Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Using habitus and field to explore Access to Higher Education students’ learning identities
Dr Nalita James, Senior Lecturer in Lifelong Learning, Director of Teaching and Learning
Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester, 128 Regent Road, Leicester, LE1 7PA, UK
T: 01162525957
Dr Hugh Busher, Senior Lecturer in Education,
School of Education, University of Leicester, 21 University Road, Leicester, LE1 7PA, UK
T: 01162523688
1
Using habitus and field to explore Access to Higher Education students’ learning identities
Abstract
Despite the diversification of the student population in higher education, there has been little empirical research on the impact of Access to Higher Education (AHE) courses, on mature students’ learning identities, and of the changes in higher education policy on their chances to participate. Using data from a study examining AHE students’ learning transitions at three further education colleges in the East Midlands in England, we employ Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and the complexities of the relations between habitus and field to understand how AHE students experience and conceptualise their positions as they (re)engage in formal learning. The article will draw on the study’s findings to show how the AHE students’ participate in these fields, and the learner identities that emerge. For the purposes of the article three themes are discussed. These relate to the AHE students’ reticence towards learning and difficult educational beginnings; transforming leaner identities and learning to become a learner. It will argue that when immersed in new fields, AHE students can develop strategies and nuanced understandings of their previous experiences, social background and different learning cultures and contexts to inform the development of their learner identities. By doing this article shows how Bourdieu’s ideas of habitus and field can be used to critically evaluate the effects of this interplay on mature learners’ dis/positions and activities within their AHE course and their career decision-making.
Keywords (4):
Capital, mature learners, Bourdieu, habitus/field, identities, transitions
2
Introduction
The first Access to Higher Education (AHE) courses were established in the late 1970s across
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The main purpose of these courses, since their inception,
has been the provision for mature students (aged 19 years plus) of a one-year diploma course
as preparation for entry into higher education (HE), in terms of both the subject knowledge and
generic skills required for progression. The success of the early AHE courses led to their further
development to encourage people to return to education who were ‘excluded, delayed or
otherwise deterred by a need to qualify for (university) entry in more conventional ways’
(Parry, 1996, p.11). Although definitions of ‘mature’ continue to change, this primary purpose
remains a fundamental principle for AHE courses.
In the late eighties, AHE courses were acknowledged as the third recognised route into higher
education and provision was extended through a national framework of recognition for the
courses. The intention was to promote public confidence in AHE as a properly regulated and
respected route into higher education (Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) which provided:
new opportunities not only to those who may be recognised in statistical tables as
'under-represented' in higher education, but also to individuals who may not fall into
those familiar categories, but who, from the circumstances of their individual lives, are
undoubtedly disadvantaged (QAA, 2012 online)
AHE courses are awarded by Access Validating Agencies (AVAs) which are regulated by the
Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). The courses are usually offered through a variety of subject-
focused pathways such as nursing and midwifery, social sciences, or business studies. Currently
they recruit about 40,000 adults a year (QAA, 2012) of whom about half go on to HE. They are a
major element in reducing educational disadvantage (Jones, 2006) and widening participation
in HE but are often regarded as the ‘Cinderella of the education system’ (Franklin, 2006:1).
These courses are largely taught in Further Education (FE) colleges in England and Wales,
institutions that are neither part of the school sector nor the higher education sector. FE
colleges provide ‘opportunities for lifelong learning and a means of promoting economic
3
growth and social cohesion’ (Jephcote et al., 2008:164) through vocational education courses,
particularly for those people who have previously under-achieved in education (Fenge, 2011).
They generally have a collaborative ethos or culture which supports mature learners
(Warmington, 2003) and helps to dispel a sense of social disadvantage held by non-traditional
adult students (Dillon, 2010) from lower social status and Black and Ethnic Minority (BME)
backgrounds.
Despite the diversification and expansion of HE in the last decade, and the impact of changes in
HE policy on the chances of mature students to participate, our research work has highlighted
the lack of empirical studies on AHE courses (James et al, 2012). Further, the literatures on
changing learner identities and participation in adult learning, and on adult learners’ transitions
to HE tend to ignore AHE students. Researchers who have examined non-traditional learners’
experiences of compulsory education have highlighted how such experiences can be deeply
rooted in an explicit rejection of education and influenced by historic experiences of education,
which are particularly negative (Warmington, 2003; Brine and Waller, 2004; Jones, 2006, Dillon,
2010). The purpose of this paper is to better understand, using Bourdieu’s theory of habitus
and field, the AHE students’ discourses and experiences of the different causes of
marginalisation that they experience, and how in becoming an AHE student, there is the
potential for change, most realised through the individual’s shifting dispositions as they come
into contact with new fields. It is recognised that the arguments about the relationships
between habitus and field in relation to education have been rehearsed elsewhere (see for
example Reay, 2004; Tett and Maclachlan, 2007; Hodkinson et al, 2008; Fenge, 2011).
Nonetheless, it is important to focus on AHE students who come from less privileged
backgrounds, to investigate whether they can overcome a relative lack of relevant human,
social and cultural capital to secure access to higher education.
4
AHE students’ learner identities, habitus and field
Habitus is a ‘durable but transposable set of dispositions, representing the physical and mental
embodiment of the social but at the same time offering choices’ (James and Bloomer, 2001:
34). The notion of habitus also helps construe the interplay between past and present that is
created through primary socialisation into the world through family, culture and the milieu of
education. Thus it is not just a set of attitudes and values, but is embodied, in terms of how
people feel and think. Further, habitus is constantly remade, permeable and responsive to what
is going on around people and to their choices (including the success or failure of previous
actions). In the study we took habitus to include AHE students’ experiences of, and
relationships with their courses and tutors, their expectations of teaching and learning, and
how they engaged with the learning situation.
