Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron

Reproduction in education, society and culture.

Tr. By R. Nice. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 1977 [1970]

3. PEDAGOGIC WORK ...

3.1. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producing a durable training, i.e. producers of practices conforming with the principles of the cultural arbitrary of the groups or classes which delegate to PA the PAu needed for its establishment and continuation, PW tends to reproduce the social conditions of the production of that cultural arbitrary, i.e. the objective structures of which it is the product, through the mediation of the habitus, defined as the principle generating practices which reproduce the objective structures.

3.1.1. The specific productivity of PW is objectively measured by the degree to which it produces its essential effect of inculcation, i.e. its effect of reproduction.

3.1.1.1. The specific productivity of PW, i.e. the degree to which it manages to inculcate in the legitimate addressees the cultural arbitrary which it is mandated to reproduce, is measured by the degree to which the habitus it produces is durable, i.e. capable of durably generating practices conforming with the principles of the inculcated arbitrary.

3.1.1.2. The specific productivity of PW, i.e. the degree to which it manages to inculcate in the legitimate addressees the cultural arbitrary it is mandated to reproduce, is measured by the degree to which the habitus it produces is transposable, i. e. capable of generating practices conforming with the principles of the inculcated arbitrary in a greater number of different fields.

3.1.1.3. The specific productivity of PW i.e. the degree to which it manages to inculcate in the legitimate addressees the cultural arbitrary it is mandated to reproduce, is measured by the degree to which the habitus it produces is exhaustive, i.e. the completeness with which it reproduces the principles of the cultural arbitrary of a group or class in the practices it generates.

3.1.2. The delegation which establishes a PA implies, in addition to a delimitation of the content inculcated, a definition of the mode of inculcation (the legitimate mode of inculcation) and of the length of inculcation (the legitimate training period), which define the degree of completion of PW considered necessary and sufficient to produce the accomplished form of the habitus, i.e. the degree of cultural attainment (the degree of legitimate competence) by which a group or class recognizes the accomplished man.

3.1.2.1 In any given social formation, the delegation which establishes the dominant PA imples, in addition to a delimitation of the content inculcated, a cominant definition of the mode and length fo inculcation which define the degree of completion of of PW considered necessary and sufficient to produce the accomplished form of the habitus, i.e. the degree of cultural attainment (the degree of legitimate competence in legitimate culture) by which not only the dominant but also the dominated classes tend to recognize the `cultivated man' and against which the products of the dominated PAs, i.e. the different forms of the accomplished man as defned by the culture of the dominated groups or classes, come to be measured objectively.

3.1.3. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producing a durable, transposable habitus, i.e. inculcating in all its legitimate addressees a system of (partially or totally identical) schemes of perception, thought, appreciation and action, PW contributes towards producing and reproducing the intellectual and moral integration of the group or class on whose behalf it is carried on.3.1.3.1. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producing.' internalization of the principles of a cultural arbitrary in the form of a durable, transposable habitus, capable of generating practices con-„ forming with those principles outside of and beyond any express, regulation or any explicit reminding of the rule, PW enables the group or class which delegates its authority to PA to produce and reproduce its intellectual and moral integration without resorting to external repression or, in particular, physical coercion.

on meconnaissance

3.2. Insofar as it is a transformative action tending to inculcate training, a system of durable, transposable dispositions, PW which cannot be exercised without PAu, has the effect of irreversibly confirming and consecrating PAu, i.e. the legitimacy of PA and of the cultural arbitrary. It inculcates, by masking more and more completely, through the success of the inculcation of the arbitrary, the arbitrariness of the inculcation and of the culture inculcated.

3.2.1. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producin more and more complete misrecognition of the twofold arbitrariness o PA, i.e. recognition of the PAu of the pedagogic agency and recognition of the legitimacy of the product which it offers, PW produces the legitimacy of the product and, inseparably from this, the legitimate need for this product qua legitimate product, by producing the legitimate consumer, i.e. one equipped with the social definition of the legitimate product and the disposition to consume it in the legitimate manner.

3.2.2. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producing more and more complete misrecognition of the twofold arbitrariness of PA, PW tends, the more it is accomplished, to conceal more and more completely the objective truth of the habitus as the internalization ofthe principles of a cultural arbitrary which is more accomplished the more the work of inculcation is accomplished.

