Bourdieu Plus: Understanding the Creation of Agentic, Aspirational Girl Subjects in Elite Schools

Professor Claire Maxwell has contributed to the newly published book International Perspectives on Theorizing Aspirations: Applying Bourdieu’s Tools with a chapter on Bourdieusian perspectives on aspirations and gender titled 'Bourdieu Plus: Understanding the Creation of Agentic, Aspirational Girl Subjects in Elite Schools.' 

The book offers new insights and guidance for those looking to use Bourdieu's tools in an educational context, with a focus on how the tools can be applied to issues of aspiration. Written by contributors from the UK, USA, Australia, Nigeria, Jamaica, and Spain, the book explores how Bourdieu's tools have been applied in recent cutting-edge educational research on a range of topics, including widening participation, migration, ethnicity, and class. The contributors consider how aspirations are theorized in sociology, as well as exploring the structure/agency debates, before recapitulating Bourdieu's tools and their applicability in educational contexts. A key question running through the chapters is: how does social theory shape research?

Claire Maxwell & Joan Forbes, Bourdieu Plus: Understanding the Creation of Agentic, Aspirational Girl Subjects in Elite Schools in International Perspectives on Theorizing Aspirations: Applying Bourdieu’s Tools, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.