Habitus also enabled us to conceive of the complex ways in which the AHE students possessed
different dispositions in relation to their compulsory education experiences, and how these
were ‘differentiated through their embodiments of these dispositions.’ (Abrahams and Ingram,
2013:4). Students can develop a particular habitus from their field of origin (the local field),
which may or may not be compatible with the field of FE creating a ‘dialectical confrontation’
(Bourdieu, 2002:31). A field is a structured system of social relations at micro and macro level,
rather like a field of forces in which positions are defined relationally, that is in relation to each
other (James and Bloomer, 2001: 35).The relation between habitus and field can operate by
structuring the habitus or by ‘constituting the field as a meaningful world, a world endowed
with sense or with value, in which it is worth investing one's energy’ (Bourdieu, in Wacquant,
1989:44). It is a fluid set of dispositions that are constantly changing as individuals go through
different experiences and interact with new fields. Field can both influence changes in people’s
habitus, but can also be influenced by individuals who come to them, resulting in either
reproductive or transformative responses, identities or dispositions on the part of the individual
and the institution (Wyn and White, 1998). We understood the field as consisting of the
relations between AHE students and staff, academics and managers, the FE contexts and
institutional structures and processes individuals studied and worked within, and the
5
communities constructed in them to guide particular ways of working. The learning
communities within the AHE courses were not only shaped by the dispositions of staff and
students, but by the relationships between students and staff, academics and managers, and
institutional and course structures and processes (see James et al 2015, in press, for a more
detailed discussion).
If habitus is our dispositions and cognitions, and field the arena in which we seek to either
maintain or improve our social position, capital plays a significant role in producing and
reproducing profits in individuals’ life opportunities (Tett and Maclachlan, 2007). Individuals
have different forms of capital, depending on their social class, gender or race, which can have
deficits or benefits for their individual biographies, and stocks of capital can be in constant
tension or alignment with the field (Davey, 2009). As Bourdieu writes, ‘capital is a social relation
… which only exists and produces its effects in the field in which it is produced and reproduced’
(1989: 113). These can include cultural capital (which consists of what is perceived to be
legitimate knowledge, skills and titles), social capital (networks of social connections that exist
between people who hold shared values and behaviours), or economic capital (wealth and
money). The acquisition of one or more of these types of capital allows people to gain status
and power within society. However, the different forms of capital are highly contextual, and
whereas they may be valued in one field they may be devalued in others, where the struggles
over particular forms of capital take place (Swain and Hammond, 2010).
Research suggests that developing an identity as a learner is shaped by the complex interaction
of a number of factors that relate to social capital, because learning is essentially a social
activity (Tett and Maclachlan, 2007). This can include past learning experiences and the impact
of family influences upon them, as well as the norms and values of the social networks that
individuals belong to (Crossan et al, 2003). For example, middle-class parents who know from
experience and knowledge how the institution of education works have the capital to help their
children to benefit from it (Bourdieu, 1989:179). Those individuals who grow up in a culture of
low educational expectations are more likely to develop a habitus that does not understand its
6
importance. Identities can be attached to individuals by powerful others, but they also create a
sense of self, through or despite others’ constructions of themselves (Tett and Maclachlan,
2007:8). For AHE students, their ‘human capital’, such as a secure sense of identity, confidence
in expressing one’s own opinions, and emotional intelligence, to become successful learners.
They can have fragile or negative learner identities that are mediated by their perceptions of
past educational experiences in their field of origin and the dispositions that arise from these. If
they feel they do not fit in, that their social and cultural practices are inappropriate and that
their tacit knowledge is undervalued, they may be less inclined to return to education (Crossan
et al., 2003). They fear their learning experiences will be riven with tensions between them as
agents, others, and the social and institutional structures they encounter (O’Donnell and
Tobbell, 2007).
7
For Bourdieu, individuals are always positioned relative to others, but these positions vary at
different times, in different places and are continuously adapted. Although their behaviours can
be patterned, to say that they follow a pre-programmed destiny overlooks that habitus includes
the ‘permanent capacity for invention’ (Bourdieu 2004: 63). This possibility becomes clearer
when looking at individuals encountering new fields. Habitus and field enabled us to consider
the interplay of individual experiences, mediated by individual perceptions based on historic
experiences, and how fields, such as FE college/and or an AHE course, directly shaped habitus
and the practice of individuals through collective practices and organisational forms (Abraham
and Ingrams, 2013). Prior learning experiences can act to provide a general disposition, a turn
towards what Bourdieu terms ‘cultured habitus’ (1967:344), in which, the challenge of the
unfamiliar for students can result in a range of creative adaptations and accommodations that
are generally positive, even in normal situations (Reay et al., 2009). Students can successfully
move across different fields, combining strong connections and loyalties to family and home life
with more academic (middle-class) learning identities and dispositions. Identity is neither fixed
nor static, but fluid, multiple and transforming (Busher et al., 2013). Habitus can incorporate
multiple, overlapping learning identities and dispositions which make up and develop a person’s
life (Bauman, 2000) through the interplay between individual agency and identity, institutional
structures and social circumstances (Wyn and White, 1998), including their families and friends
through whom they develop social capital and acquire a habitus (Bourdieu, 1990). Thus, ‘social
capital is important for learning, and learning is important for social capital’ (Field, 2005: 110).
Having discussed some of the debates about the concepts of habitus and field, we introduce
the research, before considering what is revealed through the data.
