of Bourdieu’s analysis
1.1 ‘Capitals’, ‘fields’ and classes
The concept of ‘capital’, in Bourdieu’s analysis, ‘refers to resources’ that a social ‘agent’ occupies, mainly in the forms of economic capital (income and ownership) and cultural capital (formal and informal education) (Riley 2017: 110).
The concept of ‘capital’ in Bourdieu’s analysis is related to the concept of ‘fields’.
Each power (or species of capital) dominates a specific field …; it can also be present in other fields but with less weight. … Within each field, agents may thus possess different species of capital, but the structure of the capital they possess varies between fields (employers have cultural capital, but less than intellectuals).
(Bourdieu 2020: 40)
As Bourdieu also argues,
The division into relatively autonomous fields is the outcome of a process of differentiation that … can be described as a process of institution of different spaces of play where specific forms of capital are engendered and actualized, and are both assets and characteristic stakes of each form of game. (ibid.: 33)
According to Riley (2017: 111), the concept of ‘fields’ in Bourdieu’s work refers to ‘agonistic social games in which agents struggle with one another over some socially defined stake, such as profit or prestige’, with the ‘economic field’, the ‘political field’,1 and the ‘field of cultural production’ to be among the most important.
‘Capital’ can be measured both as quantity (volume) and as structure. The ‘class position’2 is thus determined by ‘the volume and structure of capital’ that a social ‘agent’ occupies. According to Riley (2017: 110–11),
The primary class division in Bourdieu’s scheme is between those with high and low total capital, but within each of these classes there is a further difference between those with a greater proportion of either economic or cultural capital. The concept of capital is thus supposed to provide a map of the main social divisions in contemporary society.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003375401-2
Dominant class, intellectuals and state 7
However, Bourdieu (1996a: 106) maintains that
Social class is not defined by a property (not even the most determinant one, such as the volume and composition of capital) nor by a collection of properties … nor even by a chain of properties strung out from a fundamental property (position in the relations of production) in a relation of cause and effect, conditioner and conditioned; but by the structure of relations between all the pertinent properties which gives its specific value to each of them and to the effects they exert on practices.
This rather vague definition in Distinction (see Riley 2017: 113–4) which rejects the relations of production from the class determination,3 a point that underlines the sharp distinction between Bourdieu’s analysis and Marxism, as we will see in the following analysis, is simplified with an explanatory endnote, in which Bourdieu (1996a: 571) clarifies that
To construct the classes and class fractions on which the subsequent analyses are based, systematic account was taken not only of occupation and educational level … but also, in each case, of the available indices of the volume of the different sorts of capital, as well as age, sex and place of residence.
Therefore, class determination ‘bows’ to simplified criteria and statistically available data.
Besides these simplified criteria, and given that, according to Bourdieu, ‘class habitus, [is] the internalized form of class condition’ (ibid.: 101) – where ‘habitus’ is defined as ‘socially structured biological individualities’ – (Bourdieu 1996b: 53) it could be argued that ‘the structure of relations between all the pertinent properties’ is depicted in ‘habitus’,4 and thus, as Riley (2017: 111) argues,
habitus translates different class positions, specified by different forms of capital, into observable behavior.
Since ‘habitus translates’ (‘into observable behavior’) ‘different class positions, specified by different forms of capital’, it also follows, as Jameson (2008: 297) maintains, that
Cultural distinction then secures the recognition or acknowledgement of class position; and it is in this sense that Bourdieu proposes his most influential theoretical innovation, namely, the notion of cultural capital:5 what is accumulated as a result of the various practices of cultural distinction in education, clothing, tastes, and so forth.
A rather typical example of this ‘translation’ by ‘habitus’ is the relationship of the working class with fish-eating, according to Bourdieu (1996a: 190):
For example, in the working classes, fish tends to be regarded as an unsuitable food for men, not only because it is a light food, insufficiently ‘filling’, which
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would only be cooked for health reasons, i.e., for invalids and children, but also because, like fruit (except bananas) it is one of the ‘fiddly’ things which a man’s hands cannot cope with and which make him childlike …; but above all, it is because fish has to be eaten in a way which totally contradicts the masculine way of eating, that is, with restraint, in small mouthfuls, chewed gently, with the front of the mouth, on the tips of the teeth (because of the bones).
As Wilkes (1990: 118) argues,
habitus … implies a logic of self-presentation tending towards a class habitus of social function. Thus, the shape of the male working-class body, at least in a modal sense, is orchestrated through the eating of certain foods … So, the relation between various forms of lifestyle and class practice at work has its links in the kind of manual work that the body is required to do. Failure to achieve that level of physical endeavour at work makes the individual marginal in the workplace.
However, such perceptions of ‘habitus’, according to Wilkes, do not exclude the quiche-eating intellectual carpenter, or the fish-eating ditch-digger, but at least require that such individuals pay attention sufficiently to their bodies to enable them to take their place in the economic world. (ibid.)
We overlook, at the moment, the implied identification of the working class with heavy manual labour. The problem is that arbitrary, stereotypical and non generalizable conceptions of the ‘habitus’ (tastes of the working class, in the above-mentioned example)6 are considered to be ‘unifying and generating principles’ with which classes are identified. Such an approach paves the way for a class determination, from ‘habitus’ (‘observable behavior’) to ‘different class positions’.
Thus, Bourdieu, considering the empiricism of ‘habitus’ as the basis of ‘an objectivist theory of class’, writes:
My goal in Distinction was to show that these habitus connected to positions in social space, and that these habitus, these tastes, were unifying and generating principles. For this I needed an objectivist theory of class, as in class theory.
(Honneth and Schwibs 1985, cited in Wilkes 1990: 113)
According to Wilkes (1990: 113), Bourdieu describes here his ‘objectivist conception of class in Distinction’. As Wilkes also argues, ‘habitus’, in Bourdieu’s ‘class analysis’, ‘is the link in the dialectic between objective and subjective components of class’ (ibid.: 116); while reviewing Bourdieu’s vague definition of social classes in Distinction, he maintains that,
Dominant class, intellectuals and state 9
there is no simple reading of dispositions from class here; rather, an ambiguous objectification of class … it is through ceaseless examples of the habitus, in its many elements – in its artistic components, in eating habits, in the dispositions of the body, in theatre-visiting (or not theatre-visiting), in a concern for music or no concern, in the political attitudes, the cars they drive, the men and women they marry, the sort of living rooms they construct – in all these ways, the lives of classes are drawn.
(ibid.: 130)
On the other hand, the ‘ambiguous objectification of class’ becomes a need ‘to be a break with the objectivism that goes hand-in-hand with intellectualism’. In this line of thought, Bourdieu rejects any economic determination of classes (the determination by the relations of production) and considering as ‘economism’ the determinant role of economy in ‘the social field’, he refuses the theoretical determination of classes, arguing that it leads to a ‘theoretical’ and not to ‘a real class’.
He writes:
the intellectualist illusion … leads one to consider the theoretical class, constructed by the sociologist, as a real class … there has to be a break with the economism that leads one to reduce the social field, a multi-dimensional space, solely to the economic field, to the relations of economic production, which are thus constituted as co-ordinates of social position … there has to be a break with the objectivism that goes hand-in-hand with intellectualism.
