My Habitus and Critical Social Theory

My Habitus and Critical Social Theory

As an administrator at a small predominately white private institution who identities as an African American woman, my position within the university and education level have placed me amongst the middle class. As a result, there is perceived privilege that comes with this class position. However, I am not blind to that privilege and can identify when that perspective appears in my thoughts and writing. In addition, as a college student and as a professional, I identify as a first-generation student, who’s racial identity automatically identifies me as a marginalized student and a product of two working class parents.  I had to overcome many barriers and obstacles throughout my educational and professional journey. Today, I often find myself relating to the many students for which I work daily who are struggling to overcome barriers and persist towards another year of obtaining their degree. As I entered into an advanced studies degree, I found it important to focus my research on these students as they resemble me as a student. Due to my position as an administrator, I am often asked to serve on committees to discuss critical issues that affect students’ success and accessibility to higher education. As Bourdieu would say this is my habitus. This is who I am. As a writer I cannot ignore this lens, and this is the context and perspective for which I will be approaching my research but is also the lens for which I see the world around and for which I work towards social change.

In the Leonardo article, he discussed critical social theory, quality education, transformative education and the role criticism places in quality education. This article also provided an understanding of the foundation of critical social theory. It was helpful to understand why critical theory is important in research and how as educators we can encourage students learning through the use of discourse and critical pedagogy.  As I began to explore my understanding of critical theory, I found this quote by Leonardo to be very impactful, “Education discourse not only frames the way students experience learning, it may also empower them” (p. 12). As an educator, I want to empower my students to go out into the world and create social change.

While reading this article, I discovered that every question I had about critical theory, the author was able to answer it.  Earlier in the reading I wondered how an educator could bring critical theory in to the classroom, Leonardo answered that question.  He indicated that critical theory “can travel with adolescents from the literature classroom into the rest of their lives because we want our student to reflect a keen understanding of their location (and a degree of complicity) within a variety of competing ideologies and possibilities” (p. 12).  Later in the reading, I questioned if critiquing/criticism could be viewed as negative and he discussed the use of criticism as the “deployment of commentary” (p.14).  However, there are three questions that still remain:

1.     Critical social theory is used more now than when this article was written in 2004.  Do people still criticize the idea of critical social theory?

2.     What is the difference between concrete theory and critical theory?  Is the only difference the presence of human and social needs vs history?  If so, how is that different?

3.     I would like to unpack the following statement, “it remains to be said that quality education has never been achieved without a fundamental struggle for freedom. If oppression and emancipation are the two main concerns for CST, than its transformative knowledge base should also reflect their full and lived complexity” (p.16).  –What does that mean?