7/21 Facilitator Questions (Kono)

Bourdieu (p. 250) “Through the introduction of new members into a family, a clan, or a club, the whole definition of the group, i.e., its fines, its boundaries, and its identity, is put at stake, exposed to redefinition, alteration, adulteration.”

As we think about the students in our classroom, and discuss the need not only to celebration culture on one given day, it seems we also need to think about the way in which our pedagogy (through the obvious American-centric cultural and social norms) affects students from different cultural backgrounds. Does what our students learn and adopt from school alter their cultural groups? If so, how do we ensure that there is still a sense of preservation of unblemished cultural identities? Where do we draw the line between acculturation (skills to succeed in society) and cultural group and family value preservation and cultivation?

McNamee & Miller (p. 100) “Employers are often less concerned with possession of specific information and technical skills that with possession of cultural capital (arbitrary knowledge, manners and decorum, styles and tastes representative of privilege) and “noncognitive” characteristics such as discipline, steadiness, and responsibility.”

Is this the reality we have faced in our own professional pursuits? While it seems that the value of cultural capital is significant, McNamee and Miller (2004) note that these indicate privilege or at least place more emphasis on it rather than diversification of personal traits and identities. Do you believe that employers really do value cultural capital and should we as teachers therefore be ensuring that we are focused more on the development or maintenance of this capital rather than of building skills?

Lareau (p. 97) “Bourdieu’s notions, particularly of field, help to reposition notions of capital from being thought of as an intrinsically valuable individual resource to be viewed in terms of dominant standard and the uneven legitimization of some practices but not others.”

When we read Bourdieu, it seems that we would be naturally drawn to think of capital as being a possession of the individual, and in the context of students in our classrooms, it would seem that we empower them with the knowledge of their own levels of capital. However, what Lareau (and Bourdieu) point out here is that we should rather view capital in the greater sociological sense, thinking about our students in relation to culture and society rather than their intrinsic values. Does this help us as teachers? Are we more able to help foster and cultivate capital in our students when it is given such a more broad and impersonal status?