(Bourdieu 1985: 723)
The ‘break with the objectivism’ is interpreted by Wilkes (1990: 109–10) as a ‘fundamental break in the area of class analysis … with various forms of structuralism, in particular with Althusser and his formalistic conception of social class’. In this frame, ‘Bourdieu distinguishes his own approach to class apart from the categorising tendencies of Althusser’, while he also criticizes ‘conceptions of class determination predicated on economic domination, and, perhaps, at its limit, a conception of class which asserts the role of the “economic in the last instance”’. The issue of ‘economic in the last instance’ will be considered later in the analysis. As to Bourdieu’s ‘fundamental break’, we will see in the following analysis that it does not concern specifically ‘Althusserian structuralism’, but Marxism.
The ‘ambiguous objectification of class’ becomes open subjectivity when Bourdieu (1985: 741) argues that,
A class exists insofar – and only insofar – as mandated representatives endowed with plena potestas agenda [full power of action] can be and feel authorized to speak in its name – in accordance with the equation ‘the Party is the working class,’ or ‘the working class is the Party,’ … – and so to make it exist as a real force within the political field.
According to Wilkes (1990: 115),
Dominant class, intellectuals and state in this uneasy dialectic between subjectivity and objectivity, Bourdieu now moves to the subjectivist end by arguing … that it is in the naming of a class that a class is constituted. In this subjectivist parody, class and class action are taken to be a theatre, in which key vanguardist figures bring the play to life by asserting their right to ‘name a class’.
In the context of this ‘subjectivism’7 and ‘theatricalization’ of ‘class and class action’, the working class, as Bourdieu (1985: 742) argues,
is a ‘mystical body,’ created through an immense historical labor of theoretical and practical invention, starting with that of Marx himself, and endlessly re-created through the countless, constantly renewed, efforts and energies that are needed to produce and reproduce belief and the institution designed to ensure the reproduction of belief. It exists in and through the corps of mandated representatives who give it material speech and visible presence, and in the belief in its existence that this corps of plenipotentiaries manages to enforce, by its sheer existence and by its representations, on the basis of the affinities objectively uniting the members of the same ‘class on paper’ as a probable group.
Thus, according to Bourdieu’s ‘subjectivist’ determination of classes, the working class exists through the Party (obviously the Communist Party) and ‘through the corps of mandated representatives’; it is ‘a “mystical body”’ and a reproduction of a ‘belief’, which emanates from Marx’s analysis. Consequently, it is not ‘a real class’, but a ‘class on paper’ whose members are united as ‘a probable group’. Therefore, according to this line of thought, Bourdieu seems to deny that there is an objective structural class position, but only an illusory appearance of the working class ‘as a real force within the political field’.
Moreover, the ‘sighting’ of classes (and in particular of the working class) through the Party and ‘through the corps of mandated representatives’ brings to the fore the theoretical issue of determination of structural class positions (class places) by potential ideological-political class positions. The same problem arises, albeit indirectly and covertly, from the empiricism of ‘habitus’ as the basis of ‘an objectivist theory of class’.
Therefore in Bourdieu’s analysis, the objective class determination is obscured –either through the ‘ambiguous objectification of class’, in reality empiricism of ‘observable behavior’, as a supposed ‘dialectic between objective and subjective components of class’ (‘habitus’), or through the open ‘subjectivism’.
In The State Nobility, Bourdieu attempts to connect ‘habitus’ with ‘objective structures inherited from history’, arguing that – contrary to ‘the so-called “structuralist” view’, which ‘sees agents as being off on vacation and hence offside in the game in and through which structures are reproduced or transformed’ and ‘from the so-called “individualist” view that reintroduces agents into the picture, but agents who are reduced to the pure and interchangeable intentions of calculators
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without a history’ – ‘the true logic of practices’ is to be found ‘in the relationship between habitus … and objective structures inherited from history’ (Bourdieu 1996b: 53). Wacquant (2005: 137) argues that: ‘It is this relation [between “habitus” and “objective structures”] that sociology must methodically construct anew by dissecting its terms as well as by reassembling their encounter in each of the various social games and sites it scrutinizes’. What is obscured here is that the former (‘habitus’) reveals the latter (‘objective structures’), concerning class determination – that is, the class determination is based on (the empiricism of) ‘habitus’. Inasmuch as ‘history’ and class ‘practices’ are not examined as a possible element of potential ideological-political class positions – which are structurally determined by the structural (objective) class positions – they will end up being considered as an element of absolute (historical) indeterminacy.
The relation of history, structural class positions and potential ideologicalpolitical class positions, as well as ‘the so-called “structuralist” view’ will be examined in the following analysis along with other important aspects of Bourdieu’s ‘class analysis’, which will be introduced later in the analysis and will be examined critically from the point of view of a Marxist theory of social classes. We will see then that it is Marxist political economy that breaks with both ‘individualist’ ahistoricality and historical indeterminacy. Thus, Bourdieu’s rupture with Marxism could be more understandable, for which he considers that
nowadays no doubt represents the most powerful obstacle to the progress of the adequate theory of the social world, to which it has, in other times, contributed more than any other.
(Bourdieu 1985: 742)
1.2 Dominant class and ‘field of power’
According to Bourdieu (1996a: 260),
the dominant class constitutes a relatively autonomous space whose structure is defined by the distribution of economic and cultural capital among its members, each class fraction being characterized by a certain configuration of this distribution to which there corresponds a certain life-style, through the mediation of the habitus.
Putting the issue briefly, it could be argued that the dominant class is ‘defined loosely’ by Bourdieu as the class whose members hold a relatively high amount of economic and/or cultural capital (Riley 2017: 113) – while the empiricism of ‘habitus’ reveals the exact positions of its members, and creates the distinctiveness of the dominant class, that is, its ‘relatively autonomous space’. The dominant class contains teachers, civil servants, professionals, engineers, managers and the heads of industry and of commerce (see Bourdieu 1977). It is divided into two fractions, or sections, or poles: the holders (predominantly) of economic capital (the heads of industry and commerce occupy the higher position of this fraction) and the holders (predominantly) of cultural capital (the higher civil servants of the state
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bureaucracy and the professors in higher education occupy the higher position of this fraction) (see Weininger 2002: 94; Loyal 2017: 85–6). As Bourdieu (1977:501) argues, ‘the heads of industry’, that is, the holders of economic capital, constitute ‘the dominant section’. Consequently, the holders of cultural capital constitute the dominated fraction, or section, or pole of the dominant class. In general, there is a domination ‘of the richer fraction in economic capital over the richer fraction in cultural capital’ (Bourdieu 2020: 35). Therefore, economic capital is the dominant form of capital. However, this domination entails a dynamic of conflict.
Loyal (2017: 87) argues that,
According to Bourdieu, the opposition between economic and cultural capital is an old, almost quasi-universal binary part of a division of labour of domination. This division is … [depicted] in … [the] distinction between … temporal power and cultural power.
However, ‘“temporal powers”’ are ‘the state, the economy, the military, etc.’ (Steinmetz 2014: 3). These powers are not purely economic or cultural. There is, therefore, a permeation of cultural capital – and thus of ‘cultural power’ – to ‘temporal power’, rather than an absolute division between economic and cultural capital. This is why it could be only ‘predominance’ and not ‘exclusiveness’ in the holding of economic or cultural capital in the positions of domination. Besides, according to Bourdieu, as we have seen above, ‘Each power (or species of capital) dominates a specific field’ but ‘it can also be present in other fields but with less weight’ while ‘employers have [also] cultural capital, but less than intellectuals’.
