Brian's Class Reflection - 21 July 2011

Thank you so much Brie for really unpacking Bourdieu's concept and clarifying his terms, after reading the article I felt there was much more I needed clarified. I was moved and can relate to the poker scenario in which you have to deal with all the cards you have, even at the expense of losing them all. With education you can hopefully have the ability to expand your mind to different concepts and scenarios to lessen the risk, but for many it is hard to negotiate that change. But as Lareau states, the school culture is similar to that of middle class culture and therefore those lower in class are in a disadvantage.

Those with the upward mobility, are actually hiding the fact that they have been provided with various social, economic, and cultural capital or even to overly compensate for them in order to "lift yourself up by your bootstraps". What is interesting I have found is that you can fool those who are not of the social class, but in that 'mimicked' social class there is that scrutiny and can find those cracks - the latter similar to Professor Grandson's anecdote. We as teachers need to push for our schools to see all various cultures. The amazing trip for my school was Farm School - for urban students to see a farming culture and organic foods, which provided my students and myself a different social context. They gained further cultural capital which aided with standardized testing as well.