For a long time, there has been an ongoing debate about the facets affecting a student’s educational attainment. While some theorists focus on the teacher’s role by examining the positive correlation between the teacher’s expectation of a student and the latter’s performance (Rosenthal and Jacobson), some pay attention to the student’s choice and attitude towards their future (Willis). Based on French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic capital’, this research strives to explore the interactions between and the spiral roles of teacher and student within the educational field.

As defined by Bourdieu, symbolic capital is a ‘capital insofar as it is represented, i.e., apprehended symbolically, in a relationship of knowledge or, more precisely, of misrecognition and recognition, presupposes the intervention of the habitus, as a socially constituted cognitive capacity’ (Bourdieu). In other words, symbolic capital determines an individual’s capability and extent of recognition within the social group to which they belong. Since Bourdieu first formulated his theory, the notions of ‘habitus’, ‘field’, ‘capital (economic, cultural, social symbolic)’, et cetera, have been used to explain a student’s educational performance, such as Chinese educational sociologist Xiaoying Lin has looked at the disparities between urban and rural education in China and how students are affected within the ‘fields’ of different cultures (Lin). 

Nonetheless, it is worth noting that most studies that have used Bourdieusian theory have primarily included students as the subjects of the study. As an illustration, Paul Willies used the lack of cultural capital to explain the impact of the anti-school subculture formed by working-class sons in Britain – ‘the lads’ – on their attitudes to learning and future trajectory (Willis). Only a few pieces of research consider the teacher as the owner of symbolic capital.

Therefore, taking the teacher as the holder of symbolic capital and investigating the inter-conversion and roles of other forms of capital (economic, cultural and social) possessed by them, and ultimately, the impact of the externalisation and objectification of the teacher’s symbolic capital on the students, is what this study endeavours to do. This leads to the three segments of this study: formation/accumulation, exercise, and impact of symbolic capital.

Multiple dimensions needed to be considered in terms of forming a teacher’s power in a symbolic sense. Some researchers have suggested that an individual’s professionalism is a significant component of their symbolic capital (Noordegraaf and Schinkel). In the context of education, it may refer to a teacher’s educational and occupational background. Meanwhile, external factors, such as the school’s reputation and public reception, can affect the teacher’s symbolic power to a degree (Li). These elements, along with many others, form and develop an impression of the teacher in the student outfit and prepare the way for the following practice of symbolic capital.

Jacques Rancière, who systematically analysed the pedology of different teachers and the categories they are subject to, provided us insight into how teachers externalise their symbolic capital and corresponding effectiveness (Rancière). For instance, the ‘Emancipatory Master’ inspires students intellectually and uses heuristic approaches to motivate them to discover their learning skills actively. Leading students down such a path requires a great deal of symbolic capital as it demands much trust of the teacher for the betrayal of the traditional method, and the positive feedback students achieve in the process reproduces the teacher’s power and authority. In contrast to Rancière, Slavoj Zizek adopts a more radical view. He argues that the externalisation of symbolic capital is usually the equivalent to symbolic violence, which is ’embodied in language and its forms’ (Zizek). In the context of this study, this may refer to the impact of teachers’ top-down ‘ordering’ of students through inappropriate or self-justified language.

In terms of methodology, interview and observation are two major approaches that will be used to generate primary data. Andrew Skourdoumbis and Ahmad Madkur’s study on Indonesian pesantren has underpinned the former’s effectiveness. In this study, by capturing teacher-student dynamics during the teaching process as revealed by the teachers, two researchers point out the dilemmas faced by English language teaching- diluted in importance by the Indonesian cultural context – and the ensuing lack of symbolic capital of the teachers and interest of the students (Skourdoumbis and Madkur). Interviews ‘allow individuals to explain, in their own words, how they understand and interpret the world around them’ (Knott et al.). This way helps gain an in-depth understanding of, in this case, how the teacher’s symbolic capital is accumulated and exercised both intensely and subconsciously.

Observation, as another approach, will even play a more significant role. An interview allows us to understand the problem from the respondent’s point of view. At the same time, observation allows us to test the validity of the interview responses in a relatively ‘objective’ manner. Erving Goffman’s participatory study of American mental institutions in 1961 is one of the methodological references for this study. Using the same symbolic interactionist approach as Goffman, this study will summarise the ‘teacher-student relationship’ based on the ‘staff-intimate relationship’, which is a relationship that involves support and care but also power and control (Goffman).

At the same time, the research will try to triangulate the data as much as possible and analyse and evaluate it within multiple theoretical frameworks, ultimately uncovering the subtle dynamics between teachers and students.

Works Cited

Bourdieu, Pierre. “THE FORMS OF CAPITAL.” Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, by J Richardson, Greenwood, 1986, pp. 241–58.

Goffman, Erving. Asylums. AldineTransaction, 1968, books.google.ie/books?id=be3vAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Asylums+Erving+Goffman&hl=&cd=1&source=gbs_api.

Knott, Eleanor, et al. “Interviews in the Social Sciences.” Nature Reviews Methods Primers, vol. 2, no. 1, Springer Science and Business Media LLC, Sept. 2022. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-022-00150-6.

Li, Xiaohong. “State Power, Symbolic Capital, and the Hierarchy and Homogeneity of Higher Education in China: In the Example of Three Key Universities Policies After the Founding of New China.” Chinese Education & Society, vol. 52, no. 3–4, Informa UK Limited, July 2019, pp. 208–30. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667696.

Lin, Xiaoying. Children in the County: The Ecology of Education in China’s Counties. 1st ed., China, Shanghai People’s Press, 2023, books.google.ie/books?id=VvQn0AEACAAJ&dq=%E5%8E%BF%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84%E5%AD%A9%E5%AD%90&hl=&cd=1&source=gbs_api.

Noordegraaf, Mirko, and Willem Schinkel. “Professionalism as Symbolic Capital: Materials for a Bourdieusian Theory of Professionalism.” Comparative Sociology, vol. 10, no. 1, Brill, 2011, pp. 67–96. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1163/156913310×514083.

Rancière, Jacques. The Ignorant Schoolmaster. 1991, books.google.ie/books?id=bLxlQgAACAAJ&dq=The+Ignorant+Schoolmaster+Ran&hl=&cd=1&source=gbs_api.

Rosenthal, Robert, and Lenore Jacobson. Pygmalion in the Classroom. Crown House Publishing, 2003, books.google.ie/books?id=GoOTPwAACAAJ&dq=The+Pygmalion+Effect&hl=&cd=3&source=gbs_api.

Skourdoumbis, Andrew, and Ahmad Madkur. “Symbolic Capital and the Problem of Navigating English Language Teacher Practice: The Case of Indonesian Pesantren.” TESOL in Context, vol. 29, no. 2, Deakin University, Dec. 2020, pp. 15–34. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.21153/tesol2020vol29no2art1428.

Willis, Paul E. Learning to Labour. Arena, 1977, books.google.ie/books?id=_D0vPwAACAAJ&dq=learning+to+labour&hl=&cd=1&source=gbs_api.

Zizek, Slavoj. Violence. Profile Books, 2010, books.google.ie/books?id=g7BlK_zDfVYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Violence+ZIzek&hl=&cd=2&source=gbs_api.