Pierre bourdieu contribution to sociology
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Pierre Bourdieu
French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher (1930–2002)
Pierre Bourdieu (, ; French:[pjɛʁbuʁdjø]; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual.[4][5] Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence in several related academic fields (e.g. anthropology, media and cultural studies, education, popular culture, and the arts). During his academic career he was primarily associated with the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris and the Collège de France.
Bourdieu's work was primarily concerned with the dynamics of power in society, especially the diverse and subtle ways in which power is transferred and social order is maintained within and across generations. In conscious opposition to the idealist tradition of much of Western philosophy, his work often emphasized the corporeal nature of social life and stressed the role of practice and embodiment in social dynamics. Building upon
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Pierre Bourdieu’s exploration of how the social order is reproduced, and inequality persists across generations, is more pertinent than ever. We examine some key lessons for educators and pedagogues.
contents: introduction • Pierre Bourdieu – life • habitus • field • capital • exploring reproduction • developing practice • conclusion • references and further reading • acknowledgements • how to cite this piece
Introduction
Pierre Bourdieu’s (1930-2002) theorizing has become a major focus for exploration within sociology. His work, and that of Michel Foucault, is amongst the most frequently cited of the late twentieth-century social theorists. New generations of researchers have continued to look to him (see, for example, Thatcher et. al. 2018) and with justification. Bourdieu’s exploration of how the social order is reproduced, and inequality persists across generations, is more pertinent than ever. The concepts he marshals shed considerable light, for example, on the dynamics at work for educators and pedagogues. Schooling, academic institutions and local structures
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Theorising Practice II: Habitus/Hexis
Posted by Phil Hine in Occult | March 23rd 2010 | About poster:
One of the consequences of the mind (theory)-body(practice) divide in contemporary approaches to magic (and more widely, spiritual development in general) is the notion that the spiritual/magical is set apart from the material/everyday world. There is a pervasive belief that materiality (and the concerns that relate to it) is a burden to be overcome; that development requires that the concerns of the body be transcended. This kind of discourse tends to privilege abstracted knowledge over bodied experience. Yet all practices (including those understood as inwardly turning, such as meditation or visualisation) involve our bodies.
In reflecting on the primacy of practice as bodied experience I want to highlight one of the “thinking tools” of Pierre Bourdieu – Habitus and the related idea of Hexis.
Bourdieu’s approach to practice (see Outline of a Theory of Practice) is that not all learning is explicit and gained through disco
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