Abstract
Reform efforts like the urban, arts-based initiative Project ARTS are designed to provide intentional, equitable methods of improving students’ learning, yet few urban educators have been sufficiently trained to recognize differences in habitus between themselves and their students. For equitable reform to occur teachers must understand their own habitus and the habitus-forming experiences of their students. In this paper, we analyze qualitative project data using Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of cultural capital, field, habitus, symbolic violence and misrecognition to explore teachers’ and students’ experiences in order to determine the extent to which power and privilege begin to be challenged within participating schools. We explore the ways in which teacher habitus has shifted to recognize, include or become empathetic to student habitus as a result of Project ARTS curricula, co-teaching and professional development while also considering the possibility the program produces unintended consequences at odds with the project’s mission: reproducing the status quo by advancing the cultural capital of teachers rather than that of students. Finding markedly fewer teacher narratives confirming the social reproduction of inequitable power relationships than when the project began, we conclude by discussing the transformation of teacher habitus, student outcomes, and school climate after 5 years of Project ARTS participation, proposing implications for urban teachers and leaders, their communities, and policymakers intent upon implementing equitable educational reform and the social transformation reform intends.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anyon, J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education, 162(1), 67–92.
Ayers, W. (2004). Teaching toward freedom: Moral commitment and ethical action in the classroom. Boston: Beacon Press.
Banks, J. A. (2005). Democracy, diversity, and social justice: Educating citizens for the public interest in a global age. In G. Ladson-Billings & W. F. Tate (Eds.), Education research in the public interest: Social justice, action, and policy (pp. 141–157). New York: Teachers College Press.
Belland, B. R. (2012). Habitus, scaffolding, and problem-based learning: Why teachers’ experiences as students matter. In S. B. Fee & B. R. Belland (Eds.), The role of criticism in understanding problem solving: Honoring the work of John C. Belland (pp. 87–100). New York: Springer.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2001). Masculine domination (R. Nice, Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2002). Habitus. In J. Hillier & E. Rooksby (Eds.), Habitus: A sense of place (pp. 43–52). Surrey, UK: Ashgate.
Bourdieu, P. (2008). Political interventions: Social science and political action. London and New York: Verso.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Breault, D. A., & Allen, L. A. (2008). Urban education: A handbook for educators and parents. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Bresler, L., DeStephano, L., Feldman, R., & Garg, S. (2000). Artists-in-residence in public schools: Issues in curriculum, integration, impact. Visual Arts Research, 26(1), 13–29.
Bulman, R. C. (2002). Teachers in the ’hood: Hollywood’s middle-class fantasy. The Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 34(3), 251–276.
Butcher, V. (1993). Understanding cultural diversity through arts education. Essay presented at the Fourth National Invitation Conference, “Perspectives on Education Reform: Arts Education as Catalyst,” San Francisco, CA.
Carrington, V., & Luke, A. (1997). Literacy and Bourdieu’s sociological theory: A reframing. Language and Education, 11(2), 96–112.
Coffey, A., & Atkinson, P. (1996). Making sense of qualitative data: Complementary research strategies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cox, A. (2010, April). Disruption and reproduction: Discourses of social class at a private school. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Denver, CO.
Diamond, J. B., Randolph, A., & Spillane, J. P. (2004). Teachers’ expectations and sense of responsibility for student learning: The importance of race, class, and organizational habitus. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35(1), 75–98.
DiMaggio, P., & Useem, M. (1978). Cultural democracy in a period of cultural expansion: The social composition of arts audiences in the United States. Social Problems, 26(2), 179–197.
Durden, T. (2008). Do your homework! Investigating the role of culturally relevant pedagogy in comprehensive school reform models serving diverse student populations. The Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 40(5), 403–419.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes (1st ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Emirbayer, M., & Schneiderhan, E. (2013). In P. S. Gorski (Ed.), Bourdieu and historical analysis (pp. 131–157). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Evans Newton Incorporated. (2011). Target Teach. Retrieved from http://www.evansnewton.com/.
