Extended reading:
Bourdieu: National Elite —— Famous Universities and Group Spirit
Bourdieu: Reproduction: Key Points of the Theory of Educational System.
Bear: Bottom, School and Class Reproduction
Yu: Education has become the secret reproduction mode of social stratum in China.
Zhu: A Sociological Analysis Framework for Revealing Educational Inequality-Bourdieu's Theory of Cultural Reproduction
What is cultural reproduction activity? Broadly speaking, all human activities are cultural reproduction activities, and the meaning of culture is very extensive. Laws and customs are both cultures.
Capital is not only money, but also cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital. Social stratification is not only caused by economic factors, but also by cultural factors.
Before we understand the causes of educational inequality, we should first understand two concepts.
What is symbolic violence? The realization of any right is not completely accomplished by violence, and the realization of rights cannot be separated from the operation of symbols. Kind of like ideology. Under the cover of symbols, the exercise of rights gained legal significance.
We live in a world full of meaning, which is conveyed by symbols.
Language, clothing and rules are all symbols, through which human beings communicate. People who live in the same symbol world have more advantages and communicate with each other more easily. For example, people in rural areas and people in cities have different symbol worlds.
Symbols are very symbolic, for example, different clothes symbolize different classes, and the words and ways of speaking also briefly reveal the status of the speaker.
Symbol system often embodies the class nature of symbols through a series of paired items, for example, elegance and vulgarity. Gao Fushuai, short and poor.
This binary symbol is embodied by people's words and costumes. Growing up in this symbol system, you will naturally internalize this system and think it is reasonable. This symbol system helps you understand why you are not successful in others, why you are short and poor, and so on.
And this is an ideological violence, a symbolic violence. The concept of symbolic violence is often used in relationships between men and women. At one time, women were considered inferior to men. In such a symbol system, women should be taught to obey men and how to behave. This is an example of symbolic violence.
Nowadays, women who grew up in a patriarchal society will also encounter symbolic violence, in daily language and in people's thinking. When a woman is discriminated against because of her gender, she often doesn't realize it, or she does, but she doesn't know where to start.
Symbolic violence is hard to detect and say.
Cultural reserve. Grandpa, your present situation often depends on your grandpa. A simple example is that your parents are well educated, and you are more likely to be well educated.
The real purpose of the education system is to eliminate the children of the lower class, limit social mobility and consolidate the status of the elite.
The main function of education is to instill and spread the culture of the ruling class, the existing conditions of the production and reproduction system, and maintain the inherent stratification of society.
This encounter is reflected in the placement system and teachers' attitudes towards different students. First of all, the inheritance of cultural capital is at the family level. Under the influence of family culture, children will naturally imitate their parents' behavior. Compared with children from poor families, children from elite families have been exposed to symbols and norms of upper class since childhood. In the process of school education, students' cultural capital differences inherited from their families are further differentiated.
According to the theory of cultural reproduction, school education is not a system to eradicate social inequality, but an important means to produce and reproduce social inequality in a genetic way and make it legal and permanent. Symbolic violence can help us talk about violence that we can't talk about, and help us see how elites legally pass on their elite titles to their children.
For those who read this article, what I want to say is that symbols are not equal to facts. For example, many women resisted symbolic violence against women and told people that women can also succeed. Wittgenstein's logical philosophy says that the world is made up of facts. Symbols are not equal to facts, so when someone says you can't do it, you don't need to care.
There are many possibilities in the future. Don't limit your future because of symbols, let your future change in the direction specified by symbols.
Man's transcendence depends on himself, desire and breakthrough. Nothing will hinder a person's greatness and success.
Remember, the only truth in this world is the present, not the fact.