ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates how Bourdieu’s field theory can be used to systematise ethnographic insights, establishing and validating connections between the micro-level of participants’ experiences and macro-level contexts, whilst complementing and facilitating the reflexivity that has long been part of ethnographic traditions. Combining an ethnographic methodological design with a Bourdieusian conceptual framework provides opportunities for powerful critical analysis and contextualised socio-political commentary, particularly in the context of the neoliberalisation of education at all levels. To illustrate, this article presents examples from a study that examines the dilemmas that English primary school teachers experience as they try to enact creative pedagogies, which emphasise innovation, flexibility and autonomy, whilst adhering to neoliberal policy directives that demand conformity and standardisation. Bourdieu offers a language to acknowledge and explain such tensions as well as exposing ‘common sense’ neoliberal narratives and the mechanisms which embed relationships of domination into educational institutions and other social structures.

摘要

本文展示了如何使用布迪厄的场域理论来系统化民族志见解，建立和验证参与者经验的微观层面与宏观层面背景之间的联系，同时补充和促进长期以来一直是民族志传统一部分的反身性。将民族志方法论设计与布迪厄式概念框架相结合，为强有力的批判性分析和语境化的社会政治评论提供了机会，尤其是在各级教育新自由主义化的背景下。为了说明这一点，本文提供了一项研究的示例，该研究考察了英语小学教师在尝试制定强调创新、灵活性和自主性的创造性教学法时所遇到的困境，同时坚持要求一致性和标准化的新自由主义政策指令。布迪厄提供了一种语言来承认和解释这种紧张关系，并揭露“常识”新自由主义叙事和将统治关系嵌入教育机构和其他社会结构的机制。