Conference Program

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory has been useful for exploring and understanding transitions and experiences associated with educational inequalities. By applying his fundamental triad made up of habitus, field and capital (Bourdieu, 1990), as well as other sophisticated ideas such as illusio, social magic and symbolic violence (Ingram & Allen, 2019; Nairz-Wirth et al., 2017; Wilkinson et al., 2026), to name just a few, researchers around the world have been able to disentangle educational gaps and divisions in their respective contexts.

Following this line of research, this paper focuses on one of the most fundamental concepts in Bourdieu’s theoretical framework: recognition (Bourdieu, 2000), which has often been overlooked or taken for granted. In doing so, I aim to expand Bourdieu’s ideas on the matter by linking them to Axel Honneth’s (2005) contributions. Thereby, this paper shows how some essential elements of Honneth’s perspective on recognition can complement Bourdieu’s ideas in exploring educational inequalities, particularly in relation to the field of higher education.

Empirically, this paper draws on data from two studies in Chile of students at different stages of their educational trajectories. The first group comprises students from intermediate and lower positions in the social space who are in the process of transition from school to higher education, while the second group consists of students at elite universities from working-class or less privileged social backgrounds. Considering these cases, this paper reflects on how Honneth’s ideas – e.g., the struggle for recognition, disrespect, and ideological forms of recognition (Honneth, 2005, 2012) – can shed light on students’ experiences of social inequalities and meritocratic striving in higher education within contemporary societies. Overall, this paper shows how Honneth’s critical theory and concepts can strengthen Bourdieusian analysis of educational inequalities.

The purpose of education is frequently presented in policy discourse as self-evident and technical: raising learning levels, enhancing human capital, ensuring inclusion. Yet to ask what education is for is a normative and political question about the forms of knowledge legitimised, capacities valued, and desired futures. Far from being settled, the purpose of education constitutes a field of struggle.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, doxa, and symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1977; 1991; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), this paper conceptualises educational purpose as a structured terrain in which multiple narratives coexist, yet are differentially institutionalised through classificatory regimes. Symbolic power operates through the naturalisation of these classifications, rendering certain purposes necessary and marginalising others.

Educational inequality, in this framing, is not only a matter of unequal resources but of symbolic stratification: some aspirations acquire institutional force, while others remain rhetorically affirmed yet structurally weak. The struggle over purpose therefore organises hierarchies of recognition, determining which capacities and futures are rendered legitimate.

The contemporary policy moment—particularly in the Global South contexts—is not characterised by a singular dominant doxa, but by what we term ‘structured hybridity’: the layering and partial incorporation of emerging narratives (well-being, holistic development, inclusion, cultural rootedness) within enduring developmentalist and technocratic architectures. Pluralism of purposes here does not imply equality. Coexistence occurs under asymmetrical conditions in which measurable, performance-oriented purposes are more readily convertible into standards, assessments, funding streams, and accountability mechanisms.

The argument is grounded in the India leg of a qualitative, participatory study examining how narratives about the purpose of education shape systems transformation and children’s opportunities to thrive. Our analysis of India’s National Education Policy 2020, alongside dialogic Exploration Circles with educational actors, reveals a ‘foundational–measurable–future-ready–cultural–inclusive’ architecture of purpose. While equity and well-being are prominently articulated, the policy’s operational levers—standards, assessments, and governance reforms—continue to privilege measurable and performance-oriented rationalities. This selective convertibility produces layered inequalities of recognition, instrumentality, and futurity. Emerging relational aims are incorporated, yet often subordinated to technocratic logics.

This hybridity is mirrored at the level of system actors who articulate economic mobility, cultural continuity, democratic participation, and human flourishing as simultaneous aspirations. Yet these purposes are differentially convertible into institutional instruments. As a result, thriving-oriented narratives frequently circulate as moral commitments without equivalent structural force.

The paper argues that the relationship between education and democracy cannot be understood solely through civic outcomes. Democracy is at stake in the struggle over whose definitions of educational purpose become authoritative, institutionalised, and materially consequential. By theorising structured hybridity, the paper refines analytical vocabularies for studying educational inequality beyond redistribution alone, foregrounding the role of symbolic power in organising plural purposes. Introducing thriving as a relational horizon, it expands imaginaries of democratic education toward dignity, belonging, care and collective flourishing. Rather than prescribing a singular purpose, the paper examines how plural purposes are negotiated within unequal symbolic terrains—and with what consequences for every child’s opportunity to thrive.

This paper brings Pierre Bourdieu into dialogue with care ethics to examine the implications of educational integration policies targeting students from disadvantaged backgrounds (low socioeconomic status, immigrant origin, and their intersection). Drawing on 71 in-depth interviews with teachers, administrative staff, students, and parents in four lower secondary schools on the periphery of Milan, the empirical analysis explores how institutionalized practices intended to promote integration may paradoxically constrain care’s transformative potential.

The argument is not that teachers do not care; their intentions and efforts are evident. However, analysis of the empirical material suggests that care is shaped by the habitus of those who provide it. Where significant misalignment of habitus exists between teachers and students from disadvantaged contexts, care risks operating through reciprocity rather than responsiveness. In Joan Tronto’s (1993) ethics of care, responsiveness requires attending to the other’s expressed position rather than extending to them what one would consider care for oneself.

Reflexivity – the capacity to interrogate one’s dispositions and assumptions – is crucial for responsiveness and thus the enactment of care that is transformative; yet institutionalization may weaken it. In Zygmunt Bauman’s (1993) terms, institutional arrangements can anesthetize moral reflection by delegating responsibility to procedures. At the same time, teachers act as street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980), whose discretionary space can enable context-sensitive and responsive practice. However, analysis of interviews suggests that the proliferation of institutional solutions may limit the potential of this space by implying that inequalities have already been adequately addressed.

