Pierre Bourdieu by Yair Gad;

Author:Yair, Gad;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2009-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

The Treason of the School

The most consistent finding in The Love of Art is the centrality of education in determining that love. As is evident in The State Nobility (Bourdieu 1996), Bourdieu thought that traditional aristocratic families reincarnated themselves as the modern bourgeois. In contrast to traditional family inheritance, the reformed social class opted for an alternative route to perpetuate its social standing after the Revolution, namely to gain educational capital. However, this seemingly open institution for merit proved itself effective solely for the upper classes. So while the public schools were charged with the task to reform the French social structure, they were actually manipulated to perpetuate its ancient aristocratic tendencies. At least part of this social reproduction—apparent in differential rates of the love of art, which in itself serves as cultural capital for the perpetuation of class advantages—results from the failure of the school. As Bourdieu said, “Inequalities with regard to cultural works are only one aspect of inequalities in school, which creates the ‘cultural need’ at the same time as it provides the means of satisfying it” (Bourdieu and Darbel 1990, p. 37).

Though the main object of The Love of Art was the museum, the school stands as another central culprit in Bourdieu’s assessment of the failure of the revolution in democratizing the consumption of classical art. But his critique—surprisingly or not—reflects his belief that schools could, in principle, attain the egalitarian charter that they were entrusted with. Actually, Bourdieu believed—against the self-serving nature of the family and the aristocratic tendency of the museum—that the “school [is] the sole institution capable of producing a cultivated attitude” (ibid., p. 102). Reflecting the Jacobins’ ideal of a universal, free, and secular education provided by the state, Bourdieu’s vision for the school remained by and large the same. He believed, indeed, that effective schools would be able to deliver the goods, namely to equalize opportunities while catering for merit. But he also believed that—given the requirement for hard and consistent training to form the necessary habits and skills for consuming art—only schools can actually provide the uneducated classes with the real opportunity to be equal partners in French society. “There is no short cut to the path leading to works of culture” (ibid., p. 102), argued Bourdieu, and students have to pass through the binding discipline of the school in order to learn to appreciate what would otherwise pass unnoticed or misunderstood. If there was a chance for a true just and enlightened society, it could only be attained through schools. As Bourdieu said,

An intensification of the action of the school is the most efficient means of increasing cultural practice—visits to museums, the theatre or concerts, as well as reading, listening to cultural radio programs or watching cultural television programs—at the same time as being the necessary condition for the effectiveness of any other means (Bourdieu and Darbel 1990, p. 106).

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