3.2.2.1. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producing more and more complete misrecognition of the twofold arbitrariness o PA, i.e. inter alia, misrecognition of the delimitation constitutive of the cultural arbitrary which it inculcates, PW produces more and m or complete misrecognition of the ethical and intellectual limitations which are correlative with the internalizing of that delimitation (ethic and logical ethnocentrism).

3.2.2.1.1. In any given social formation, the PW through which dominant PA is carried on succeeds all the better in imposing tthe legitimacy of the dominant culture the more it is accomplished, i.e. the more completely it succeeds in imposing misrecognition of the do inant arbitrary not only on the legitimate addresses of the PA but a on the members of the dominated groups or classes (the dorm ideology of the legitimate culture as the only authentic culture, i.e. universal culture).

3.2.2.1.2. In any given social formation, the PW through which the dominant PA is carried on always has a function of keeping order, i.. of reproducing the structure of the power relations between the groups or classes, inasmuch as, by inculcation or exclusion, it tends to impose recognition of the legitimacy of the dominant culture on the members of the dominated groups or classes, and to make them internalize, to a variable extent, disciplines and censorships which best serve the material and symbolic interests of the dominant groups or classes when they take the form of self discipline and self-censorship.

3.2.2.1.3. In any given social formation, because the PW through which the dominant PA is carried on tends to impose recognition of the legitimacy of the dominant culture on the members of the dominated groups or classes, it tends at the same time to impose on them, by inculcation or exclusion, recognition of the illegitimacy of their own cultural arbitrary.

3.3. Insofar as PW is an irreversible process producing, in the time required for inculcation, an irreversible disposition, i.e. a disposition which cannot itself be repressed or transformed except by an irreversible process producing in turn a new irreversible disposition, primary PA (the earliest phase of upbringing), which is carried out by PW without any antecedent (primary PWJ, produces a primary habitus, characteristic of a group or class, which is the basis for the subsequent formation of any other habitus.

3.3.1. The specific degree of productivity of any PW other than primary PW (secondary PWJ is a function of the distance between the habitus it tends to inculcate (i.e. the cultural arbitrary it imposes) and the habitus inculcated by the previous phases of PW and ultimately by primary PW (i.e. the initial cultural arbitrary).

3.3.1.1. Any given mode of inculcation is characterized (in the respect considered in 3.3.1) by the position it occupies between (1) the mode of inculcation aiming to bring about the complete substitution of one . habitus for another (conversion) and (2) the mode of inculcation aiming purely and simply to confirm the primary habitus (maintenance or reinforcement).

3.3.1.2. Given that the primary habitus inculcated by primary PW is the basis for the subsequent formation of any other habitus, the degree of specific productivity of any phase of secondary PW is measured, in this respect, by the degree to which the system of the means required for carrying out the PW (the mode of inculcation) objectively takes account of the distance between the habitus it aims to inculcate and the habitus produced by previous PW

3.3.1.3. The degree of traditionalism of a mode of inculcation is measured by the degree to which it is objectively organized by reference to a limited audience of legitimate addressees, i.e. the degree to which the success of the secondary PW presupposes that the addressees be equipped with the adequate habitus (i.e. the pedagogic ethos and cultural capital proper to the groups or classes whose cultural arbitrary it reproduces).

3.3.1.3.1. Because, in any given social formation, the dominant mode of inculcation tends to correspond to the interests of the dominant classes, i. e. the legitimate addressees, the differential productivity of the dominant PW according to the groups or classes on whom it is exerted tends to be a function of the distance between the primary habitus inculcated by primary PW within the different groups or classes and the
habitus inculcated by the dominant PW (i.e. the extent to which education or acculturation is re-education or deculturation, depending on the group or class).

3.3.2. Given (1) that the making explicit and the formalizing of the principles at work in a practice, i.e. symbolic mastery of that practice, must logically and chronologically follow practical mastery of those principles, i.e. that symbolic mastery is never its own foundation; and given (2) that symbolic mastery is irreducible to the practical mastery from which it proceeds and to which it nonetheless adds its own effect: it follows (a) that all secondary PW produces secondary practices irreducible to the primary practices of which it gives symbolic mastery, and (b) that the secondary mastery which it produces presupposes a previous mastery which is that much closer to simple practical mastery of practices, the earlier this secondary PW comes in the biographical order.