Based on his notion that the dominant class consists of those who hold (‘possess’) a relatively high amount of economic and/or cultural capital, Bourdieu (2020: 34) argues that
[t]he field of power is defined as the space of the positions from which power is exerted over capital in its different species. One must indeed distinguish between the mere possession of (say, economic or cultural) capital and the possession of a capital conferring power over capital, meaning over the very structure of a field, and therefore, among other fields, over profit rates, and by extension, over all ordinary holders of capital. … As membership in the field of power is defined not by the personal possession of a parcel of capital … but by the possession of a sufficient quantity of capital to dominate in one field or another, the dominant class comprises all agents that in effect hold the positions of power over capital, meaning over the very functioning of a field or over that field’s system of instruments of reproduction.
Therefore, according to Bourdieu (1995: 215), in distinction to the various ‘fields’,
[t]he field of power is the space of relations of force between agents or between institutions having in common the possession of the capital necessary to occupy the dominant positions in different fields (notably economic or cultural).
The ‘field of power’ is constituted by the articulation of ‘dominant positions in different fields’ and ‘notably economic or cultural’. Since ‘[t]he field of power is the space of relations of force’ of the ‘dominant positions in different fields’, it is the ‘space’ of the dominant class, that is, the dominant class occupies the ‘field of power’. Since the state, as we will see below, is a specific ‘sector’ of the ‘field of power’, it is also the ‘space’ of the dominant class.
According to Loyal (2017: 86),
When viewed as a totality the field of power appears to include those social agents endowed with high levels of economic and cultural capital.
As Wacquant (2019: 18) maintains, on the basis of Bourdieu’s analysis, ‘the field of power’ ‘is really not a field’ but it is ‘a meta-field’
The ‘field of power’ is ‘structurally determined by the state’ (a critical position for the role that Bourdieu assigns to the state) and, in its totality, not only encompasses the dominant class, but it is also a field of struggles between its sections (Weininger 2002: 85–6).
According to Bourdieu (1996b: 264–5),
The field of power is a field of forces structurally determined by the state of the relations of power among forms of power, or different forms of capital. It is also, and inseparably, a field of power struggles among the holders of different forms of power, a gaming space in which these agents and institutions possessing enough specific capital (economic or cultural capital in particular) to be able to occupy the dominant positions within their respective fields confront each other using strategies aimed at preserving or transforming these relations of power. The forces that can be enlisted in these struggles, and the orientation given to them, be it conservative or subversive, depend on what might be called the ‘exchange rate’ (or ‘conversion rate’) that obtains among the different forms of capital, in other words, on the very thing that these strategies aim to preserve or transform.
Nevertheless, what is the object of the struggle, of ‘[t]he forces that can be enlisted in these struggles’, ‘over the “conversion’ or “exchange rate” between different forms of capital’?
As Bourdieu argues, there is a struggle over the power to dictate the dominant principle of domination, which leads to a constant state of equilibrium in the partition of power, in other words, to a division in the labor of domination … [which] is also a struggle over the legitimate principle of legitimation and, inseparably, the legitimate mode of reproduction of the foundations of domination.
(ibid.: 265)
As Loyal maintains,
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The field of forces is … a space where those with high levels of economic, or cultural capital, or both struggle over the imposition of the dominant form of capital in social space – the ‘dominant principle of domination’, and simultaneously, the mechanisms aimed at maintaining or altering these forms of capital – the ‘dominant principle of legitimation’ – … There is thus a struggle within the dominant class fractions in social space, rather than between social classes – for example, the dominant class and working class, over the ‘conversion’ or ‘exchange rate’ between different forms of capital.
(Loyal 2017: 86; see also Weininger 2002: 94)
Given the above, rather ‘loosely’ defined theoretical notions, it could be inferred that:
• The principal contradiction of the social system (capitalism) is defined ‘within the dominant class fractions in social space’ (and thus within the ‘field of power’ and within the state). This principal contradiction is the opposition between economic and cultural capital.
• The opposition between economic and cultural capital is expressed in the struggles ‘over the imposition of the dominant form of capital in social space’ (‘over the power to dictate the dominant principle of domination’), therefore in the social system.
• These struggles ‘depend on what might be called the “exchange rate” (or “conversion rate”) that obtains among the different forms of capital’ (‘economic or cultural capital in particular’).
• The struggle ‘over the “conversion’ or “exchange rate”’ is a struggle over the ‘strategies’ or ‘mechanisms’ ‘aimed at preserving’ (‘maintaining’) or ‘transforming’ (‘altering’) the dominant form of capital in specific fields and, primarily, in ‘social space’, therefore in the social system, and depends on the correlation of power (of the ‘relations of power’), between different forms of capital (‘economic or cultural capital in particular’) ‘in the division of labour of domination’
• This struggle determines ‘the legitimate principle of legitimation’ or ‘the “dominant principle of legitimation”’, and thus ‘the legitimate mode of reproduction of the foundations of domination’.
• The ‘legitimate’ or ‘“dominant principle of legitimation”’ (that is, the legitimation of domination) is related to the question: What is the significant, the prominent form of capital (‘in the division of labour of domination’) for the preservation or transformation of the dominant form of capital in the social system?
Therefore, the ultimate object of the struggle, ‘over the “conversion’ or “exchange rate” between different forms of capital’ (‘economic or cultural capital in particular’) is the legitimation of domination – that is, the legitimation of ‘the imposition of the dominant principle of domination’ (see below) or the legitimation of ‘the imposition of the dominant form of capital in social space’ – which is related to the emergence of that form of capital which is the significant, the prominent form of capital (‘in the division of labour of domination’) for the preservation or transformation of the dominant form of capital in the social system. This issue is clarified and analyzed in the following analysis.
1.3 ‘Organic solidarity’ and the increasing importance of the ‘general bureaucratic training’
According to Bourdieu, as we have seen, the struggle ‘over the power to dictate the dominant principle of domination’ ‘leads to a constant state of equilibrium in the partition of power’. Therefore, the opposition between economic and cultural capital does not break the unity of the dominant class (‘the organic solidarity that unites’ its ‘fractions’).
Bourdieu (2020: 35) writes:
the organic solidarity that unites the fractions of the dominant classes insofar as they contribute to domination … does not preclude the permanent struggle for the imposition of the dominant principle of domination, and at the same time, for the conservation or transformation of the structure of power within the field of power (especially today, through the conservation or transformation of the structure of the field of educational institutions in charge of the reproduction of the dominant class).
As Loyal (2017: 87–8) points out,
Since Bourdieu believes that no power can be based on naked force alone, in modern … societies there operates an organic solidarity in the division of labour of domination whereby the dominant groupings in the social order must wield several different forms of power to consolidate their social position.
Bourdieu especially highlights today’s significance of the struggle within the field of educational institutions (as a part of the struggle within the ‘field of power’) indicating thus the significance for the dominant fraction of the dominant class (the holders of economic capital) of the alliance with the dominated fraction of the dominant class (the holders of cultural capital), for the legitimation of domination –that is, for the legitimation of ‘the imposition of the dominant principle of domination’.
In this connection Bourdieu (2020: 35–6) writes:
Since the dominant class has to reproduce, i.e., reproduce as dominant and as legitimate in dominating … and since … the question of the internal divisions of the dominant class cannot be separated from the question of the legitimization of power and of the division of the labour of domination, the holders of cultural capital … intellectuals, although they are inevitably dominated in the struggle for power … nevertheless have a significant advantage in the strictly symbolic struggle over the imposition of the dominant principle of domination.
