Migration, habitus and symbolic order: Reflecting on a multilingualism project at a German university

Abstract

Most of the projects aimed at making migrants more successful in the context of higher education in Germany focus on programmes that introduce the rules and expectations of the university to students and try to change their habitus. This article discusses a multilingualism project conducted in a German university that strives to go beyond this perspective and influence not only the habitus of students, but also that of the university and its symbolic order. The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu provides valuable and powerful concepts, such as habitus, field, symbolic violence and cultural capital, for the analysis of the outcomes of the project. The article suggests that in order to reduce inequality in higher education and to improve outcomes for migrant students, the habitus of the university environment and its symbolic order of language must be changed along with the habitus of students.