File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2002/bourdieu.0208, message 34


Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 10:01:17 +0100
Subject: Re: bourdieu - education - mathematics
From: John Evans <jevans-AT-eircom.net>


Hi Andy

I cannot put my hand just now on an interview or article concerning
economism or globalisation (or similar) in which Bourdieu remarks that
mathematics is increasing used as an instrument of symbolic violence by
elites to put forward arguments that are (as it were) unanswerable, because
phrased in mathematical form. "Sorry folks, its not just my opinion - look
at the maths/look at the graph....". Can anyone help with the reference?

More helpfully (I hope):

You could check out the following:
Practical Reason (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998),
p. 28 - mathematics as *the* form of excellence used to rank students
p. 78 - illusio in the mathematical field

The State Nobility (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996) examines how  elite
schools ensure the legitimate inheritance of high positions in the
scientific and aesthetic fields.  See also Bourdieu and Passeron,
Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (London: Sage, 1977), p. 50,
n. 44, p. 176, pp. 164 - 165 etc. The theoretical character of instruction
as a filter to distinguish (say) the technician from the engineer (maths is
often used to do this in scientific subjects such as engineering etc).

Practical Reason, p. 137 - the scientific mode as one of the fundamental
modes of constructing reality. An ethical/political programme of working to
universalise the conditions of access to such fundamental modes is set out.
Also, presumably, such modes are to be contrasted with the cultural
arbitrary (see the Preface to Reproduction in Education..)

Homo Academicus - for the (high, aristocratic) position of mathematics in
the hierarchy of university subjects.

"Structuralism and Theory of Sociological Knowledge", Social Research 35,
no. 4 (Winter), cited in P. Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation
to Reflexive Sociology, p. 222 - this is a nod in the direction of his study
of mathematics as a normalien. The origins of the homology of social
positions, tastes, etc. mediated by habitus (claimed by Bourdieu) probably
lie here. An attempt to explain homology turns up in Practical Reason, p. 6.
The style of the lay-out of  Reproduction in Education... is very like a
geometry (Descartes?).

The State Nobility, pp. 119 - 120 - very interesting discussion of the
symbolic dimension of a title (educational credential) and and the technical
dimension.

Best Wishes

Dr John Evans
Dublin



> From: Andrew Noyes <Andrew.Noyes-AT-nottingham.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 08:55:44 +0100
> To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: bourdieu - education - mathematics
> 
> Could anyone direct me to any writing by Bourdieu that considers the
> role of mathematics in education and society.
> 
> If you could I would be very grateful
> Thanks 
> 
> Andy Noyes
> 
> Andrew Noyes
> Centre for the Study of Mathematics Education
> School of Education
> The Dearing Building
> Jubilee Campus
> Wollaton Road
> Nottingham
> NG8 1BB
> 
> tel:        +44 (0) 115 9514470
> email:    andrew.noyes-AT-nottingham.ac.uk
> web:     http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/education
> 
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