Thus, there is ‘a dualist power structure’ which corresponds to the two fractions of the dominant class, since ‘force needs to be expended to produce law; economic capital must be expended to produce symbolic capital’ (or ‘symbolic
16 Dominant class, intellectuals and state power’) (ibid.: 36).8 ‘Symbolic capital’ (or ‘symbolic power’) is an ‘invisible power’ (Bourdieu 1984: 164) that could be understood – according to Loveman (2005: 1655) – as ‘the ability to make appear as natural, inevitable, and thus apolitical, that which is a product of historical struggle and human invention’ (see also Riley 2017: 120). This ability concerns the legitimation of domination through ‘consent’.
On this basis, Riley maintains that the notion ‘of symbolic power closely parallels the French Marxist Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology’ (ibid.). Since ‘symbolic capital’ (or ‘symbolic power’) aims to the legitimation of domination, the role of the holders of cultural capital, as the ‘agents’ who are the ‘bearers’ (or ‘carriers’) of ‘symbolic’ capital or power and thus of the legitimation of domination, ‘have a significant advantage’.
Higher education institutions, especially the Grandes Écoles in France, play a major role in ‘the disciplining of minds’ (Bourdieu 1996b: 11 ff.) and thus a key role in the reproduction of the dominated fraction of the dominant class – in terms of Bourdieusian analysis – and specifically of ‘the directing instances of capital’ (which, according to Poulantzas, belong to the ‘bourgeoisie’ in Marxist terms – see in the following analysis). This means that there is a predetermination of future structural class positions or class places by the educational system – along with class barriers in upward class mobility which reproduces class continuity, as we will see below.
According to Poulantzas (1976: 249, see also 264, 270),
the Grandes Écoles … prepare their students for what is considered ‘polyvalent’ work, requiring an overview of the economy; … most of them soon occupy managerial and administrative positions they then often belong to the directing instances of capital (to the bourgeoisie).
Within the ‘dualist power structure’ the correlation of power ‘in the division of labour of domination’ within the dominant class – and especially within the dominated fraction of the dominant class, that is, the holders of cultural capital – has shifted especially in favour of those of general bureaucratic training. This is a development which concerns and underscores the growing role of the legitimation of domination ‘in the division of labour of domination’, through ‘consent’.
As Bourdieu (1996b: 272) argues,
it can be posited at the outset that the entire logic of the struggle for power over forms of power was modified by the two great changes that affected the dominant modes of reproduction, which, already discernible within the field of establishment schools, must now be grasped within the field of power itself, that is, in the competitive struggles that set the holders of the different forms of capital against each other, particularly within the administrative and economic fields. They are, on the one hand, the increase in the relative importance of academic titles (whether coupled with property or not) with respect to property titles, even in the economic field; on the other hand, among the bearers of cultural capital, the decline of technical titles to the advantage of titles guaranteeing general bureaucratic training.
Dominant class, intellectuals and state 17
Thus, ‘[t]he contemporary struggle between businessmen (industrial knights) and intellectuals’ as it, according to Bourdieu’s analysis, ‘has … been shaped by two fundamental developments, especially within the administrative and economic field, that have taken place in the struggle “for power over power”’, results to alteration of ‘the exchange rate between the different forms of capital’ in favour of cultural capital, and specifically of the cultural capital of the state bureaucracy (Loyal 2017: 88). These ‘two great changes’, in Bourdieu’s terminology, ‘affected the dominant modes of reproduction’, having affected ‘the legitimate principle of legitimation’. This underlines the specific gravity of cultural capital, its prominent role in the preservation or transformation of the dominant form of capital, and thus the prominent role of the intellectuals, in (the ‘strategies’ or ‘mechanisms’ of) ‘preserving’ (‘maintaining’) or ‘transforming’ (‘altering’) the dominant form of capital in the social system.
Thus, except for ‘the “intellectual” schools (the École normale supérieure and, to a lesser extent, the École polytechnique) and, at the other end, the schools which groom for economic power (the École des hautes études commerciales and other graduate business schools) … a school like the École nationale d’administration, which opens the way to positions of leadership within state bureaucracies’ (Wacquant 1993: 22) obtains an increased specific gravity in the formation, according to Loyal, of ‘a state bourgeoisie’:9
The process of elite reproduction not only entails creating a ‘business bourgeoisie’ who will hold power over positions in large firms, but through the École nationale d’ administration, the generation of a state bourgeoisie, some of whom will undoubtedly hold positions in large state-owned businesses while others, will take up positions in the higher civil service or become central wielders of power in the administrative or bureaucratic field, that is, the state.
(Loyal 2017: 91)
The intervention of the state in the upgrading of the intellectuals and in the creation not only of an intellectual ‘business bourgeoisie’ but also of an intellectual ‘state bourgeoisie’ is crucial. In this connection, the state sets ‘the conversion rate between capitals’, that is, it intervenes to the ‘strategies’ or ‘mechanisms’ ‘aimed at ‘preserving’ (‘maintaining’) or ‘transforming’ (‘altering’) the dominant form of capital. Thus, as Loyal also argues,
It is here that the state, as the administrative field located between the two poles, plays a central role not only by setting the conversion rate between capitals but also through the provision of titles specifically viz-a-viz the grandes écoles, by consecrating individuals.
(ibid.: 88)
However, since ‘the conversion rate between capitals’ depends on the correlation of power (of the ‘relations of power’), between different forms of capital ‘in the division of labour of domination’, the state ‘setting the conversion rate between capitals’ intervenes also in the correlation of power between different forms of capital.
18
Dominant class, intellectuals and state
The ‘significant advantage’ of intellectuals, especially of the state bureaucracy intellectuals, in the ‘organic solidarity in the division of labour of domination’ – within the frame of the ‘dualist power structure’ – underlines, according to Bourdieu (2020: 40–1), that it is impossible for a single agent to possess all the properties that make domination possible; or, which boils down to the same thing, there is no such thing as a single hierarchy ranking agents in all respects.
The above highlights the important role of ‘consent’ – and therefore the prominent social role of the intellectuals, and especially of the state bureaucracy intellectuals, – in Bourdieu’s analysis.
1.4 The ‘priority’ of ‘consent’
The prominent role of cultural capital in the preservation or transformation of the dominant form of capital is expressed in the rising importance of intellectuals, especially of the state bureaucracy intellectuals of general bureaucratic training, in the ‘organic solidarity in the division of labour of domination’ which could be seen in Bourdieu’s analysis concerning the ‘priority’ of ‘consent’, generated by the ‘symbolic capital’ (or ‘symbolic power’), over ‘physical violence’.
According to Bourdieu (2014: 3–4), the ‘state’ is ‘the sector of the field of power which may be called the “administrative field” or the “field of public office”’ which ‘is defined by possession of the monopoly of legitimate physical and symbolic violence’. However,
the state is one of the principles of public order; and public order is not simply the police and the army … – monopoly of physical violence. Public order rests on consent.
(ibid.: 8, see also 52)
Although the formulation ‘the state is one of the principles of public order; and public order is not simply the police and the army’ is rather ambiguous, it could be inferred that, from the point of view that ‘[p]ublic order rests on consent’, the state is seen as the ‘“central bank of symbolic capital”’, ‘the state is a symbolic power’ (ibid.: 122–3; see also Loyal 2017: 119), it ‘is the site par excellence of the concentration and exercise of symbolic power’, since it ‘possesses the means of imposition and inculcation of the durable principles of vision and division that conform to its own structure’ (Bourdieu 1998a: 47).
Moreover, as Bourdieu (1996b: 383) argues,
in contrast to raw power, which acts according to mechanical efficiency, all genuine power acts as symbolic power.