3.3.2.1. Any given mode of inculcation, i.e. the system of the means by which the internalization of a cultural arbitrary is produced, is characterized (in the respect considered in 3.3.2) by the position it occupies between (1) the mode of inculcation producing a habitus by the unconscious inculcation of principles which manifest themselves only in their practical state, within the practice that is imposed (implicit pedagogy), and (2) the mode of inculcation producing a habitus by the inculcation, methodically organized as such, of articulated and even formalized principles (explicit pedagogy).

3.3.2.2. Given that all secondary PW has the essential effect of producing practices irreducible to the practices of which it gives symbolic mastery, the degree of specific productivity of any phase of secondary PW is measured in this respect by the degree to which the system of the means required for carrying out the PW (the mode of inculcation) is objectively organized with a view to ensuring, by explicit inculcation of codified formal principles, the formal transferability of the habitus.

3.3.2.3. The degrees of traditionalism of any mode of inculcation is measured by the degree to which the means required for carrying out PW are reduced to the practices which express the habitus and which tend, by the mere fact of being performed repeatedly by agents invested with PAu, to reproduce directly a habitus defined by practical transferability.

3.3.2.3.1. In any given social formation, the primary PW to which the members of the different groups or classes are subjected rests more completely on practical transferability the more rigorously the material conditions of their existence subject them to the imperatives of practice, tending thereby to prevent the formation and development of the aptitude for symbolic mastery of practice.

3.3.3. Given the delegation on which it is based, the dominant FA tends to dispense more completely with explicit inculcation of the prerequisites of its specific productivity, the more completely the legitimate addressees have mastered the dominant culture, i.e. the greater the proportion of what it is mandated to inculcate (capital and ethos) that has already been inculcated by the primary PW of the dominant groups or classes.

3.3.3.1. In a social formation in which, both in pedagogic practice and in all social practices the dominant cultural arbitrary subordinates practical mastery to symbolic mastery of practices, the dominant PW tends to dispense with explicit inculcation of the principles. giving symbolic mastery, the more completely practical mastery of the principles giving symbolic mastery has already been inculcated in the legitimate addressees by the primary PW of the dominant groups or classes.

3.3.3.2. Given that, in the type of social formation defined in 3.3.3.1, the dominant PW which uses a traditional mode of inculcation (in the sense of 3.3.1.3 and 3.3.2.3) has a specific productivity that much lower when it is exerted on groups or classes carrying out primary PW more remote from the dominant primary PW which inculcates, inter alia, a predominantly verbal practical mastery, such PW tends in and by its very exercise to produce the delimitation of its really possible addressees, excluding the different groups or classes more rapidly the more completely they lack the capital and ethos objectively presupposed by its mode of inculcation.

3.3.3.3. Given that, in the type of social formation defined in 3.3.3.1, the dominant secondary PW which uses a traditional mode of inculcation and is defined as not fully producing the conditions for its own productivity, can fulfil its eliminatory function merely by default, such PW tends to produce not only the delimitation of its really possible addressees, but also misrecognition of the mechanisms of delimitation, i.e. tends to bring about recognition of its actual addressees as the legitimate addressees and of the length of the inculcation actually undergone by the different groups or classes as the legitimate length of inculcation.

3.3.3.4. Given that, in the type of social formation defined in 3.3.3.1, the dominant secondary PW which uses a traditional mode of inculcation does not explicitly inculcate the prerequisites of its specific pro- ` ductivity, such PW tends, by its very exercise, to produce the legitimacy of that mode of possession of the prerequisite acquirements on which `; the dominant classes have a monopoly because they monopolize the 1, legitimate mode of inculcation, i.e. inculcation of the principles of the legitimate culture in their practical state through primary PW (the cultivated relation to legitimate culture as a relation of familiarity).

3.3.3.5. Given that, in the type of social formation defined in 3.3.3.1, the dominant secondary PW which uses a traditional mode of inculcation does not explicitly inculcate the prerequisites of its specific productivity, such PW presupposes, produces and inculcates, in and through its exercise, ideologies tending to justify the question-begging which is the condition of its exercise (the ideology of the gift' as a negation of the social conditions of the production of cultivated dispositions).