No Wifi, No Future: Bourdieu, Education and The Covid-19 Pandemic
Photo Courtesy: Leonardo Antoniadis via Flickr
The year is 1970 and French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has just published his critique of the education system stating that, by presenting itself as a meritocracy, it ‘masks more thoroughly than any other legitimate mechanism.’ Yet, he argues, individual ability becomes redundant in the face of the ‘cultural and economic capital’ inherited from one's parents. This cultural and economic capital is fundamental to survival within the education system. 50 years later it is 2020, Bourdieu has been dead for 18 years and a deadly virus, mishandled by capital-driven authorial powers, has led to a global lockdown. A fracture in the education system has now been turned into a chasm.
If the shutting of schools, shift to remote learning, or cancellation of your GCSE/ A level exams delighted you, you were likely privileged to live in the sanctity of a home environment with access to technology.
As Katie Mckay highlights, when the shift to online learning began in the UK, it left behind many students ‘from working-class households who were less likely to own the facilities needed.’ A divide that already existed between students, as identified by Bourdieu in the French system of the 70s, became ever more defined. The mask began to slip. Statistics collected by the UK Government showed that 11% of British students did not have access to the correct device and 10% of students fell behind due to poor internet connection. While some schools were able to use their COVID-19 ‘catch-up premium funding to purchase digital equipment’ other students were given ‘non-digital solutions such as worksheets that matched the curriculum’. ‘1 in 5 children in the country did not have access to a device for online learning'. Access to a device was not the only issue; the 'appropriateness’ and number of devices available within a household also played a significant role. This meant that lessons taught within the classroom were distorted; when streamed to millions of devices across the country, each gave a different output and consequently, lessons achieved varying degrees of success. Across the country, students' access to education, more than ever before, was determined by the ‘economic capital’ of their households (their parents' financial resources) and their ‘cultural capital’ (their parents' ability to provide additional support).
The biggest education divide, that of private versus state education, significantly demonstrates how ‘economic capital’ paves the way for academic success. The Sutton Trust reported that, while 60% of private schools already ‘had an online platform in place,’ only 23% of schools in ‘deprived’ areas had access to such facilities when the closure was first announced. A Cambridge study stated that ‘97% of private school students had access to a computer at home’ compared to ‘20% of students on free school meals. Equally, private schools were more likely to give their students higher teacher-assessed grades with the proportion of A grades at A level rising from 44.7% to 70.4% compared with state schools which rose to only 42.1% from 24.1%. The Economic Observatory highlights how, even within state schools, students from ‘ethnic minority or lower-income backgrounds’ were affected by ‘biases in teacher assessed grades.’
In 1970, Bourdieu claimed that ‘the education system’ ‘encourages self-elimination’ by ensuring ‘the exclusion of certain categories of recipients.’ In 2020, the UK saw stagnation and regression for many working-class students who did not have access to the necessary tools of their counterparts, and many of these students ‘self-eliminated’ from their studies. As the government issued a mask mandate, the true mask of the education system was removed. Ultimately it became evident that the education system is not a meritocracy but a system that prioritizes ‘economic and cultural capital’ over ability.