The above means that ‘the state maintains relations of domination principally through cultural and symbolic rather than physical and material means’ (Loyal
Dominant class, intellectuals and state 19 2017: 110, see also 114–15), that is, there is a ‘priority’ of ‘consent’, generated by the ‘symbolic capital’ (or ‘symbolic power’) (ibid.: 68), over ‘physical violence’ in ‘the monopoly of legitimate physical and symbolic violence’. Moreover, according to Loyal, Bourdieu does not simply give a ‘priority’ to ‘symbolic violence’, but ‘downplays the significance of physical violence as an autonomous force in social life’ (ibid.: 129). As we have seen above, Riley maintains that ‘symbolic power’ is a notion that ‘closely parallels the French Marxist Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology’. Pallotta also argues that there is a resemblance of Bourdieu’s ‘symbolic power’ with Althusser’s ‘ideological power’, adding that ‘both stem from the same observation: that the reproduction of the social order cannot be explained by “fear of the gendarme,” but supposes the operation of a type of power other than the repressive’ (Pallotta 2015: V).10 Yet, despite any resemblance that Pallotta refers to, Althusser, as we will see in the following analysis, does not downplay ‘the significance of physical violence’ for the reproduction of the system of domination (as Pallotta rather suggests), as Bourdieu does.
1.5 The rejection of the ‘dichotomy’ between economic base and superstructure
On the basis of ‘priority’ of ‘symbolic power’ and opposed to ‘the tendency of Marxism to reduce forms of domination to the most brutal aspects of domination, to military force’ (Bourdieu 2014: 161), Bourdieu rejects the ‘dichotomy’ ‘between infrastructure and superstructure’ (ibid.: 193), introducing
the idea that there are forms of domination that are perfectly gentle, associated with the highest accomplishments of humanity. These forms of domination, which a certain philosophical tradition calls symbolic, are so fundamental that I find myself wondering whether a social order could function, even in its economic foundations, without the existence of these forms of domination. In other words, the old model of infrastructure and superstructure – a model that has done a lot of harm in social science – must be rejected, or, if you insist on keeping it, it must at least be turned upside down.
(ibid.: 161)
Thus, for Bourdieu, as Loyal (2017: 44) maintains, the base superstructure model where the ideological superstructure is determined by an economic base … needs to be rejected, or at least reversed so that the symbolic realm predominates, while Pallotta (2015: VII) argues that by defining symbolic capital as the ultimate foundation of power, as ‘last instance’ of the instances of the social whole … Bourdieu claims to distinguish himself from Marxism and its superstructure/infrastructure topic.
20
Dominant class, intellectuals and state
Thus, Bourdieu develops a theoretical scheme of replacement of the economic base by ‘symbolic’ capital or power. Furthermore, and on the basis of his rejection of base-superstructure ‘dichotomy’, Bourdieu (following a rather crude interpretation of ‘Marxist definition’ of the state) argues that the state ‘is not simply the universalization of the particular interest of the dominant, which manages to impose itself on the dominated (the orthodox Marxist definition). … The oppositions that the state produces are not a superstructure’ (Bourdieu 2014: 183), that is, the oppositions produced by the state are unrelated to the economic base. The issue of ‘universalization’ will be discussed later in the analysis.
1.6 The struggles within the dominated fraction of the dominant class: ‘left hand of the state’ and ‘right hand of the state’
Despite ‘the organic solidarity that unites the fractions of the dominant classes’, it occasionally happens that members of the dominant class act against their class interests (linked to their position in the field of power) when those contradict their fractional interests (linked to their position in a specific field); [thus] … the effects of the struggles for domination within the dominant class can come to threaten the foundations of their domination over other classes. This is the case when, in their struggle for domination within a specific field, some agents call for the support of an external force. Among holders of cultural capital, for instance, those who hold a dominated position within the field of cultural production can thus forge permanent or occasional alliances with members of the dominated classes, thereby placing their cultural capital at the service of struggles that they identify more or less completely and durably with their own struggles within the field of power.
(Bourdieu 2020: 39)
Thus, there are struggles ‘within the dominant class fractions’ against dominant class interests when the latter contradict fractional ones, which could ‘threaten’ the domination of the dominant class. Bourdieu’s argument highlights the division of the dominant class in two distinct fractions – each one with its particular interests. Bourdieu mentions specifically conflicts within the field of cultural production which could lead to social ‘subversive alliances’ between ‘agents’ of the ‘dominated positions’ of the dominated fraction of the dominant class – who ‘symbolically abandon the camp of the dominants’ – and dominated classes, when ‘agents’ of the former ‘call for the support of an external force’ – that is the dominated classes –‘placing’ or ‘engaging’ ‘their cultural capital at the service of struggles’ that they ‘identify with their own struggles in the field of power’.
Bourdieu (1996b: 387) specifically writes:
It thus may happen that the interests associated with the dominated positions in the field of cultural production lead to subversive alliances, capable of threatening the social order. This occurs when, in the cognitive struggles over the social world, the professional producers of principles of vision and
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whispering he was privileged to answer “Perfect.” Now, in fact, the pupils formed cliques and agreements to such an extent that they made almost a complete farce of this attempt at discipline. They lied with the greatest liberty and seemed to feel no restraint from their principal. He appeared not to know that they were guilty of deception and insubordination, and of course he became the butt of ridicule because of these and many other unwise acts.
The girls would be found by him crying over the low grades they received. Through their hands they joyously watched him as he marched back to his desk and silently changed the numerals. Occasionally he returned and reported, “After thinking over your work further I have decided to give you a better grade.” He was more than paid for his trouble as the smiles drove back the tears and the eyes of the poor, grieved ones hung for a moment on his.
He suffered from note-writing. Jim was a source of anxiety on this score. The unvarying procedure was the following:
“Where is the paper you had a moment ago?”
“It’s in my desk.”
“Is there any writing on it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Hand it to me.”
Silence on Jim’s part.
“Jim, aren’t you going to give me that note?”
“No, sir.”
“Jim, you go at once to Mr. Evans’ room,” or, “Take your books and go home.”
Not once, nor twice, but scores and scores of times this same routine was followed. Jim never handed him a note in the whole two years. Mr. Bradley never discovered the intense satisfaction that Jim had in drawing attention to himself, in defeating the principal and in thus creating a general sensation.
Mr. Bradley’s temper was easily aroused. At first his face would turn white; the pupils quickly noted his pallor and laughed at him; his anger then drove him to a few tears, which one by one trickled down his careworn cheeks.
In these moments of ill-temper he was more helpless than ever. He did not attempt to do much teaching for a short period, but marked time until he could recollect himself and get his pedagogical machine back on track again.
In the frequent, extreme cases of refractory pupils that he had to dispose of, his main resort was to send or accompany pupils to Mr. Evans, the superintendent of schools. In reporting the misdemeanor or in remarking on the items of a report of misconduct by the pupil himself he adopted the very poor method of exaggerating the circumstances insufferably. Often he interrupted a pupil’s account with single words or phrases that exaggerated the offense and so attempted to justify himself in referring the case to higher authority. These unfair methods enraged even a guilty pupil to an extent that all hope of his returning to the high school room with any little good will toward the principal was lost.
You at once inquire, How was it possible for a man of this sort to keep his position for two years? The answer is two-fold: his treatment of pupils and citizens generally outside of school hours was such as, in a way, to discredit the impressions reported by dissatisfied pupils; the superintendent was capable enough himself to neutralize, in part, the ill effects of the principal’s poor disciplinary methods and thus to enable him to retain a well informed instructor.
