framework that they can provide. Reay [1] argues
that Bourdieu’s theory of habitus is meant as a research
methodology: a means of informing the investigations
undertaken rather than simply as a lens thorough which to view
the data collected in a study. Bourdieu’s own data collection
methods combine statistical techniques with observations and
interrogation of relevant interactions, discourses and
documentation [11]. He advocates the use of the
methodological procedure that is most appropriate to the
question at hand, close attention to the underlying theory of the
research design and implementation and continual
methodological review and refinement [11].
IV. THE PROPOSED APPLICATION OF BOURDIEU’S THEORIES
The recent Bradley Review [12] of higher education in
Australia, makes recommendations for increasing participation
in higher education. This coupled with the high demand for
engineers has created a diversity of students enrolling in
engineering programs. This trend requires extensive research as
faculties attempt to develop appropriate systems, curricula and
pedagogies to support non-traditional students. i.e. those who
may not share the habitus and dispositions of existing
engineering faculty and the academy at large. This proposed
study targets those students who perform better academically
that Bourdieu’s theory of capital and habitus might predict.
Moore [13] discusses the exceptions which arise when using
cultural capital alone to explain the excellent academic
performance of these students. He explores Bourdieu’s
statements regarding such exceptional students in terms of the
recognition of different groups within a given social class and
the existence of ‘particularities’ or ‘exceptional qualities’ that
enable these students’ academic performance. This study will
focus on the identification and explanation of these qualities,
on which Bourdieu does not elaborate [13], using an
ethnographic style methodology, based on Bourdieu’s
framework.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents only a preliminary introduction to
Bourdieu’s complex work and is intended to generate
discussion about the possibilities it presents for engineering
education research. As yet, Bourdieu’s concepts have not been
used as a framework within Engineering education research in
Australia, where the field of engineering Education Research is
dominated by academics with a technical engineering
background and an interest in education. The disciplines and
theories associated with sociology and education research tend
to be secondary to their core training, so the adoption of these
theories presents a challenge to such researchers. Bourdieu’s
call to English readers regarding the adoption of his theories (in
his 1998 work Homo Academicus, as cited by Robbins, 2004)
can be extended to engineering educators as a call to adopt or
adapt this theoretical framework for underpinning new research
methodologies and analyses of engineering education
phenomena.
[1] Reay, D., 2004 “‘It's all becoming a habitus’: beyond the habitual use of
habitus in educational research.” British Journal of Sociology of
Education. Vol 25(4): pp. 431-444.
[2] Reay, D., et al., 2004 “Editorial” British Journal of Sociology of
Education, Vol 25(4): pp. 411-413.
[3] Webb, J., T. Schirato, and G. Danaher, Understanding Bourdieu, ed. R.
Fensham and T. Threadgold2002, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
[4] DiMaggio, P., 1979 “On Pierre Bourdieu.” American Journal of
Sociology, Vol 84(6): pp. 1460-1474.
[5] Swartz, D., Culture and Power, 1997, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
[6] Brubaker, R., 1985, “Rethinking Classical Theory: The Sociological
Vision of Pierre Bourdieu.”, Theory and Society, Vol 14(6): p. 745-775.
[7] Robbins, D., 2004, “The transcultural transferability of Bourdieu's
sociology of education” British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol.
25(4): pp. 415-430.
[8] DiMaggio, P., 1982, “Cultural Capital and School Success: The Impact
of Status Culture Participation on the Grades of U.S. High School
Students.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 47(2): pp. 189-201.
[9] Jones, B.D., et al., 2010, “An Analysis of Motivation Constructs with
First-Year Engineering Students: Relationships Among Expectancies,
Values, Achievement, and Career Plans” Journal of Engineering
Education, Vol. 99(4): pp. 319-336.
[10] Berger, J.B., “Part I: Revising Tiato's Theory: Optimizing Capital,
Social Reproduction, and Undergraduate Persistence” In Reworking the
Student Departure Puzzle 2000, Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 95-124.
[11] Wacquant, L., “Pierrre Bourdieu” In R. Stones, (ed.). 2008, Key
Sociological Thinkers, Palgrave Macmillan: Hampshire. pp. 261-277.
[12] Australian Government, The Bradley Review of Higher Education 2008,
[13] Moore, R., 2004 “Cultural capital: objective probability and the cultural
arbitrary” British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 25 (4): pp.
445-456.