Chapter 5: Discussion
II. Teachers of Bourdieu’s Time and Teachers Today: Different Lifestyles
In this study, I was able to clearly note that the cultural practices of teachers of the time of Bourdieu and those of today are very different. It is possible to note that education plays an important role in social construction. I notice that the education of these different teachers is quite similar and their ways of acting too, but here we need specially to think about today’s similarities. As a result, I can conclude that this arises from the habitus that is created. This has become a second nature because of the gestures, thoughts, and the ways of being. However, this habitus also seems to be in confrontation with the lifestyle of teachers today. They all have a fairly modest life, simple but without deprivation. In this sense, their parents seem to fit the definition of the petite bourgeoisie referred to by Bourdieu: more traditional, straddling work, order, rigor, and thoroughness. Teachers define it as a “right” and “fair” education—an education that seems to be a model for them.
Yet today, they seem to be enjoying their lives and live a life that is quite different from their parents’ way of life. This seems to be at odds with the education they received.
I clearly notice this with, for example, outings to restaurants or to movie theaters. Many interviewees stated that they did not go out much with their parents when they were children. Today though, with their new income, they are going out a lot more. This is contrary to the vision that Bourdieu had of the teachers who he saw as barely hedonistic.
The taste for pleasure that Bourdieu associates only with the new bourgeoisie (and so, all the secondary school teachers, for example) seems also to be well developed among elementary school teachers. We can observe in their hobbies, which are especially characterized by going out with friends to restaurants and bars and travelling. Yet, this also can be associated with the mass development of society and thus with a generation gap. These factors can lead to a gap in consumption and in social relationships too. The manner of consumption, taste in music, and other things have evolved over time, and young primary school teachers have followed this trend. These young teachers only follow the movement of the crowd, the products and places that are “fashionable.” They do not worry much about the more or less “cultivated” appearance they give to others.
These teachers thus seem clearly aware of the average social class to which they belong and live as such.
However, this result can also be considered to be in line with Bourdieu’s theory.
Indeed, the search for pleasure and fun, would it not be, as Bourdieu said, a motivation for social elevation? To aim for a rising slope in society? When teachers show that they live in good ways today, are they not saying that they have sufficient economic capital so as not to restrict themselves? Contrary to what they say in interviews, there are still some teachers who admit to living quite well; sometimes they even think they are favored in society. The aim of the petite bourgeoisie is not to change the established social order, but to reach the upper class. Due to the behavior of primary teachers today, it looks like they are doing it in a certain way.
Moreover, as indicated above, Bourdieu defines primary school teachers as petite bourgeoisie of execution, with cultural capital that is slightly more important than economic capital and having as a particularity good cultural will. The Pichère study (2007) reminds us. They will want to copy the upper classes without checking the codes that go with this, that is, they are copying badly. Thus, they will use goods and activities that are similar to those of the higher classes but that do not have the same degree of legitimacy.
The cultural goodwill that Bourdieu was referring to in his day seems no longer to exist today. There is no particular taste for art, museums, or books. Teachers seem to be more concerned with relaxing outside of work, visiting friends, and having fun than learning.
In their cultural practices, they correspond quite well to the study of Donnat (2009).
However, we notice the same interest in the cinema—they all frequent cinemas quite regularly. This study is therefore slightly at odds with the study of Farges (2015), which showed that primary school teachers attend cinemas increasingly seldomly, and are less interested in it.
However, the generation gap that exists between the primary school teachers of Bourdieu’s time and those of today gave birth to new practices, for example, the practice of social networks. Social networks play an important role in our society today. The many mobile apps sometimes seem to have replaced books. Today, the majority of the population has become followers, and regularly follow other people in their networks. In this sense, can we define the fact of following the news of social networks and the influencers of today as being characteristics of the new upper class?
Indeed, the dominant class (according to Bourdieu) is the class composed of all the agents strongly endowed with capital and whose practices are legitimate. Legitimacy (according to Bourdieu) is the ability to be recognized as superior to others, and so to be accepted as referent and model by the entire population. By having its social practices recognized as superior to those of other groups, this class acquires a prestige that justifies the benefits it derives from economic activity. Today, this notion is difficult to assess in the context of globalization and changing standards. However, we can put forward the hypothesis that it is referents that change. The majority of the poor or average classes identify today with social models, models of social networks, for example. As we have seen in the interviews, these can be internet influencers or reality TV shows. What is
“fashionable” today has become the referent. The prestige of the past has changed.
The symbolic violence of which Bourdieu could speak seems to have changed too.
There is always a desire to copy a higher class. However, this higher class is no longer defined in terms of cultural property, social status, and studies, but rather by material goods such as bags, clothes, decorations, and fashion. Influencers have a tremendous influence on our lives today. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all networks that direct our lives, and those of the teachers, as the rest of the population follows all followers’
movements. The goal is to look like these icons. They seem to be the bearers of the distinction today.
For Bourdieu, teachers are often lesson givers and do not like to spend money on material goods the way we see the primary teachers today like to spend money on material goods. There has been a materialization of society in general. Primary school teachers have also been touched by this movement. This does not mean that they have fallen socially but that they have followed the global movement. It is the same for the democratization of sports practices, media coverage of them, the multiplication of infrastructure. The lowering of equipment costs, for example, allow an extension of the practices or at least a diversification of the possibilities offered by each one (Bodin, Heas
& Robene 2004). For example, dance is a practice that can be seen as having belonged to the upper class—but today it is a practice that is accessible to all. This may explain why teachers refer to dance as a means of relaxation. The teachers concerned does not seem to have any particular pride in practicing this activity; and they do not think to practice an activity that has a particular status in society.
To finish this section, I can note the fact that cultural practices are certainly determined by social patterns, conditioned by the level of education and social membership and are not natural. However, we cannot neglect the fact that they also derive from individual tastes This is what may be missing from.”Bourdieu’s theory and the lifestyle of each social class that results from it. It should be noted that although elementary teachers seem to have similarities in their lifestyles, there are also differences.
This is why I think it is important not to put aside personal tastes. The individual dimension of each person is therefore not to be put aside, although, as Bourdieu specifies, there is a habitus common to each social layer.
Bourdieu, in the years 1970–1980, thought that the very essence of his book Distinction would be the search for distinction as the pursuit of a social relationship of hierarchization between classes (or between individuals), a “sign of distinction (or vulgarity)” as he often reminds us. However, today it is difficult to tell the difference between distinction and differentiation. (Glevarec 2014) Cultural practices today are difficult to classify, and it is increasingly difficult to name a cultural practice as belonging to a definite social class; so, yes, the ideas of Bourdieu’s theory take it’s meaning in this study, though it remains difficult to confirm them.