You want to know more about this remarkable superintendent, Mr. Evans? His personal presence was somewhat in his favor. He was a man of good height, but very slender. The look of his eye was direct and lingering. His hand-grasp was warm, kindly and reassuring. He was never in a hurry, but disposed of mountains of work. He always took time to hear all that pupils had to say—one of his strongest assets.
It was a valuable lesson in school discipline just to observe him in an interview with an offending pupil.
“Well, Jim, what is it this morning?”
“I suppose I’ve got to tell you about a little affair that occurred in the Latin class yesterday.”
“Come and have this chair over here by the desk. Excuse me until I pull down the shade a bit. Well, now, go on. What is it all about?”
But these cold words do not convey to the reader the impression that they made on Jim. There was a yearning in the voice that fairly drew Jim out of himself. He had just come from a fresh combat with Mr. Bradley and was in a mood to do battle; in fact, strange to say, this thought crossed his mind, “All right, I’ll go in to see Evans. If he has it in for me, I’ll show them both a new deal; I’ll give them the time of their lives in this town!”
How easy it would have been to set fire to this piece of tow and so produce an uncontrollable conflagration. But there was Mr. Evans’ voice, so suave and appealing. He assumed that Jim had something interesting to tell; that he had suffered some accident; that he was in search of a friend. Mr. Evans was that friend. He said, “You know, of course, that I’ll want to hear the other side of the story, but you go ahead and tell me everything just exactly as it is.”
Jim told his story. The superintendent nodded assent to the several statements, indicating that he had taken in their full significance and was laying the ground for a just disposition of the matter. About the time Jim finished, Mr. Bradley stepped in. He soon began his account of the affair. Mr. Evans listened with a judicial air, by no means disclosing any antagonism toward his principal, but very cautious not to give Jim any notion that the principal had the inside track in the mind and sympathy of his superior. There were no comments, no nodding of the head, no knowing smiles that meant, “We’ll fix this fellow, all right.”
Since Mr. Evans had previously frankly said that he would hear the principal’s story, in the first part of the interview, Jim was not surprised that it was given unremitting attention. But he was highly pleased to see that favoritism for the principal was not going to play any part in the final settlement of the matter.
In fact, every pupil expected to see Mr. Evans go the second mile in any case where he came intimately into contact with a pupil, either in the ordinary affairs of the school, or when disciplinary problems must be adjudicated. It was, in a way, a painful experience to meet Mr. Evans under circumstances such as these; he made one feel grieved to impose on him by wrenching his heart with disappointment. There was no fear of consequences, but an anguish over injuring the feelings of the superintendent.
When the facts were all before him, this friend of boys and girls would say:
“I don’t believe it would be right in this case to ...” and he would mention penalties that were severe, though perhaps often employed by other teachers, perhaps were even not condemned by the community. He would finally come to the conclusion of the matter by saying:
“I think we can fix this up in this way ...” a method that was almost without exception such as to strengthen the discipline of the school, to rescue the pupil from provoking circumstances and probably to serve as a deterrent to future misconduct.
At the conclusion of every case of discipline, Mr. Evans left the situation in a better status than before. The boy or girl who had to settle accounts with the superintendent, when all was said and done, knew that the issue was disposed of according to the principles of right and for the good of both the pupil and the school. Wisdom, sympathetic understanding, willingness to make concessions, positive devotion to the pupil’s comfort and welfare, were written all over the man’s actions so plainly as to disarm criticism and to bind every pupil to him as a life-long friend.
Throughout this Course for teachers, we have steadily laid emphasis on the need in the pupil for the cultivation of self-control as a basis for any satisfactory building of character. Scarcely less have we insisted that the same trait of character is essential in a successful teacher. Our survey of the blunders of disciplinarians leads to the conclusion that by far the larger part committed by school teachers can be traced back to an inexcusable lack of this central virtue of self-control.
The passionate, selfish teacher can not see the pupil’s point of view. The measureless transformations of the adolescent period throw a vast majority of people out of sympathy with the adolescent and still more with those of younger years.
The system of school discipline advocated in this Course for teachers, frankly rests on coöperation with the pupil, initiative being taken by the teacher in working out disciplinary problems in frank, wholehearted adjustment to pupil needs and characteristics. No teacher can adopt the policy represented by this principle without
attaining, in a measure, and further developing his own self-control. Our experience and observation, our fresh survey of all the facts while compiling the data presented in these volumes, have deepened immeasurably the conviction that the teacher who seeks the level of the life of the children whom he wishes to govern, assisting them, aiding them, guiding them according to the dictates of their natures rather than contrariwise, will cure himself of one of his own worst vices, namely, anarchy in mood, temper and judgment; and will develop in its place the basic element of a noble character, selfcontrol.
By presenting, as a final word, the contrast between these two teachers, we hope to heighten the impressions that have repeatedly been made as the reader has followed the narratives and discussions contained in the preceding pages. Remember that the two men here described worked under the same circumstances, during the same two years, with the same pupils, in the same building; that each had the benefit of consultation with the other, that both were well received in public and had many friends among the business men and in the homes of the city. The advantage in physical organization lay with him who failed. The essential difference between the two is found in the inner, basic attitude of each toward his pupils.
The one ruled by personality and broad, humane principles; the other was an apostle of force, fitfully administered, as, in fact, it must of necessity be administered. The one was conscious of his authority; the other forgot it and worked man to man with his pupils. The one exhausted his force and failed; the other scarcely ever drew upon his reserve and never lost a pupil friend. The one ground his teeth in rage at the perversity and rebellion of his pupils, the other enjoyed their friendship and reveled in the memories of sympathetic appreciation of his labors. In short, one was beloved by all, the other despised.
Of all the words from tongue or pen that explain the more desirable of the two methods described, none is better than the word Coöperation. This is the capstone of our five fundamental principles —Suggestion, Substitution, Expectation, Approval, Coöperation. Approval of good effort, in fact, turns out to be one mode of coöperation with the pupil. It ministers to his self-love and elicits further effort. A teacher can not exemplify this one principle of
coöperation without hitting upon or consciously employing all the others we have named and illustrated. “I work with my pupils,” is the highest self-praise a teacher can utter. It is a simple, modest, unassuming statement; if true in its deepest sense, he who thus speaks of himself is a perfect teacher and disciplinarian.
We commend this gospel to coöperative school-room discipline to every aspiring teacher who reads these volumes; we can only hope that every one may be converted heart and soul to this mode of action and with religious devotion set about remoulding his treatment and management of school children so that he truly may be a Friend to Man.
