| Using Bourdieu's (1986) concepts of social and cultural capital linked to one's habitus, this study aims at explaining why some historically disadvantaged students succeed in school while many others do not. Over my seventeen years as an urban educator, I observed many disadvantaged students experience academic success. For this study, I recruited students in "Dewey High School" (pseudonym) who were enrolled in the school's International Baccalaureate Programme that is recognized for its academic rigor. This phenomenon refutes "reductionist" social reproduction theories (Bourdieu, 1973, 1977; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Giroux, 1983; Fine, 1991; Macleod, 1987) as well as Coleman's "deficiency" model and concept of social capital (Coleman & Hoffer, 1987) that would instead predict that students from a disadvantaged background will not be academically successful. To explain why the disadvantaged students I observed experienced academic success, I used a mix methods case study approach (Yin, 2003) to examine these students' history, as well as their attitudes, perceptions and behaviors (habitus) regarding schooling success. In this investigation, I particularly focused on the role played by these students' "institutional agents"---including peers and friends, as well as teachers, relatives and other adults.;The study highlights some important factors that help explain why the disadvantaged students I studied were academically successful. The case studies identify how the student participants' habitus was altered, due in part to their selection and retention of friends (peers within the IB Programme) and their relatives (siblings, parents and others) as their primary institutional agents. Their acceptance of these institutional agents, in turn, could be related to school variables such as the curriculum and pedagogical practices of the IB Programme, the school "culture," the diversity of the student population (race, class, gender and ethnicity) in the program and administrative leadership.;Furthermore, the student participants were drawn together and networked (social capital) to achieve a common goal of academic success and excellence that was interwoven and embedded within their new definitions of schooling success, knowledge attainment, competitiveness and learning how to play the "rules of the game" (Bourdieu, 1992). |
