Cultural Differentiation or Self-Exclusion

Abstract

Based upon Bourdieu's 'theory of capital' and Willis's 'theory of cultural production', the article scrutinizes the interrelation between perceived discrimination, self-exclusion and cultural differentiation. The empirical analysis is based on a longitudinal study by the German Youth Institute, which was set up to explore the transition of young Turks from school to vocational training and employment. The data point out that young immigrants who are dealing with experiences of devaluation of their (origin-)specific cultural capital and who are disadvantaged regarding the accessibility of dominant cultural capital bring about a production of a counterculture. They are less likely to exclude themselves in the sense of internalizing the rightness of the dominant culture.

‘Having a German passport will not make me German’: reactive ethnicity and oppositional identity among disadvantaged male Turkish second-generation youth in Germany

“…My research has also shown that the perceived denigration of ethnic culture Ethnic and Racial Studies 13 plays an important role in turning 'reactive ethnicity' into 'oppositional identity'. In that sense, my findings relate reactive ethnicity theory to oppositional identity theory; thus, they substantiate the arguments of Willis (1981), Waters (2001) and Nagra (2011) and complement those of Skrobanek and Jobst (2010) that the adoption of an adversarial stance against dominant society is not an intrinsic part of ethnic culture, but derives from interactions with the dominant culture.…”

“…He found a strong re-ethnicization, resulting from the perceived personal and group discrimination. Skrobanek and Jobst (2010) have revealed for the same group that experiences of discrimination and the directly associated devaluation of ethnic culture induce the valorization of ethnic culture as a counterculture.…”

Is the Concept of Bildung Still Relevant? Rethinking Bildung From a Praxeological Perspective

“…The same is true of critical reflections that clearly show that the subjectivity produced in educational practice is not a priori "liberating" or emancipatory, but can also be self-excluding (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1971), conformist (Bernfeld, 1994;Foucault, 1979;Freire, 2017;Gramsci, 1991) or defensive and reproductive (Skrobanek & Jobst, 2010;Willis, 1981). Hence, emancipated subjects do not exist outside of practice, nor outside of societal necessity and possibilities.…”

Facilitating agency in Norwegian pupils struggling to stay in school—An alternative approach to emancipatory education

“…We begin our theoretical reflection by pointing to studies that emphasize the socially reproductive impact of institutionalized education. From a critical perspective, these studies problematize the relationship between education, society and agency from a range of different perspectives: they point to the ideological content of teaching (e.g., Wexler, 1981;Apple, 1999), to the one-sided orientation of school education toward the requirements of the labor market (Altvater and Huisken, 1971;Bowles and Gintis, 1976;Baethge, 1995;Tillmann, 2004, p. 169ff) or to hidden educational processes that lead to the (re)production of symbolic violence and hegemony, as well as to the disciplining and self-exclusion of pupils (e.g., Bourdieu and Passeron, 1971;Gramsci, 1991;Foucault, 1994;Bourdieu, 2001;Freire, 2009;Skrobanek and Jobst, 2010;Bochmann et al, 2017). In short, all these studies indicate that (formal) education is a key social category for legitimizing and reproducing social inequalities and the associated processes of alienation-the opposite of agency, one might say.…”