Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture

Citation

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (2nd ed.; R. Nice, Trans.). SAGE Publications.

Chapter Summary

This is the English translation of the authors' French work La reproduction, in a second edition that reissues the original text with a new preface by Bourdieu and a foreword by Tom Bottomore. Printed lengths differ by source (about 254 pages in library and Google Books records, 288 in the publisher's listing). The contents divide the argument into two parts and an appendix.

Context and Argument

The publisher's description frames the project as a sociological one: to show how the ruling ideas of a social system relate to structures of class, production and power, and how they are legitimated and perpetuated. The authors analyse education in its broadest sense, not only formal schooling, and argue that education carries an essentially arbitrary cultural scheme that is in fact, though not in appearance, based on power. The reproduction of culture through education is then shown to play a key part in reproducing the whole social system. The analysis is carried through both in theoretical terms and through empirically testable propositions placed within the historical transformation of the educational system.

Preface to the Second Edition and Foreword

Bourdieu's new preface introduces the second edition, and Bottomore's foreword places it for readers. Bottomore's assessment, quoted by the publisher, is that the book reveals new features in the analysis of social classes and political power.

Part One: Foundations of a Theory of Symbolic Violence

The first part sets out the theory. Its title names the central concept, symbolic violence, the idea that culture imposed through education exercises power without appearing to do so. The second part, whose title is Keeping Order, then turns to specific features of the educational system.

Part Two: Keeping Order

Part Two consists of four chapters: Cultural Capital and Pedagogic Communication; The Literate Tradition and Social Conservation; Exclusion and Selection; and Dependence through Independence. The titles point to the topics covered: cultural capital and the communication between teacher and taught, the role of a literate tradition in social conservation, exclusion and selection, and dependence through apparent independence. Raymond Williams singled out the discussion of the relations between a traditional literary culture and selection for arts courses as especially brilliant.

Appendix: The Changing Structure of Higher Education Opportunities; Redistribution or Translation?

The appendix contains two pieces: one on the changing structure of higher education opportunities and one titled "Redistribution or Translation?"

Key Concepts

Part One

• Symbolic violence: the exercise of power through culture that is imposed through education and appears neutral.
• Arbitrary cultural scheme: a body of culture carried by education that is not justified by nature or necessity but rests on power.

Part Two

• Cultural capital: the cultural resources that, in the book's account, figure in pedagogic communication; the term names the first chapter of Part Two.
• Pedagogic communication: the communication between teacher and taught, which Part Two's opening chapter links to cultural capital.
• Social reproduction: the mechanism by which the reproduction of culture through education helps reproduce the whole social system.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A theory with empirical propositions. The publisher stresses that the analysis is carried through not only theoretically but through empirically testable propositions within the historical transformation of the educational system.
• Redefined educational research. Raymond Williams, quoted by the publisher, credits the book with redefining the very character of educational research.
• Reach beyond schools. Because education is taken in its broadest sense, the book ties the study of schooling to the reproduction of the whole social system, as Tom Bottomore noted in connecting cultural phenomena to the structural characteristics of society.
• Standing in the field. Google Books records that the Institute for Scientific Information nominated it a citation classic in 1988, and its description there calls the book one of social science's most frequently cited texts.

Limitations

• A work of theory. The book is social theory in translation whose opening part develops a theory of symbolic violence; readers new to sociology will probably want a secondary introduction alongside it.
• A reissue, not a new study. The 1990 edition reissues the original text with a new introduction, so the empirical material belongs to an earlier period and French context; the application to other systems today requires further evidence.
• No practical guidance. The book analyses how education reproduces inequality; it does not offer teaching strategies or policy recipes.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the policy and sociology of education course, this is the classic theoretical text. Ballantine, Stuber and Everitt's The Sociology of Education is a survey textbook applying sociological theory and research to education from classroom to global systems, and is the sensible first read for readers new to the field; Bourdieu and Passeron's argument will then appear as one theoretical tradition among others. Diane Reay's Miseducation is a short, accessible account of how the English system treats working-class children and argues that schooling reproduces class inequality, so it shows the same theme in contemporary empirical form.

Stephen Ball's The Education Debate is a critical introduction to education policy in England, Rizvi and Lingard's Globalizing Education Policy analyses how globalization has reshaped policy, and Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System criticizes test-based accountability and school choice in the United States. These deal with policy and reform; Bourdieu and Passeron supply the sociological explanation of why reform of schooling so often leaves inequalities in place.

How to Use This Book

The book suits graduate students and researchers in the sociology of education and social theory. An introductory course in the sociology of education and some acquaintance with social theory are the sensible preparation.

A practical plan:

• Start with the frame. Read Bottomore's foreword and Bourdieu's preface, then the publisher's description of the argument, to know what the book claims.
• Core: Part One, slowly, for symbolic violence, then the first chapter of Part Two on cultural capital and pedagogic communication.
• Further: the remaining chapters of Part Two on the literate tradition, on exclusion and selection, and on the relation between independence and dependence.
• Optional: the appendix, for readers interested in higher education opportunity.

Read a modern empirical study of class and schooling alongside, such as Reay's, and test the theory's concepts against its evidence.