The Research Study: Methodology and Method
The article draws upon qualitative data gathered as part of a one-year pilot study investigating
the impact of Access to Higher Education courses on students learning transitions. The study
involved a total of 3 FE colleges in the East Midlands of England in 2011-2012, each
8
representing geographical diversity, and focused on AHE courses in social/sciences and
humanities. College A and B were general colleges of FE each with a population around 10,000
students. They both offered a wide range of AHE courses, with College A specialising in teaching
and humanities. At the time of the study, there were approximately 100 full-time and part-time
AHE students in these colleges. College C was the largest, with 26,000 students and had the
biggest range of AHE courses and over 200 full and part-time AHE students (see James et al.,
2012 for more detail).
The study used an evaluative case study approach (Elis, 2003) which recognised the importance
of the learning milieu to understand the way in which learners make sense of themselves in
terms of their experiences of the AHE courses. This included the complex mesh of relationships
on the AHE courses and the FE colleges, as well as AHE student and tutor relationships. A linked
case study design (Miles and Huberman 1994) was also chosen to allow researchers to compare
findings between the three FE college sites, and the students’ learning experiences and
(re)constructions of their learner identities. It contributed to the trustworthiness of the study
by allowing the triangulation of participants’ perspectives to help construct a stable
interpretation of events (Reed-Danahay 2005). AHE tutors who taught these students were
invited to participate in individual semi-structured or group interviews on two occasions during
the year to provide an institutional perspective on the courses.
In collecting data from the AHE students, qualitative focus groups rather than individual
interviews were used. This increased our chances of capturing the students’ experiences as we
could fit the interviews into their busy course schedules and personal lives. We could access the
ways in which they experienced their ‘material, social and cultural worlds, and …the meanings
that they ascribed to their educational projects’ (Warmington, 2003:98-99). In adopting this
approach, the researchers did not assume that by being in an AHE class, habitus was the same.
Indeed, the focus groups provided data about a range of ideas and feelings that individual
participants had about certain issues, as well as illuminating the differences in perspective
between groups of individuals. We also found that the students helped each other in answering
questions, not least by providing prompts to each other. A particular strength of this approach
9
was that it allowed the participants to bring forward their own priorities and perspectives, as
well as responding to those of the researchers’, 'to create theory grounded in the actual
experience and language of [the participants]' (DuBois, 1983:108).
From each of the AHE courses, up to six students volunteered to participate in the study, and
ethical permission was gained from each participant via informed consent. The sample size
emerged purposively in each college to reflect the diversity of the total AHE cohort, rather than
constructing a representative sample from which generalizations could be attempted. Of the
total sample, 5 participants were male and 13 were female who were aged between 19 and 45
years with the majority aged between 24-35 years. The habitus and dispositions of the AHE
students reflected their complex personal lives. Many were single parents, some had histories
of illness or injuries, and others had limited incomes or were out work. All described themselves
as mature students because of their non-traditional backgrounds and differential life
experiences.
The participants were aware they could withdraw at any time, which one or two students in
each college chose to do by the end of their course. Students were asked: Why AHE students
after leaving school change their views on learning and themselves as learners; the nature and
importance of the learning relationships constructed on AHE courses; and how AHE students’
perceptions of their courses and HE are affected by changing policy contexts. Each focus group
interview lasted approximately 45 minutes. We traced their experience of the AHE course by
running a focus group three times in each college over an academic year. This longitudinal
approach allowed us to recognise the distanced travelled in terms of how students’ viewed their
learning and how perceptions of themselves as learners shifted during their studies, as well as
the nature of the transitions and transformations that they experienced as learners in preparing
themselves for HE (O’Donnell and Tobbell, 2007). The interview data was digitally recorded,
transcribed and analysed manually using inductive or open coding (Corbin and Strauss, 2008) to
allow participants' interests and priorities to lead the interpretation of the data.
Findings
10
The following section draws on aspects of the AHE students’ forming and changing learning
identities as they enter and participate in the multiple fields of the FE colleges and the AHE
courses. For the purposes of this article, three themes are discussed which highlight the nature
of the learning relationships and dispositions of the AHE students as learners, their experiences
of the AHE courses they were enrolled as well as their transition to new and different
educational environments. These themes are part of a continuous process of identity
construction representations through which the AHE students made sense of their experience:
AHE students’ reticence towards learning and difficult educational beginnings; transforming
leaner identities; and learning to become a learner.
Reticence towards formal learning: Difficult educational beginnings
The complexity of the AHE students’ lives impacted on their lack of confidence and uncertainty
about their ability as learners, reflecting their structural positions in terms of class, gender and
ethnicity. They described their negative experiences of school, and educational disadvantage
and self-exclusion having left school with few or no qualifications. These experiences had
shaped their negative, or at best fragile learner identities from the start of their education. One
participant made sense of his habitus by reflecting on experiences of compulsory education.
When I was in primary school I was classed as having learning difficulties. Didn’t get any
help with that when I was at primary school. So by the time I went to secondary school,
sitting down doing work weren’t something that I ever did. I just gave up… (College B)
The students’ narratives highlighted the different sorts of ‘cultural capital’, or different
knowledge or dispositions they had, and thus how they made sense of their past ‘failures’ in the
way that they described their experience of schooling:
Not a very good [learner] and I wasn’t particularly enjoying [the Access course] the first
couple of months we were doing it either...I hated school anyway. (College A)
11
The AHE students’ made sense of their learning journeys by reflecting on the failures of their
earlier educational experiences and structural disadvantage. They talked about losing interest
and becoming sick of education:
Up to 14 I did okay. Then we went to the upper school and I completely lost interest. I
had stuff going on at home and I wasn’t having the best time there either and I just
stopped going to the lessons. (College A)
There was a sense of anxiety and regret amongst AHE students about the poor learner
identities which informed their low opinion of who they were and their abilities to succeed, and
wasted school years. The potential for failure on AHE courses risked further harm to an already
low academic self-esteem. Further, there was a sense in which these individuals were
increasingly distant from the ‘formalised status of learner;’ they did not easily perceive
themselves as ‘student’ (Crossan et al., 2003:57).
