Bourdieu for Educators

Fenwick W. English (Ph.D.) is the R. Wendell Eaves Senior Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a position he has held since 2001. As a scholar/practitioner he has held positions as a school principal and superintendent of schools in California and New York and as a department chair, dean, and vice-chancellor of academic affairs at universities in Ohio and Indiana. He is the former President of the University Council of Educational Administration (UCEA) and of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA). His research has been reported in national and international academic forums. He edited the 2006 SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration, the 2009 SAGE Library of Educational Thought and Practice: Educational Leadership and Administration; and the 2011 SAGE Handbook of Educational Leadership (2nd Ed.). In 2013, he received the Living Legend Award from NCPEA for his lifetime contribution to the field of educational leadership.Cheryl L. Bolton (Ph.D.) is the Academic Group Leader for Lifelong and International Learning in the School of Education at Staffordshire University where she teaches and directs a range of programs including educational research at the masters and doctoral levels. She formerly worked in industry before entering further and then higher education. Her doctoral research involved examining Bourdieu’s key trio of concepts-- habitus, capital and field to investigate their influence and impact on instructors in Further Education programs in England. Dr. Bolton’s research has been presented at the British Education Research Association ( BERA); the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS) and the American Education Research Association (AERA).

• Chapter 1: Introducing Pierre Bourdieu to Educational PractitionersBourdieu’s BiographyVielseitigkeit: What is Distinctive About BourdieuUnderstanding the Nature of Pedagogic Work as Political StruggleThe “Culture Wars” in the U.S. and the U.K.: Similarities and DifferencesThe Battle Over the Correct Academic Subjects and Proper Pedagogic WorkThe Concept of Misrecognition and How It WorksSome History with Misrecognition in the PastBuilding Awareness of the Forces at PlayWithout New Eyes: The Blinders of Doxa as OrthodoxyBourdieu as the Public Intellectual, Activist and ProvocateurChapter 2: Unmasking the School Asymmetry and the Social SystemBourdieusian CornerstonesBourdieu’s Concept of HabitusAn Example of Neighborhood HabitusA Case Study of How Family Habitus Works to Shape Career AspirationsThe Intersection of Class, Social Space and the FieldAn Example of a Field with Its Own LogicThe Cultural ArbitraryThe Plight of Minority Children Facing the Dominant Cultural Arbitrary in SchoolsHow the System Works as a GameWho Benefits from Schools as They Are?Illuiso and Unquestioned Loyalty to Continuing OrthodoxiesThe Bounded Nature of Choice Within a Designated Social SpaceEducational Inequalities Must Remain UnnamedConnecting the Dots: The Importance of Family in School SuccessThe Challenge of Reducing Social Inequality as an Educational GoalChapter 3: The Curriculum, Qualifications and Life ChancesThe Three Forms of CapitalEmpirical Validation of the Impact of Social Capital on School SuccessThe Power of Cultural Capital and Bourdieu’s Own Experience as a StudentSchools as Institutionalized Embodiments of Forms of Cultural CapitalCapital, Power, Symbolic Violence, and Scholastic HabitusTwo Recent Examples of Symbolic Power (Violence) with School CurriculaSocial Origin and School Success: Historical and Continuing Evidence of the Linkage Between ThemAcademic Failure as the “Fault” of the Student?Academic Credentials—Essential Capital?The Hidden Curriculum, Cultural Values and Schooling SuccessCalculating Life Chances: The Academic vs. Vocational Education DebateThe Issue of the Mal-Distribution of OpportunityChapter 4: The Shifting Control of Leadership PreparationThe Construction of National Leadership Standards in the U.K. and the U.S.The Major Epistemological Steps Behind National StandardsCore Technologies and the Reification of the Status QuoThe Shifting Nature of the Contestation and Changer in Power in the Education FieldThe De-Contextualization of School Leaders via Job StandardizationThe Reformers Blinkered Vision for Change: They Just Don’t See ItChapter 5: A Retrospective Look at Bourdieu’s ImpactThe Social Field of Education is Not StaticEducation Is Simultaneously a Means and an EndSchooling as the Cultural Arbitrary Demonizes Those who are “Otherized”The Dominant Consumer Culture in Education Undermines Its Moral and Humanistic ValueEducational Reform Will Always Benefit and Advantage the ReformersThe Dilemma of School Leadership, Agent of the State or of Humanity?

The book is excellent. Dr. English and Cheryl L. Bolton do a masterful job in explaining how educational leadership is actually under attack by outside forces. The landscape has changed significantly due to political forces disguised by accreditation initiatives. [...] Bourdieu for Educators with the application of Dr. English′s ideas and insights is absolutely essential reading and adoption for those wanting to rescue the field of educational leadership and administration from the "Billionnaires Boys Club" and many other destructive factions.