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Soci 301 - Exam 5 Questions and Correct
Answers
Lehmann's Case Study Ans: Focus on the experiences of students
that came from working-class backgrounds at university
Context:
- Decades of educational expansion and reform have done little to
lessen this relationship between class and educational attainment.
Yet, there are also growing numbers of working-class young
people who overcome these barriers, enter high education, and
succeed in it.
Purpose:
How these young people themselves reflect on their position as
working class students and their academic success
- How these students feel caught between two worlds (the one in
which they grew up in, and this new university world)
Bourdieu's Theoretical Framework Ans: Our dispositions are
shaped in significant ways by our social environment; in turn,
leaving a social environment in which we are comfortable to enter
a new field has the potential to cause confusion, conflict and
struggle.
Bourdieu argues for a dialectical understanding of the relationship
between the material structures of social experience, and the
mental structures of human agents
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Habitus Dislocation (Bourdieu) Ans: A painful dislocation between
an old and newly developing habitus, which are ranked
hierarchically and carry connotations of inferiority and superiority.
A system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating
past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of
perception, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the
achievement of infinitely diversified tasks
Habitus (Bourdieu) Ans: Is an endless capacity to engender
products - thoughts, perceptions, expressions, actions - whose
limits are set by the historically and socially situated conditions of
its production
(The way you grew up will have an important impact on the way
you will grow up and think) (It does not however take away your
creativity or ability to think by yourself and learn, it just shapes
how you learn and understand)
(It is an non-conscious system of durable, transposable
dispositions which integrate past experiences, and orient current
practices and representations)
Lehmann's Research Questions Ans: 1. How do successful
working-class university students describe their university
experiences?
2. To what degree do they relate their success to their social
background
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3. Does their success at university entail a shift toward a middle-
class habitus?
4. Has success changed their relationship to others, such as
parents and former friends and peers?
(Looked at students who either decided to continue their
education after graduating, or secured upward mobile
employment)
Lehmann's Key Findings Ans: 1. Success
- They were all on a remarkable path towards upward social
mobility
- Working-class background can be interpreted as the reason they
attended uni and were successful
- Spoke about gaining new knowledge, but also growing personally
- Changed their outlooks on life, growing their repertoire of
cultural capital and developing new dispositions and tastes on a
range of issues (politics, food, careers ect.)
2. Transformation
- Change in the types of clothes they would wear
- Change in the type of friends they had and got along with
- Change in cultural capital (cultural practices represent a different
set of practices from those in which they grew up in)
© 2025 All rights reserved
Soci 301 - Exam 5 Questions and Correct
Answers
Lehmann's Case Study Ans: Focus on the experiences of students
that came from working-class backgrounds at university
Context:
- Decades of educational expansion and reform have done little to
lessen this relationship between class and educational attainment.
Yet, there are also growing numbers of working-class young
people who overcome these barriers, enter high education, and
succeed in it.
Purpose:
How these young people themselves reflect on their position as
working class students and their academic success
- How these students feel caught between two worlds (the one in
which they grew up in, and this new university world)
Bourdieu's Theoretical Framework Ans: Our dispositions are
shaped in significant ways by our social environment; in turn,
leaving a social environment in which we are comfortable to enter
a new field has the potential to cause confusion, conflict and
struggle.
Bourdieu argues for a dialectical understanding of the relationship
between the material structures of social experience, and the
mental structures of human agents
© 2025 All rights reserved
, 2 | Page
Habitus Dislocation (Bourdieu) Ans: A painful dislocation between
an old and newly developing habitus, which are ranked
hierarchically and carry connotations of inferiority and superiority.
A system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating
past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of
perception, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the
achievement of infinitely diversified tasks
Habitus (Bourdieu) Ans: Is an endless capacity to engender
products - thoughts, perceptions, expressions, actions - whose
limits are set by the historically and socially situated conditions of
its production
(The way you grew up will have an important impact on the way
you will grow up and think) (It does not however take away your
creativity or ability to think by yourself and learn, it just shapes
how you learn and understand)
(It is an non-conscious system of durable, transposable
dispositions which integrate past experiences, and orient current
practices and representations)
Lehmann's Research Questions Ans: 1. How do successful
working-class university students describe their university
experiences?
2. To what degree do they relate their success to their social
background
© 2025 All rights reserved
, 3 | Page
3. Does their success at university entail a shift toward a middle-
class habitus?
4. Has success changed their relationship to others, such as
parents and former friends and peers?
(Looked at students who either decided to continue their
education after graduating, or secured upward mobile
employment)
Lehmann's Key Findings Ans: 1. Success
- They were all on a remarkable path towards upward social
mobility
- Working-class background can be interpreted as the reason they
attended uni and were successful
- Spoke about gaining new knowledge, but also growing personally
- Changed their outlooks on life, growing their repertoire of
cultural capital and developing new dispositions and tastes on a
range of issues (politics, food, careers ect.)
2. Transformation
- Change in the types of clothes they would wear
- Change in the type of friends they had and got along with
- Change in cultural capital (cultural practices represent a different
set of practices from those in which they grew up in)
© 2025 All rights reserved