A recurring factor in the narratives of the AHE students were unhappy secondary school
experiences which often resulted in inadequate literacy and numeracy skills. Their experiences
of educational disadvantage during early years of compulsory education led to a long-standing
impact on later participation in education (Gallacher et al., 2002). This in turn affected their
self-esteem and left them with limited employment opportunities:
I have been to xxxxx but didn’t complete. I didn’t even finish a year because I was too
young and didn’t know what I wanted to do (College B).
Some students had taken other courses before discovering AHE, highlighting already strong
motivations and desires for self-improvement that had already become incorporated into the
habitus. For them, learning appeared to be a strong part of their identity, in part because of
their cultural capital, but this did not necessarily lead to a successful learning experience as
noted by this participant who had the most continued engagement with education.
After [school] I decided to go to college to do hairdressing. Because I moved, I couldn’t
carry that on. So I then decided to do, it’s called an E to E course, Education to
12
Employment, to do hairdressing again after I’d moved. I completed that. Worked for a
little while as a hairdresser. Then I lost my job and I did an A4e course…After that I went
to…do maths equivalent, but I didn’t finish that because I decided to come here. (College
C)
Comments on difficult educational beginnings and negative previous educational experiences
are significant in understanding the AHE students’ disaffection from formal learning. The AHE
students were keen to change the trajectory of their early life experiences and socialisation. As
part of the process of on-going change and transformation, they made sense of their early
educational experiences and actively sought out to engage in further learning to transform their
learner identities. Enrolling on the AHE course was an integral part of this process.
The transformation of learning identities
A key aspect of the transformation process related to financial insecurities. Here there is
evidence of the AHE students as ‘instrumental learners’ (Reay et al., 2009), choosing the AHE
course as a way to get a ‘better’ job rather than be stuck in a dead end job. They saw
themselves as ‘not going anywhere’ as this participant noted.
….I think it was more a case of eight years of shift-work. Well a very real glass ceiling to
my earnings…Well it’s not a glass ceiling. It’s a concrete ceiling cos you’ve no
qualifications to see past it … just wanting to do something different and something
where it feels like you’re progressing as opposed to turning up, grinding your life away,
and going home and going to sleep wondering why the hell am I doing this. (College A).
Others had been confronted by redundancy and saw the AHE course as an opportunity to
retrain, as part of enhancing their own capital through the perceived benefits of taking the
course (Bourdieu, 1990). Learning was related to human capital – developing skills and
expertise, employment and life opportunities, which they believed would be more generally
improved by being better qualified. The AHE course was perceived as providing the students
13
with a means of beginning to reconstruct their lives, offering opportunities to better themselves
and generate a sense of self-fulfilment:
I realised that I’d been working at [a supermarket] for ten years in August and it came to
the point where I realised that if I was to leave, all I would leave with was an alcohol
licence and an intermediate certificate in food hygiene and whilst I had a lot of skills and
do have a lot of skills that are transferable, I wanted qualifications as well which the
Access course could provide. (College B)
Narratives about the impact of family as well as their previous life experiences, were also an
important source of inspiration for students, illustrating the importance of social capital
(Bourdieu, 1990) and shifting attitudes towards learning. Moreover, in some cases, these social
networks formed through (which were also formed on the AHE course) were pivotal in the
enhancement of cultural capital in that relationships often raised other family members’
educational aspirations:
I felt like I was kind of just stuck and everyone was moving ahead and I was getting kind
of left behind. Like my husband. He’s graduating in two weeks time and his sister, my
sister-in-law, she’s going to uni this year as well. And I just kind of felt like well what am
I doing now? (College C)
Other motivations emerging as a consequence of ‘critical incidents’ (Gallacher et al., 2002) also
acted as turning points in which the participants re-evaluated their lives and considered the
need for some form of change. Personal circumstances or setbacks in their lives such as
bereavement or injury were important in terms of not only fulfilling their potential but also
altering perceptions of their identity.
[I] was in care support work and I was being trained to progress, but I got injured in a car
accident. I took stock, thought what the hell am I doing, I need to do something
different. (College C)
14
Despite the personal and socio-economic risks of participating in formal education all of these
personal motivations and factors brought the learners to the AHE course to prove to
themselves that they could do it.
Evident was their motivations and commitment to becoming a second chance learner. This was
linked to the need to change their early life experiences rooted in personal histories and
negative learner identities. The decision to enrol on the AHE course conferred on them an
opportunity to develop a new identity and status. It reiterates how their habitus was in a
process of ongoing change and that they could change the trajectories of their early life
experiences (Fenge, 2011). They actively sought out opportunities to transform their learner
identities as part of their creative adaption (Reay et al., 2009).
Shifting learning Identities: Learning to become a learner
Many of the AHE students had been out of the education system for a long time and were not
sure what would be expected of them in terms of academic level. Learning to become an
independent learner was part of the process of developing a learner identity on the AHE course
and some assumed that the teaching and learning approaches would be the same as they
experienced at school — mostly didactic. Initially, this created a sense of apprehension and high
degree of ambivalence as they knowingly risked academic failure. Some of the narratives
revealed how class is culturally and symbolically constructed. For many of the AHE students, the
decision to go to FE college and take the AHE course encouraged them to question who they
were. The narratives were imbued with a sense of having left something of the old self behind
in order to become worthy of the privilege of being an AHE student and at college. However in
the narrative below, the alignment between their habitus and the AHE course saw them
beginning to get ‘a feel for it’ and the transition seemed to represent an identity shift as well as
immersion in the field:
When I came here it felt ... I can’t do this then like I can do this, I can be proud of myself. ...
and I thought this is a new chance. I find it difficult to keep up with the work, but I feel I
15
have definitely made progress, I am enjoying it now, both the course and being at
college… (College B).
