The strange case of querying gove’s cultural capital legacy

Abstract

The recent inclusion of cultural capital into the English Ofsted Education Inspection Framework (2019) caused a ripple of discontent within some educational circles, with some suggesting it is indicative of 'white, middle-class paternalism'. Here, we consider the political rise of Bourdieu's concept of 'cultural capital' within the English Education Inspection Framework (2019), given that it now affects all English schools subject to Ofsted's inspection. We alsoexplore how one of the 19 th Century texts in the GCSE English literature curriculum can be analysed through a queer prism, to offer a thought-provoking inclusive interpretation of the narrative and release its queer cultural capital. Finally, we invite classroom practitioners to deliberate their current pedagogical actions and consider adopting a queer pedagogy to counteract the pervasive heteronormativity that embeds assumptions of heterosexuality within school ecosystems; thuschallenging the discomforting otherness and insidious silencing regimes that position LGBTQ identities as taboo and off topic. KEYWORDS 19 th century gothic; jekyll and hyde; queer cultural capital; queer pedagogy; homosocial; homophobia; heteronormativity; lgbtq; inclusionThere is only a seeing from a perspective, only a 'knowing' from a perspective, and the more emotions we express over a thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we train on the same thing, the more complete will be our 'idea' of that thing, our 'objectivity.' But the elimination of the will altogether, the switching off of the emotions all and sundry, granted that we could do so, what! Would not that be called intellectual castration? Nietzsche (1887, 153)

Artistic Production and (Re)production: Youth Arts Programmes as Enablers of Common Cultural Dispositions

“…Despite the young people never articulating that they wanted to enter the ‘mainstream’, the high arts of theatres and galleries, they did accumulate capitals that were of significance for the Cultural Industries through ‘common cultural dispositions’. The Arts Award programme within informal and alternative education settings did not enable young people to ‘catch up to the mainstream’ through consuming existing forms of cultural capital, as recently problematically set out by Ofsted 6 (Birkenshaw and Temple Clothier, 2021; Nightingale, 2020). Under settings with more of a youth focus, the programme offered a counter-cultural movement.…”