INDEX
Absences, 764
Acquisitiveness, 309
Adaptive instincts, 361
Adenoids, 58
Altruism, 586, 727
Anti-social tendencies, 672
Approval, 51, 55, 58, 61, 92, 103, 108, 132, 137, 139, 147, 161, 171, 181, 190, 201, 210, 213, 222, 235, 244, 266, 272, 277, 294, 303, 376, 388, 394, 401, 411, 415, 422, 440, 448, 450, 486, 507, 519, 588, 595, 662, 735, 774, 868
Athletics, aid in discipline, 96, 405, 530, 726, 737, 739, 740, 831
cheating for sake of, 284, 289 fights in, 249
Attention, desire to attract, 23, 50 in school work, 55, 368, 554
Authority, excessive use of, 81, 94, 95, 183, 220, 634, 644, 661, 697, 860
Awkwardness, 61, 141, 143, 148
Bluffing by teacher, cause of disobedience, 121, 536
Boy and girl question, 839
Bullying, 233
Card-playing, 115
Carelessness, 83, 562, 567, 765, 801
Cheating, on examination, 269 how provoked, 268 in recitation, 273 sentiment against, 269, 282
Chewing gum, 388
Choice and disobedience, 31
Church-going, 817
Cigarettes, 402
Class rivalry, 253
Cleanliness, 76, 449
Cliques, 471, 474, 717
Cloaks and overcoats, 79
Clumsiness, 140, 148
Collections of curios, 70, 209, 236, 310, 311, 502
Commands, how to give, attention to be secured, 55 be near child, 50 choose what child wants to do, 51 privately given, 60, 103 repetition to be avoided, 55 rights of pupil to be conserved, 93 speak intelligibly, 53, 753 time to be opportune, 72
Community, understanding conditions in, 43, 775
Companions, choosing, 321, 474, 812, 841, 843
Competition, leading to fighting, 249
Conceit, 192
Confession by pupil, 73, 101, 163, 212, 242, 294, 302, 308, 309, 340, 565, 568, 837 by teacher, 124
Confidence, 31, 32, 52, 60, 68, 71, 85, 89, 96, 105, 116, 121, 150, 167, 196, 201, 209, 212, 266, 299, 376, 406, 496, 499, 642, 667, 776
Conspiracy, 106, 378, 384, 464, 536, 695
Conventionalities, submission to, 803
Coöperation, initiative in, 45, 50, 60, 70, 74, 79, 81, 82, 87, 91, 96, 103, 108, 114, 119, 124, 142, 149, 158, 160, 162, 165, 171, 181, 190, 198, 201, 203, 209, 213, 222, 231, 241, 243, 256, 262, 265, 282, 313, 317, 320, 337, 372, 386, 392, 396, 397, 410, 416, 420, 424, 447, 467, 478, 492, 503, 508, 569, 637, 662, 711, 718, 738, 772, 797, 819, 824, 842, 866, 868
Coughing epidemics, 380
Crying, 257
Curiosity, 549
Dancing 111, 831
Defamation of a teacher, causing disobedience, 65
Defying a teacher 69, 70, 73, 99, 101, 106, 111, 118, 123, 168, 173, 180, 183, 189, 195, 199, 202, 208, 220, 762, 774, 809, 862
Desk order, 77
Destruction of property, 89, 254, 644, 647, 649
Disciplinarian, description of, a 17
Discipline, kinds of, 19
Discipline, what it is, 16 why necessary, 13
Dislike for school, 158, 162, 860
Disobedience, causes of, 41 community sentiment, contravened, 110 due to commands impossible to obey, 56
that are inopportune, 72 that infringe personal rights, 93 unintelligibly stated, 53 due to community conditions, 44 due to defective motor functions, 61 due to faultfinding, 89 due to imitation of others, 69 due to inattention, 55 and instincts, 41 due to parents, 42, 49, 65 due to pleasure-seeking, 117 due to pupils’ conspiracy, 106 due to teacher’s suspicious attitudes, 42, 59, 83 due to unregulated independence in the child, 86 nature of, 30 over-emphasized, 76 wilful, 49
Disputing with teacher, 123, 133, 199, 200, 211
Disrespect for teacher, 187, 366, 368, 370, 373, 490, 538
Dramatizing, 416, 417, 427, 435, 453, 490, 491
Drawing, 74, 303, 665
Dull children, 768
Eating at school, 59, 391, 392, 689
Examinations, cheating at, 269 correct view of, 271 fear of, 264 plans for, 277, 282 questions for, 270, 272 when to give, 271
Expectancy, 51, 58, 61, 62, 65, 68, 79, 80, 84, 85, 88, 92, 96, 104, 124, 133, 137, 183, 202, 231, 252, 392, 397, 411, 462, 479, 582, 585, 729, 772, 868
Explanation of commands, 35, 36, 79, 133, 143, 251, 282, 288, 333, 403, 404, 419, 429, 446, 596, 610, 626, 654, 663, 582, 729, 804, 805, 821, 823
Expressive instincts, 577
Failure and success, contrast between, 859
Falling in love with teacher, 847
Faultfinding, 62, 66, 78, 89, 100, 141, 159, 173, 183, 215, 225, 234, 250, 261, 329, 371, 374, 377, 382, 388, 395, 416, 418, 421, 433, 443, 485, 557, 571, 602, 626, 780
Fear, and cheating, 269 and discipline, 259 and examinations, 264, 284 instinctive, 255 and the lie, 297 in recitation, 264 and stubbornness, 180
Fidgets, 134, 142, 150
Fifth and Sixth grades, cleanliness, 412, 450, 456, 462 cliques, 717, 719 curiosity, 569 disrespect, 197, 367 eating at school, 395, 689 gambling, 315 giggling, 382 impudence, 206, 210 inattention to study, 554 jealousy, 707 leaving room, 378 lying, 307 manners, 418, 420, 442, 444, 803
Mimicry of speech, 366 mischief, 485, 494 obedience, 65
paper wad throwing, 219, 307 play, teaching how to, 525, 527 selfishness, 688 stealing, 638 stubbornness, 172, 178 studying aloud, 628 talkativeness, 607, 608, 611, 612 tattling, 638, 639 teasing tricks, 509 whispering, 592, 604
Fighting, due to accidental situation, 236 due to competition, 249 due to ridicule, 239 Thomas Hughes’ advice on, 96
Fire drills, 757
Firmness, 585
First and Second grades, absences, 764 altruism, 729 careless work, 765 cleanliness, 451, 453 crying, 257 dislike for study, 766 disobedience, 773 disrespect, 189 drawing, 665 drills, 752 dull children, 768 eating at school, 392, 393, 691 fighting, 236 first day in school, 748 first year in school, 747 ill-temper, 182, 187 impudence, 772 indifference to school, 159 laughing, 234 leaving room, 375
lying, 300, 301 making faces, 483 manners, 415, 428 mischief, 766 muscle training, 144 noise, 136 obedience, 49 passing quietly, 751 penmanship learning, 663 play, teaching how to, 524 quarreling, 225, 229, 231 refusal to recite, 256 ringleader, 782 scribbling, 659 selfishness, 677, 679, 781 sex hygiene, 832
sickness a cause of backwardness, 155 smartness, 770 stealing, 327, 330 stubbornness, 170 stuttering, 652 swearing, 651 talkativeness, 634 tardiness, 763 tattling, 633, 634 whispering, 581, 583
Flag salute, 809, 811
Gambling, 115, 312, 318
Games, certain objectionable, in acquiring motor control, 148, 829
Gesture, mimicry of, 368
Groups of pupils, enlisting, 79, 91, 97, 119, 540, 573, 574, 712, 715, 719, 722, 724, 726, 777, 782, 830, 838
Gymnasium, promoting use of, 149, 501
Habit of crying, 258 quarreling, 230 whispering, 583
Hair-pulling, 203
Helping pupil in study, 103, 105
High School, altruism, 736 athletics, supervision of, 532, 534, 537 boy and girl question, 839, 841, 843 cheating by pupil, 281 cheating by teacher, 284 cigarettes, 409 cliques, 720, 725 companions, choosing, 812, 815 curiosity, 571, 573 dancing, 831 destroying property, 561 eating in school, 397, 400 falling in love with teacher, 848, 852 fear, 264, 267 fighting, 249 gambling, 320 impudence, 214 indifference, 167 jealousy, 712, 713, 716 laughing, 193, 194, 497, 598 manners, 425, 427 marking books, 661 nervousness, 264 obedience, 89 passing quietly, 761 practical joke, 504, 513, 516, 519 race prejudice, 471 religion, 817, 819, 821, 823 ringleader, 788, 790, 793, 800 selfishness, 675, 699 sex attraction, unconscious, 831
stealing, 338 sororities, 720 talkativeness, 623, 624 tattling, 643, 647, 649, 661, 697 truancy, 157, 548 whispering, 598, 601
Home study, 77, 87
How to study, teaching, 626, 628
Humor and discipline, 215, 598
Ideals, false and perverted, 24
Ignoring misconduct, 142, 196, 200, 205, 238, 293, 372, 381, 444, 482, 484, 520, 635, 637, 662, 763
Ill-temper, 182
Imagination, aid in discipline, 184, 488 and lying, 295
Imitation, aid in discipline, 184, 361 and bodily action, 63 cause of misconduct, 23, 69, 361 provoking impudence, 206
Impartiality, 108
Impudence, 65, 190, 199, 206, 211, 213, 772, 795
Inattention, 55, 554
Independence in the child, causing disobedience, 86
Indifference as cause of disorder, 157
Inhibition and discipline, 21
Injured child, sympathy for, 258
Instincts, classification of, 129 relation to discipline, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21 disobedience, 30 fear, 255
function of, 129
Interviews, 34, 52, 60, 62, 63, 68, 84, 86, 87, 88, 92, 96, 101, 112, 113, 114, 119, 132, 155, 174, 175, 177, 191, 215, 222, 232, 242, 251, 288, 302, 313, 320, 322, 332, 336, 398, 410, 421, 423, 449, 457, 466, 472, 494, 499, 510, 520, 566, 586, 605, 641, 645, 682, 700, 864
Jealousy, 700
Jokes on teacher, 366, 368, 370, 373
Joking teacher, 205, 505, 507
Kindergarten. (See First and Second grades.)
Knowing the pupil, 51, 58, 60, 63, 87, 108, 131, 142, 151, 156, 176, 179, 186, 194, 200, 209, 212, 218, 226, 339, 241, 481, 566, 511, 584, 615, 620, 673, 706, 777
Laboratory as an instrument of discipline, 167
Laughing in school, 72, 74, 75, 99, 193, 194, 234, 382, 493, 494, 497
Laziness, clumsiness and fidgets as causes of disorders, 130
Leaving the room, 375
Lighting of a school-room, 154
Literary societies, troubles with, 106
Lunches, stealing of, 334
Lying to conceal, 301, 465, 594 enquiry into, 212 for fame, 506 for gain, 298, 300 and gambling, 313 and the imagination, 295 kinds of, 297 provoked by teacher, 67, 292, 303, 307
and stealing, 329, 335 teacher practices, 59, 288, 304, 863
Mannerisms of teacher, 102, 366, 370, 373, 368
Manners, 53, 191, 411, 672, 684, 695, 700, 715, 717, 736, 740, 803
Making faces, 482, 483, 487, 500, 781
Marbles, gambling with, 312
Marking desks, 301
Matching pennies, 319
Mimicry, 365
Mischief-maker, 98, 478, 485, 501, 504, 766
Money stolen, 337, 338, 340
Motor functions defective, causing disobedience, 61
Nervous child, 134, 447
Noise, 94, 135, 143, 443, 446, 463, 466, 589, 591, 602, 621, 622
Note-writing, 643, 834, 835, 836, 862
Obedience, factors making for, 38 Fifth and Sixth grades, 65 First and Second grades, 49 formal, 34, 746
High School, 89 intelligent, 36, 746 kinds of, 33, 186 public expects, 38 pupils expect to obey, 39 relation to character building, 29 relation to school efficiency, 27 Seventh and Eighth grades, 76 stages in development of, 33
Third and Fourth grades, 56
Oversensitiveness, of pupil, 214 of teachers, 189
Paper scattered, 49, 77, 80, 459
Paper wad throwing, 219, 307, 492
Parents, causing a boy to tease, 240 defaming teacher, a cause of disobedience, 65 leading families, dealing with, 70 provoking disobedience, 41, 86, 438, 770 provoking impudence, 206 provoking indifference to school, 159 provoking quarrels, 228 provoking selfishness, 684, 687 provoking stubbornness, 172 responsibility in keeping order, 110, 165, 323, 452, 457, 469, 745, 840 teacher conferring with, 67, 68, 158, 228, 322
Passing quietly, 137, 751, 756
Pencil, misuse of, 135, 187, 443
Penmanship, learning, 663
Personal right of pupils, infringement of, 93
Physical conditions, causing misconduct 131, 134, 141, 143, 148, 155, 236, 587
Picnic manners, 418
Play, 477, 671, 692, 829, 831 supervised, 226, 230, 317, 522, 692
Pleasure-seeking causing disobedience, 117
Poolroom, The, 641
Practical jokes, 504, 510
Preparation (to teach), defective, 121
Prohibitions, 99, 111, 362, 383, 390, 395, 398, 416, 451, 580, 754, 755, 591, 795, 839
Promise, making to pupils, 109
Public opinion disregarded, 110
Punishment, apology as, 321, 371 corporal, awkward position, 443, 483 boxing ears, 276 requesting right to use, 94 shaking, 50, 384, 603, 762 tying hands together, 562 whipping, 66, 68, 78, 89, 93, 163, 164, 172, 173, 195, 202, 211, 218, 261, 263, 319, 332, 485, 508, 706, 861 demotion, 502, 629
detention after school, 73, 151, 190, 230, 241, 260, 275, 336, 374, 588, 612, 710 discipline, not dependent upon 17 grade lowered, 277 ineffective, 135, 141, 161 loss of privileges, 321, 737, 780, 802 provoking disobedience, 89 ridicule, 206 school work, as 90, 599 suspension, 282, 317, 467, 513, 518, 839
Punning, 200
Quarreling from spite, 228 on school grounds, 225 way to school, 229
Quarrelsomeness, bullying and fighting, 223
Questioning pupils about misconduct, 73, 90, 99, 213, 234, 273, 275, 276, 292, 301, 307, 317, 321, 333, 335, 382, 389, 391, 393, 398, 410, 421, 443, 464, 466, 498, 499, 501, 506, 517, 543, 636, 661, 797, 862
Race prejudice, 471, 474
Reasons, failure to comprehend cause of misconduct, 22
Reform of teacher, 95, 102, 124, 228, 590, 612, 763
Refusal to do home work, 87, 88 to go to school, 87 to recite, 256
Regulative instincts, 745
Religious attitudes, 817 perplexities, 821 recluse, 823
Responsibility, 84, 86
Retardation of a pupil, 64, 67, 132, 150, 769
Ridicule provoking fighting, 239
Rights of child as to playthings, 313
Ringleader, dealing with a, 52, 70, 98, 113, 119, 367, 385, 405, 411, 529, 546, 574, 740, 776
Rivalry between student groups, 106, 713
Rules, overemphasis of, causing disobedience, 76, 81, 662, 750
Rural School
anarchy in, 217, 310 cheating, 273, 276, 281 clumsiness, 140 coaching pupil, 181 conceit, 192 defying teacher, 69 eating during school hours, 59 first day, 749 inattention, 55 indifference, 159 joking teacher, 205 mischief in, 99 paper scattered, 49 quarreling, 229
