Engage Me: Walking With Bourdieu at the Intersection of Language and Capital in Urban Education

• In Event: 75.058 - Student and Teacher Experiences in Diverse, Urban Settings

Abstract

Schools often contribute to a static and normatized state of social reproduction of inequities; they can also contribute to dynamic change. Though cultural capital is within reach, it is often limited through language, class, and racial identities, especially for African American students. Using Bourdieu’s cultural approach to class analysis, contextualized in 15 years of classroom teaching, this conceptual paper addresses the sticky connectedness of embodied, objectified, and institutionalized states of cultural capital in urban schools. It echoes the demand to shift from a deficit mindset to explore access to cultural capital. This paper offers a framework for disrupting the social reproduction of inequities in education, to push and open space for students to engage and learn.

Author

• Abigail Rombalski, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities