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Calculating student aspiration: Bourdieu, spatiality and the politics of recognition

Version 2 2024-06-13, 09:05
Version 1 2015-07-28, 14:23
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-13, 09:05 authored by T Gale, S Parker
This paper reports on a recent study of aspirations for higher education by secondary school students from disadvantaged backgrounds in regional Australia. At the same time, it goes in search of explanations that transcend a Bourdieuian account of aspirations as produced by and reproductive of cultural histories and dominance, given the apparent inadequacy of these accounts in redressing disadvantage. To this end the authors distinguish between historicising and spatialising aspirations, taking up Appadurai’s notion of navigational capacity as a way of advancing greater agency for disadvantaged groups. Data from the research inform the analysis, including the mediation of students’ desired futures by their perception of what is possible given their differentiated locations and access to resources. It is concluded that while this spatial turn in theorising aspiration has potential for changing the terms of recognition internal to disadvantaged communities, there remain structural limits on change ‘from below’.

History

Journal

Cambridge journal of education

Volume

45

Pagination

81-96

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

0305-764X

eISSN

1469-3577

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2015, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education

Issue

1

Publisher

Routledge