Under these conditions, a double-layered symbolic violence may emerge: first, through the universalism of schooling, which presents itself as neutral while reproducing inequality; and second, through integration policies shaped by the habitus of those who design and implement them. What appears as integration may therefore function as another veil obscuring relations of domination.

The paper concludes that care can become transformative only when institutional arrangements cultivate reflexivity, enabling teachers to respond to students’ needs rather than relying solely on standardized procedures. By situating Bourdieu in conversation with care ethics, the analysis refines the conceptual vocabulary for understanding educational inequalities and highlights the importance of institutional design in enabling or constraining the transformative possibilities of care in schools.

Students’ dispositions towards school and learning are neither neutral nor equally distributed (Tarabini, 2023). Building on Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of education (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; 1979; Bourdieu, 1984), research has long shown how schools privilege ways of feeling, thinking and acting historically associated with the middle classes, thereby contributing to the reproduction of social hierarchies. Yet, the processes through which these affinities become embodied as durable dispositions remain underexplored. This paper proposes to revisit Bourdieu’s concept of taste, as elaborated in Distinction (1984), to analyse the unequal construction of students’ emotional dispositions towards learning at school.

Conceptualising taste as a symbolic-affective disposition embedded in the habitus opens up a notion that is often psychologised or naturalised through the ideology of natural gifts (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Following Bourdieu, taste is understood not as an individual preference but as a socially constituted disposition that appears natural and self-evident (Bourdieu, 1984). Precisely because of this misrecognised character, taste plays a key role in legitimising power relations and obscuring the social conditions underpinning educational inequalities. In school settings, what counts as “good taste” in learning -valued forms of knowledge, expression, participation, and relation to school- is defined by dominant groups and protected by symbolic boundaries (Skeggs, 2004). As such, taste operates as a mechanism of differentiation and exclusion, positioning students hierarchically within educational institutions.

Empirically, the paper draws on findings from a qualitative research project that examines the unequal constitution of young people’s dispositions towards school learning in terms of their taste and distaste. The study combines seven focus groups, twenty-one semi-structured interviews, and a four-month ethnography conducted in two secondary schools with different pedagogical projects. Participants were students aged 13-14 from diverse social backgrounds. Particular attention is paid to the intersections of class and gender, and to how these interact with institutional contexts to shape differentiated relations to knowledge, pedagogical methods, and school cultures.

The findings reveal patterned inequalities in how students develop symbolic-affective orientations towards school learning. While some students experience consonance between their habitus and the dominant norms of schooling, facilitating smooth trajectories and a sense of belonging, others experience misalignment, producing forms of distaste that manifest as disengagement or the feeling that “school is not for them.” By foregrounding taste as an analytical bridge between habitus, affect, and institutional practices, the paper contributes to refining Bourdieusian approaches to the study of educational inequality. More broadly, it suggests that recognising and challenging the symbolic boundaries that define “legitimate” taste in schooling may open possibilities for more relational and democratically just educational practices.

The concepts of habitus and identity are central in the sociology of education. However, their longstanding relation has been under-theorised. Despite their prominence in analyses of inequality, these terms are frequently conflated, used interchangeably, or treated in isolation, leaving their conceptual articulation unresolved. This communication seeks to bridge this gap by drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1990, 2000) theory of practice alongside significant feminist sociology extensions—notably the work of Diane Reay (2015), Nicola Ingram (2019), and Louise Archer (2003) —while also engaging in a dialogue with Stuart Hall’s (2019) theorization of identity and identifications.

In our presentation, we argue that a precise analytical distinction between habitus and identity is essential for understanding how social structures and individual agency interact within educational fields. Integrating these traditions, the framework conceptualizes habitus through the lens of scholars like Reay, who highlights its emotional and psychosocial dimensions, and Ingram, who explores "habitus under tension" during social mobility. Furthermore, it incorporates Archer’s focus on identity as a performative and relational act through which individuals seek recognition and negotiate belonging. Together, these perspectives show that while habitus orients what feels natural or desirable, identity becomes most visible in moments of friction or misalignment between dispositions and social fields.

Central to this proposal is the metaphor of a tree: habitus represents the "roots"—a hidden but stable structure that draws on the "soil" of structural position to nourish social action. In contrast, identifications are the "leaves"—visible, exposed, and constantly reshaped by the "wind and light" of situational conditions. While habitus operates at a pre-reflexive level with a degree of stability, identifications are more flexible, situational, and potentially reflexive, allowing agents to negotiate who they are in response to specific contexts.

Our paper develops a relational model of identification structured around four key dimensions: becoming, positioning, interacting, and enabling. First, identifications are processes of "becoming" rather than fixed essences, emphasizing the ongoing, processual nature of self-construction. Second, "positioning" highlights how identifications are forged within the frames of available discourses and "doxas" in a particular social field. Third, the "interacting" dimension underscores that identities are constructed through intersubjective recognition or misrecognition in everyday social encounters. Finally, "enabling" accounts for the mobilization of material and symbolic capitals—economic, social, cultural, and symbolic—required to sustain specific identifications.

This framework strengthens intersectional analysis by showing how multiple axes of power, such as class, gender, and ethnicity, are mediated through both embodied dispositions and situational identity work. By distinguishing between durable dispositions and situated negotiations, the model provides researchers with heuristic tools to examine how educational inequalities are lived and reproduced. Ultimately, the communication advocates for a non-deterministic reading of Bourdieu that recognizes the possibility of transformation while remaining anchored in the structural realities that shape individuals' trajectories.