British Journal of Sociology of Education 

About: British Journal of Sociology of Education is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Higher education & Sociology of Education. It has an ISSN identifier of 0142-5692. Over the lifetime, 1934 publications have been published receiving 72045 citations. The journal is also known as: BJSE.

‘It's all becoming a habitus’: beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research

Abstract: The concept of habitus lies at the heart of Bourdieu's theoretical framework. It is a complex concept that takes many shapes and forms in Bourdieu's own writing, even more so in the wider sociological work of other academics. In the first part of this paper I develop an understanding of habitus, based on Bourdieu's many writings on the concept, that recognizes both its permeability and its ability to capture continuity and change. I also map its relationship to Bourdieu's other concepts, in particular field and cultural capital. In the second part of the paper I examine attempts to operationalize habitus in empirical research in education. I critique the contemporary fashion of overlaying research analyses with Bourdieu's concepts, including habitus, rather than making the concepts work in the context of the data and the research settings. In the final part of the paper I draw on a range of research examples that utilize habitus as a research tool to illustrate how habitus can be made to work in education...

Vertical and Horizontal Discourse: An essay

Abstract: The analysis in this paper has its origins in a critical account of the sociology of education (Bernstein, 1975) where the various approaches to the study of sociology were taken as the distinguishing feature of the discourse. This matter was further developed (Bernstein, 1996), with the distinction between vertical and horizontal discourses and their various modalities introduced in the context of differentiating this mode of analysis from more 'Bourdieuan' perspectives. This present paper is concerned with filling out and extending the sketches adumbrated in earlier work in a more accessible form. The model proposed generates a language which relates the internal structure of specialised knowledges, the positional nature of their fields or arenas of practice, identity constructions and their change, and the forms of acquisition for successful performances.

Globalizing education policy

Abstract: Globalizing education policy, by Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard, Abingdon, Routledge, 2010, 240 pp., £23.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-415-41627-6

'The degree is not enough' : students' perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability

Abstract: The UK Government is calling upon higher education students to see their learning as an investment that will give them direct benefits in the labour market. At the same time, the relationship between educational credentials and their returns in labour market has been changing in recent times. Based on a qualitative study with 53 final‐year undergraduate students in a pre‐1992 university, this article examines the way higher education students understand the role of their educational credentials in relation to their future employability. It shows that students perceive their academic qualifications as having a declining role in shaping their employment outcomes in what is perceived to be a congested and competitive graduate labour market. While academic credentials are still seen as a significant dimension of their employability, students increasingly see the need to add value to them in order to gain an advantage in the labour market.

Careership: a sociological theory of career decision making

Abstract: In the current discourse on the transition from school to work, career decision‐making has a pivotal but paradoxical position. Sociological literature emphasises the dominance of socially‐structured pathways, whilst policy‐making operates on assumptions of individual freedom to choose. In this paper we draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to present a new model of career decision‐making, given the shorthand title of ‘careership’. There are three completely integrated dimensions to the model. These are (i) pragmatically rational decision‐making, located in the habitus of the person making the decision; (ii) the interactions with others in the (youth training) field, related to the unequal resources different ‘players’ possess; and (iii) the location of decisions within the partly unpredictable pattern of turning‐points and routines that make up the life course. This model avoids the twin pitfalls of implicit social determinism or of seeing (young) people as completely free agents.