Ferguson, A. A. (2001). Bad boys: Public schools and the making of Black masculinity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Finn, P. (2009). Literacy with an attitude: Educating working-class children in their own self-interest (2nd ed.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (30th anniversary ed.) (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum. (Original work published 1970)
Giroux, H. A. (2004). Public pedagogy and the politics of neo-liberalism: Making the political more pedagogical. Policy Futures in Education, 2(3 & 4), 494–503.
Glaser, B. G. (1969). The constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. In G. J. McCall & J. L. Simmons (Eds.), Issues in participant observation (pp. 216–228). Reading, PA: Addison-Wesley.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine.
Gunzenhauser, M. G. (2012). The active/ethical professional: A framework for responsible educators. New York: Continuum.
Handsfield, L. J. (2006). Being and becoming American: Triangulating habitus, field, and literacy instruction in a multilingual classroom. Language and Literacy, 8(3), 1–27.
Handsfield, L. J., & Jiménez, R. T. (2009). Cognition and misrecognition: A Bourdieuian analysis of cognitive strategy instruction in a linguistically and culturally diverse classroom. Journal of Literacy Research, 41(2), 151–195.
Hatt, B. (2012). Smartness as a cultural practice in schools. American Educational Research Journal, 49(3), 438–460.
Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Routledge.
Ilg, T. J., & Massucci, J. D. (2003). Comprehensive urban high school: Are there better options for our poor and minority children? Education and Urban Society, 36(1), 63–78.
Keiser, D. (2000). Battlin’ nihilism at an urban high school: Pedagogy, perseverance, and hope. In K. A. McClafferty, C. A. Torres, & T. R. Mitchell (Eds.), Challenges of urban education: Sociological perspectives for the next century (pp. 271–295). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Lippman, P. (2004). High stakes education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school reform. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
Michie, G. (2009). Holler if you hear me: The education of a teacher and his students (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Nichols, B. (2003). Demographic characteristics of arts attendance, 2002. (Research Note No. 82). Retrieved from http://www.nea.gov/research/ResearchNotes_chrono.html.
Nike. (2010). Just do it [corporate slogan]. Retrieved from http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/?sitesrc=uslp&l=shop,search,searchList-just%2520do%2520it.
Oliver, C., & Kettley, N. (2010). Gatekeepers or facilitators: The influence of teacher habitus on students’ applications to elite universities. British Journal of Sociology in Education, 31(6), 737–753.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Smith, D. L., & Smith, B. J. (2009). Urban educator’s voices: Understanding culture in the classroom. The Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 41(4), 334–351.
Spindler, G. D., & Spindler, L. (1987). Education and cultural process: Anthropological approaches. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Sugarman, S. (2010). Seeing past the fences: Finding funds of knowledge for ethical teaching. The New Educator, 6(2), 96–117.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). Occupational outlook handbook, 2010–2011 edition. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/oco/.
US Department of Education. (2011). Even Start family literacy program. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/evenstartformula/index.html.
Weis, L. (2004). Class reunion: The remaking of the American white working class. New York and London: Routledge.
Winkle-Wagner, R. (2010). Cultural capital: The promises and pitfalls in education research. ASHE Higher Education Report, 36(1). San Francisco: Wiley.
Woodside-Jiron, H., & Gehsmann, K. (2009). Peeling back the layers of policy and school reform: Revealing the structural and social complexities within. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 56(1), 149–172.
Worley, V. (2011). Beyond myths, fetishes, and checklists: Discovering diversity’s place in education, evaluation, and accountability. Educational Studies, 47(1), 3–25.
Wright, R. (2008). Kicking the habitus: Power, culture, and pedagogy in the secondary school music curriculum. Music Education Research, 10(3), 389–402.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Woollen, S., Otto, S. Intended Consequences: Challenging White Teachers’ Habitus and Its Influence in Urban Schools Implementing an Arts-Based Educational Reform. Urban Rev 46, 86–111 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-013-0253-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-013-0253-6