Bourdieu’s Field Theory and the Social Sciences

Dr James Albright is Professor at the School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. He was the inaugural director of the Educational Research Institute Newcastle (ERIN), and is the editor-in-chief of open-access journal, Education Science. His co-edited book, Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education (2008) addresses literacy education as a sociological field.   Dr Deborah Hartman is Associate Director of the Family Action Centre in the School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medicine at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she specializes in teaching and research in the field of International Family Studies. Her research in Family Studies focuses on strengthening inclusivity and diversity in the study of family and on promising prevention and early-intervention practices for building family well-being and community capabilities.   Dr Jacqueline Widin is Senior Lecturer, Coordinator Applied Linguistics and TESOL Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. She has extensive experience in the teaching and research field of English as an additional /international language and in the broad field of language, literacy and social justice. She is the author of Illegitimate Practices: Global English Language Education (2010).

Introduction: On doing field analysis.- Drought and water policy in the western United States: Genesis and structure of a multi-level field.- Masculine learner identities in the field of student-directed musical learning.- Poetry and the conditions of practice: A field study.- Academic literacy support: Challenging the logic of practice.- Transformations of the Danish field of welfare work - shifting forms of dominated capital.- Breaking from the field: participant observation and Bourdieu’s participant objectivation.- Framing a ‘community of consumption’: Field theory, multi-perspectival discourse analysis and the commercialisation of teaching.- Reshaping the field from the outside in: Aboriginal people and student journalists working together.- Cultural Innovation on the Fringe – The Fields of ‘Limited’ and ‘Extensive’ Production.- Bourdieusian reflexivity in insider research in higher education: Considering participants as a critical audience.- Positioning participation in the field of surfing: Sex, equity, and illusion.- Conceptualising strategies open to players within the field of Australian boys’ education.- Field theory, space and time.- Governing cultural fields.- Thinking like Bourdieu: Completing the mental revolution with Legitimation Code Theory.