Although the students’ habituses were being modified by their encounters with the unfamiliar
fields of both the FE college and the AHE course, they did not fully escape their original habitus.
Sometimes, they seemed to cling on to former aspects of the self as they returned to their
awareness of the structural inequalities that they felt impeded their transition to becoming a
student, ‘even if I finish this Access course will university be for me?’ (College A) rather than
seeing their non-participation as solely the result of a personal lack of ability (Tett and
Maclachlan, 2010), highlighting identity tensions with the field.
I work full-time and I come here to school full-time and it’s tiring and it can be hectic,
and if you analyse it, it’s almost impossible. (College A)
This student could not afford to give up the job, and the extent to which human and cultural
capital gained from that experience could not be converted to something of value on the
course is not clear. The habitus could be seen to collide with field (Davey, 2009). However, it
would be wrong to see the student’s habitus as unaffected by the time spent on the course. Her
exposure to the FE college, the AHE course and other students added a further layer to her
habitus, and by the time the course came to an end, its effects were evident as the student
secured a place at a local university.
As such, there was evidence of the AHE students’ positions shifting and adapting in terms of
their conscious awareness and consideration of who they were and where they had come from
and the opportunities they had to build on social capital through participation in the field.
But you don’t think about it. You just know that in the morning I wake up, I go to
college. After college I’ll spend the whole night at work (College C).
However, in the reconstruction of their habitus was also the risk of academic failure, which was
16
most immediate, and highlighted the possibility of damaging new learner identities, filled with
hope. In this sense they did not always adopt the formalised status of learner, nor easily
perceive themselves as ‘student’ sometimes feeling as though they were an ‘imposter’ (Reay et
al., 2009).
I mean I self-doubted myself actually. I thought there’s no way I’m going to be able to
accomplish the standards… I’m going to get a pass if I’m lucky…I just didn’t know
whether I would succeed – really it was a big deal in that first term I could have quit
(College A)
Evident in this reflection was the amount of self-doubt the students had in terms of their
academic ability to achieve. This was reinforced by two key issues, which involved them in an
ongoing process of reconstructing their fragile learner identities: firstly the pressures of
coursework exacerbated by their lack of skills in assignment writing. One student commented
that if he got a bad result for the first time he would reconsider staying (College C). Secondly,
the students also had to apply for a university place in the first term of the AHE course. In its
early months, the course was a challenge for those students who did not feel confident about
their learner identities and abilities to complete the course, never mind get them into
university. During the second term one participant commented on how they felt as though she
had: just got her head above water.
…just before Christmas, the workload, it sort of doubles and you suddenly think, ‘Okay.
It’s gone from I can do this to why am I doing this’, I think has gone through my head
quite a few times. To at the moment thinking, ‘Well I’m half-way through. I’ve paid out
for this course.’... It’s almost like a gritty determinism now. (College A)
The comment ‘gritty determinism’ highlighted how for this and other students, their identities
were constructed through a determination to successfully navigate multiple fields of the AHE
course and FE in order to apply to university and thus reposition their habitus. They weren’t
torn between these competing positions but internalised and adapted to the structures of both
17
fields. This involved a process of self-scrutiny and self-improvement whereby the AHE students
described them as focused, enthusiastic and motivated. One participant explained that, when I
started here I was a lot more focused than anywhere else I’ve ever studied. Such ‘self-work’
(Reay et al., 2009) was reinforced by the AHE students being able to share with other like-
minded people their aspirations for the future as well as study alongside them to develop their
confidence, skills and knowledge to achieve their aspirations – i.e. the opportunity to go to HE.
The AHE course was a more attractive choice, being more aware of the learning support needs
of the students and thus offered new opportunities for cultural and social capital:
Access tutors know who we are and how to help us…it helps us to have that confidence
because we are meeting different people from different backgrounds and different
behaviours [and] you learn from other people... When you are here, you know who you
are and you know what you are supposed to do. (College B).
‘Aspirant learner identities’ (Brine and Waller, 2004) enabled the AHE students to aim high. This
was strongly rooted in both individual motivations as well as peer support facilitated by
students’ having common reasons for joining an AHE course – We all know why we’re here. It
was also facilitated by the assertion and maintenance of particular values that led students to
trust each other to be supportive of each other’s endeavours and enhance their social capital
(Busher et al., 2014):
Everyone respects each other’s opinions, respects why they’re there, and I kind of see
everyone that I’m with as people that want to help me and I want to help them as well
because I appreciate that they’re in the same boat as me (College C)
While many of the AHE students had a crisis of confidence in the first term of the course, a key
transformation point for the students was towards the end of the first term where they began
to receive feedback and grades for their coursework. For example, one student’s merit grade
on an assignment, combined with the new found confidence related to obtaining new writing
18
skills, highlighted a further shift in the reconstruction of their learning identity. By the second
term, the participant described the transition:
I think it took a couple of assignments and getting the sort of grades back, that I
suddenly thought oh actually I obviously am capable of doing that. So it was quite a big
boost to my confidence…it thought I can do this it was a really boost you know (College
A)
Gaining confidence was viewed as necessary in (re)constructing learner identity and re-
establishing habitus (Brine and Waller, 2004). This was not only achieved through the multiple
fields of the AHE course, and FE but through the support of fellow students which enabled the
AHE students to reshape their learner identities in subtle ways as the course progressed. For
example, one student also reflected on how the AHE course prepared her well to progress onto
university by teaching herself and her fellow-students to study independently but to also to
help less confident students. These views highlight a sense of responsibility as individuals
gained confidence, with students also working to benefit other members of the community, not
just themselves, through shared practices, artefacts, patterns of action and language. Students
reconstructed their learner identities by using the knowledge and theories from their course as
part of the development of the self. It helped them to learn who they were and what they were
supposed to do, developing their senses of identity through their interactions with others in
particular situations. In doing so students seemed to shift their habitus and sense of agency
through their interactions with others (Wyn and White, 1998).
