Mathematics habitus

Abstract

In this paper I employ classroom transcripts .to develop Bourdieu's wrttmgs with respect to the construction of gendered life in the mathematics classroom and the disempowering consequences of . many practices for a significant number of girls within mathei1U2tics education. Using Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, practicealJ,d dispositions, the construction of a gendered mathematical habitus will be proposed. Bourdieu (1977) describes habitus as being a "matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions." Bourdieu does not employ gender as a primary category of capital where capital is central to the construction of social space. Feminist writers, such as McCall (1992) have been able to reapply Bourdieu'snotions of cultural capital to incorporate a gendered habitus. Through a gendered habitus, students learn to take on certain dispositions which will be influential in their success in schooling and . their later positions within the social structure. For females, a gendered habitus is paramount to the construction of their marginality in mathematics. By the time students enter school, they have been socialised into the world as a result of many experiences. These experiences provide a habitus which will influence how perceptions and behaviours will be interpreted and enacted .. Bourdieu (1992, p.) extends this so that the habitus gives "disproportionate weight to early experiences." The primary socialisation of students will impact upon how they their worlds at school will be constructed, so that soci . .al differences, such as gender, class and ethnicity, since a different habitus has been . internalised. The dispositions which they bring with them .into the school situation will be different for different individuals and social groups. In this way, the habitus becomes a mediating device between the social structures and practices and indi vidual. action and perception. Through the insertion into certain gendered practices, a gendered habitus is constructed, and through this habitus, children come to see and .act in the world in certain gendered ways. The ways in which gender is organised and internalised can be related to two crucial aspects of Bourditm's writings -habitus and capital. Bourdieu's notion of embodied cultural capital is particularly important in developing an understanding of the distribution of gendered power since he argues that cultural capital can exist in three forms, embodied as long-lasting dispositions of the body and mind; objectified as cultural goods (such as books, instruments, machines) and in an institutationalised state in such things as educational qualifications (Bourdieu, 1983, p. 243). In this way,Bourdieu is arguing that certain dispositions are forms of cultural capital. McCall{(992) develops Bourdieu's Writings to question whether women can possess gendered capital in a form that will be recognised and rewarded .. She argues, "The dichotomous action of gender acts to constrain and subordinate the meaning of women's activity, whatever the so-called capital "(McCall, 1992, p. 846).