Being on this course, I look at things like a completely different way now that we’re
doing sociology. My eyes have been completely opened and like looking at the news and
stuff like that that’s going on in the world, I can understand it a lot more and I can
contribute to it a lot more…(College C)
These comments suggest the transition emphasises continuity rather than change, with habitus
and field coming together more harmoniously. In the above narrative the AHE course was fully
embraced. The student’s cultural capital was evident through his ability to negotiate with
19
teachers and to intellectually engage in classroom discussion. Both the FE college and AHE
course offered the student a new environment and an opportunity to challenge himself. The
new environment is seen as offering a break from the past, but a reconciliation of habitus and
field (Davey, 2009).
These reflections also link to their perceptions of college as a place that would better meet their
needs as mature learners (Fenge, 2011), offering a route into HE via the AHE course. They
highlight why the AHE courses were successful in attracting and retaining the students who
would otherwise be unlikely to participate in other formal learning settings. Rather than feeling
that there were barriers to learning, they perceived the courses as welcoming and supportive
environments (James et al., 2015, in press).
By the end of the course many of the AHE students saw themselves as learners, as one student
explained:
So Access, [has] really helped me to find out who I am and I can be what I want because
it’s the choice that I’ve made and that choice will take me to my destination (College B)
Such narratives indicate that as the students moved through the social space of the AHE course,
their habitus was adapting to suit new capitals. They had developed qualities of self-reliance,
determination and resilience through the process of completing the course and becoming
successful academic learners. Further, the students emphasised the value of the course,
distancing themselves from their previous fragile learning identities, as illustrated below.
I feel pretty well prepared for university. I feel quite happy about it. Far more confidant
going forward than I would have had I not done the Access Course…it comes down to the
support which might not have been there at uni…. (College A)
As the study drew to a close they were in the process of finalising their university places. For
the AHE students, this transition point was viewed as affirmation of their academic success, an
20
important aspect of both their personal development and of becoming an independent learner,
so once they got to university they could just get on with their studies. However, it is important
to mention that this was not unproblematic, as the students also reverted back to their original
habitus as they considered the transition and challenges of going to university particularly in
terms of adjusting to university life and developing learner identity and autonomy (Briggs et al.,
2012).
Yes, I am looking forward to going to uni, but I do wonder how I will cope, with it all, and
what impact it will have on my family…. It’s a choice but, I don’t know, you can’t unmake
that choice otherwise what’s it all for. (College B)
Here we see the AHE students encountering conflicts within their own world- views and class
identity as they attempt to understand their new position in the social structure without
‘unlearning’ the lessons, dispositions, and common sense emerging from their previous
positions (Lee and Kramer, 2010). Yet they were resourceful in recognizing that their self-
identities had not completely changed; rather, as a consequence of the course, they began to
‘learn who they were and what they were supposed to do’ (College A), developing their senses
of identity, and using that to reposition themselves within society (Benjamin, 2002), in other
words to succeed at University and obtain a degree.
It’s quite strange coming from my background of not much schooling… like the initial
position was will I be able to do the Access Course…And then once sort of our
competencies have been affirmed if you like, you’re looking to the next step up to
university….I want to get this [degree] now having coming this far…I am going to give it
my best shot (College A)
Discussion and Conclusion
Although habitus has been widely criticized for being deterministic (Reay, 2004), the paper has
highlighted the importance of focusing research on those from less privileged backgrounds such
as AHE students, who are able to overcome a relative lack of relevant capital to secure access to
higher education. It reveals that habitus can become active in relation to a field, and the same
21
habitus can lead to very different practices and stances depending on the state of the field. For
Bourdieu, although habitus reflects the social position within which it is constructed, it also
carries within it the genesis of new creative responses that can transcend social conditions
(Reay et al., 2005). The students in our study showed the effect of the AHE course on their
habitus, which did not always operate at an unconscious level particularly when they found
themselves in unfamiliar fields. It changed and adapted according to their immediate social
milieu. The findings illustrate how the AHE students’ struggles with both personal and
institutional contexts helped them to recognise what they wanted to achieve in life. It was
these struggles, which gave the students the motivations to return to formal education, even
though it was an arena in which many of them had previously had little success. As a result of
their growing confidence and competence as learners, their enhancement of their social and
cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1990), students began to shift the habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) with
which they had entered the field of the AHE courses to become accomplished independent
learners who could organise their own work. Adopting this approach recognizes the
complexities of the habitus concept and of the relations between habitus and field (Bourdieu,
1984), and how a more nuanced interpretation of habitus as ‘an individual’s internalization of
possibility’ (Horvat, 2003:7) can allow for the possibility of mobility as AHE students are
exposed to novel opportunities and definitions of personal possibility (Lee and Kramer, 2010).
The AHE students demonstrated the effect of both FE and the AHE course on their habitus in
terms of their changing expectations, and as they adapted to the new fields, their responses,
ideas and behaviours began to shift adding layer upon layer to habitus (Davey, 2009). They
perceived the cultures of FE and the AHE courses to be more supportive in terms of meeting
their learning needs enabling them to (re) engage in formal learning. This positive experience
was determined by each student’s habitus and their interactions with the collective habitus in
the fields of their courses and in their colleges. ‘Social reality exists, so to speak, twice, in things
and in minds, in fields and habitus, outside and inside of agents’ (Bourdieu, 1996:213).
Consequently, the field of FE became an important site of transition and personal
transformation for the AHE students. The powerful influence of students prior learning
experiences and struggles can help them to recognise what they wanted to achieve in life,
22
showing how processes of negotiation between their agency and the social settings and policy
discourses some of which were reified as institutional structures, resulted in shifting learner
identities (Hodkinson et al, 2008). They brought with them a very diverse range of past life
experiences and current life circumstances which in turn influenced their disposition towards
engaging in learning. However, it is not simply that participation in learning is something that
can be predicted and controlled (Crossan et al., 2003). These prior learning experiences also
acted to provide a general disposition, in which, the challenge of the unfamiliar for the AHE
students resulted in a range of creative adaptations and accommodations that were generally
positive and for some students life enhancing. This was an enriching experience for the
students, allowing them to instigate their own actions, thereby achieving a sense of agency and
leading them towards a ‘cultured habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1967:344).
What has also emerged from the findings is evidence of the AHE students’ reflexive awareness
that arose from the ‘negotiation of discrepancies by individuals in their movement within and
across fields of social action’ (McNay, 1999:110). The AHE students navigated the ‘field’ using a
‘reconciled habitus’ (Ingram, 2011) whereby they negotiated experiences and practices within
their FE college and repositioned their habitus by processes of self-scrutiny and self-
improvement in order to ‘fit’ within the learning community (James et al., 2015, in press). The
process of educational socialization for the AHE students, and their turn towards a cultured
habitus proved particularly effective in developing the self despite coming from social
backgrounds that lacked economic and dominant cultural capital. It is possible for students to
begin to engage in processes of self-conscious reflexivity in which self-awareness and a
propensity for self-improvement become incorporated into the habitus (Fenge, 2011). Habitus
can be transformed through a process that can raise individual expectations. For example, in
this study AHE students brought with them various forms of social, cultural, and symbolic
capital, recognizing them as resources, as well as great aspirations for their learning and for
better social futures.
23
Entry to a new field can be seen as providing the opportunity for habitus to change as
individuals are confronted by the unfamiliar (Davey, 2009). Habitus is a never-ending process
of construction, with individuals’ identities and capital in constant tension or alignment with the
field. For the AHE students, there remained unresolved tensions and struggles in the nature of
their participation in the AHE learning community, the practices that sometimes excluded them
from participation, and the effects of participation on their identity (Busher et al., 2014). The
asymmetrical nature of power was visible in many of these struggles where students felt they
had limited power but, none the less, negotiated the best deals they could to meet their values
and interests. For these learners, ‘the disjunction between field and habitus [meant] nothing
could be taken for granted’ (Reay et al., 2009). As the AHE students encountered the fields of
the AHE courses and the cultures and structures of FE, they experienced a cleft habitus
whereby their learning identities competed with each other, resulting in individuals being
pulled in multiple directions (Ingram, 2011) as they experienced struggles in relation to who
they were in these contexts. At times they felt like `a fish out of water’, because their capital
was removed from what was valued and understood in the new habitus, and thus returned to
their familiar habitus (West et al., 2013). In these instances, they found it difficult to balance
the newly gained cultural capital needed for college (and beyond) with their habitus and these
difficulties demanded a process of habitus cleavage. This highlights the dynamic and relational
nature of habitus, as the AHE students’ practices were generated through differential holdings
of capital.
In conclusion, habitus is open to possibilities and potentials rather than fixed certainties. Entry
to a new field can be seen as providing the opportunity for habitus to change as individuals are
confronted by the unfamiliar. Although the AHE students’ dispositions and identities were
initially fragile and vulnerable, to say that they followed a pre-programmed destiny overlooks
that habitus includes the ‘permanent capacity for invention’ (Bourdieu, 2002: 63). This
possibility became clearer when looking at how AHE students encountered new fields. In
Bourdieu’s terms, the habitus is in process of ongoing change and individuals can change the
trajectory of their life experiences and socialisation.
24
References
Abrahams, J. and Ingram, N. (2013), The chameleon habitus: Exploring local students'
negotiations of multiple fields, Sociological Research Online, 18 (4), pp.1-19
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/18/4/21.html>10.5153/sro.3189
Baumann, Z. (2000), Liquid Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Benjamin, S. (2002), The Micro-politics of Inclusive Education, Buckingham: Open University
Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1967), ‘Systems of education and systems of thought’, Social Science Information,
14: pp. 338-358.
Bourdieu, P. (1989) Distinction. Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996) The Rules of Art. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1999) The Contradictions of Inheritance. In Bourdieu, P., et al., (Eds), Weight of
the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2002) Habitus, in: J. Hillier and E. Rooksby (Eds), Habitus: A Sense of Place,
Aldershot: Ashgate.
Brine, J. and Waller, R. (2004), ‘Working class women on an access course: risk, opportunity and
(re)constructing identities,’ Gender and Education, 16 (1), pp. 97-113
25
Briggs, A., Clark J. and Hall, I. (2012): ‘Building bridges: understanding student transition to
university, Quality in Higher Education, 10 (2), pp. 33-56.
Busher, H., James, N., Piela, and A. Palmer, A.M. (2014) ‘Transforming marginalized adult
learners' views themselves: Access courses in England,’ British Journal of Sociology of Education,
35 (5), pp.800-817.
Coleman, J. S. (1988) ‘Social capital in the creation of human capital,’. American Journal of
Sociology 94:S95–S120.
Corbin, J., and Strauss, A. (2008) Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for
developing grounded theory 3rd ed. Los Angeles, Calif. & London: Sage
Crossan, B., Field, J., Gallacher, J., and Merrill, B. (2003), ‘Understanding participation in
learning for Non-traditional adult learners: learning careers and the construction of learning
identities,’ British Journal of Sociology of Education, 24 (1), pp. 55-67.
Davey, G. (2009), ‘Using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to explore narratives of transition,
European Educational Research Journal 8 (1), pp. 123-137.
Dillon, J. (2010), ‘Black minority ethnic students' journeys to higher education: realisable or
thwarted ambitions?,’ The International Journal of Learning, 17(2), pp. 219-231.
DuBois, B. (1983), Passionate scholarship: Notes on values, knowing and method in feminist
social science. In G. Bowles & R. D. Klein (Eds.), Theories of Women's Studies, London and
Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 105-116.
Ellis, L. (2003) Illuminative case study design: A new approach to the evaluation of contuning
professional education, Nurse Researcher 10 (3),pp.48-59.
26
Fenge, L.A. (2011), ‘A second chance at learning but it’s not quite higher education’: experience
of a foundation degree,’ Journal of Further and Higher Education, 35 (3), 375-390
Franklin, M. (2006) ‘Wider participation – Narrow Horizons. Status, Hierarchy and Inequalities
of Access to Higher Education,’ Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 8 (1), pp.1-14.
Gallacher J Field J, Merrill B and Crossan B, (2002), ‘Learning careers and the social space:
exploring fragile identities adult returners and the new further education’, International Journal
of Lifelong Education, 21 (6), pp. 493 – 509.
Hodkinson, P., Biesta, G. and James, D. (2008) ‘Understanding Learning Culturally: Overcoming
the Dualism between Social and Individual views of Learning,’ Vocations and Learning, 1 (1): pp.
27-47.
Horvat, E M. (2003) ‘The interactive effects of race and class in educational research:
Theoretical insights from the work of Pierre Bourdieu,’ Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban
Education, 2 (1), pp.1-25.
Ingram, N., (2011), ‘Within school and beyond the gate: The complexities of being educationally
successful and working class’, Sociology 45 (2), pp. 287-302.
James, D. and Bloomer, M. (2001) Cultures of Learning and the Learning of Cultures, Paper Presented to
Cultures of Learning Conference, University of Bristol, April 2001.
James, N. Busher, H. and Suttill, B. (2012) Opening Doors to Higher Education: Access Students’
Learning Transitions. Final Project Report Phase 1, University of Leicester.
James, N. Busher, H. and Suttill, B. (2015 in press) ‘“We all know why we’re here”: Learning as a
Community of Practice on Access to HE courses,’ Journal of Further and Higher Education.
27
Jephcote, M., Salisbury, J. and Rees, G. (2008), ‘Being a teacher in further education in changing
times,’ Research in Post Compulsory Education, 13 (2), pp.163-172.
Jones, K. (2006), ‘Valuing diversity and widening participation: The experiences of Access to
Social Work students in further and higher education,’ Social Work Education, 25 (5), pp.485-
500.
Lee, E. and Kramer, R. (2010), ‘Out with the old, In with the new? Habitus and social mobility at
selective colleges, Sociology of Education 5 (9), pp. 33-56.
McNay, L. (1999), ‘Gender, habitus and the field: Pierre Bourdieu and the limits of reflexivity,’
Theory, Culture, Society, 16: pp. 95-177.
Miles, M. B. and Huberman, M. (1994), Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook.
Thousand Oaks, C.A.: Sage Publications.
O'Donnell, V. L. and Tobbell, J. (2007), ‘The transition of adult students to higher education:
legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice?’ Adult Education Quarterly, 57
(4), pp. 312-328
Parry, G. (1996), ‘Access education in England and Wales 1973–1994: from second chance to
third wave,’ Journal of Access Studies, 11: pp. 10–33.
Quality Assurance Agency (2012 online) What is Access to Higher Education? Available online
at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/InstitutionReports/types-of-review/Pages/ava-relicensing.aspx
28
Reay, D. (2004), ‘“It's all becoming a habitus”: Beyond the habitual use of Pierre Bourdieu's
concept of habitus in educational research,’ Special Issue of British Journal of Sociology of
Education on Pierre Bourdieu, 25 (4), pp 431-444.
Reay, D., David, M. E. and Ball, S. (2005), Degrees of Choice: Social Class, Race and Gender in
Higher Education: Trentham Books.
Reay, D., Crozier, G. and Clayton, J. (2009), ‘Strangers in paradise: Working class students in
elite universities,’ Sociology 43(6), pp.1103-1121.
Reed-Danahay, D. (2005), Locating Bourdieu. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Swain, J. and Hammond, C. (2011) ‘The motivations and outcomes of studying for part-time mature
students in higher education,’ International Journal of Lifelong Education, 30 (5), pp.591-612.
Tett, L. and Maclachlan, K. (2007) Adult literacy and numeracy, social capital, learner identities and self-
confidence, Studies in the Education of Adults, 39 (2), pp. 150-167.
Wacquant, L. (1989), Towards a reflexive sociology. A workshop with Pierre Bourdieu,
Sociological Theory, 7: pp. 26-63.
Warmington, P. (2003), ‘You need a qualification for everything these days. The impact of work,
welfare and disaffection upon the aspirations of access to higher education students,’ British
Journal of Sociology of Education, 24 (1), pp. 95-108.
West, L., Fleming, T., and Finnegan, F. (2013), ‘Connecting Bourdieu, Winnicott and Honneth:
Understanding the experiences of non-traditional learners through an interdisciplinary lens,’
Studies in the Education of Adults, 45 (2), pp.119-134.
29
Wyn, J. and White, R. (1998), ‘Young people, social problems and Australian youth studies,’
Journal of Youth Studies, 1(1), pp. 23-39.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Access to Higher Education course students and staff of the
FE Colleges for participating in this research. We would also like to thank our institution for
funding this study.
30
31
