Lakomski on Agency and Structure

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O n A g e n c y a n d Structure:P i e r r e Bourdieu a n d Jean-ClaudePasseron's T h e o r y

o f S y m b o l i c V i o l e n c eGABRIELE LAKOMSKICollegeof Education, Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Theories which purport to explain the relationship between schoolingand work, and the production and reproduction of social inequality, haveoccupied educators for some time. In this article, I examine a theory ofsocialization which recognizes as central the function of ideology in socialand cultural reproduction: Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron'stheory of symbolic violence (1977).1This theory, while originating in France and dealing with the Frencheducation system, is part of a growing body of theories of reproductionwhich began to emerge in the wake of the reform movements in thesixties. As it became increasingly clear that the promises of liberal ed-ucation reform were not to be fulfilled, political economists and radicaleducators charged that the objectives of progressive education could notbe achieved in a capitalist society. They argued that equality of oppor-tunity, more democratic social structures, and moral autonomy publicschooling goals were impossible since the schools' function was the re-production of a stratified labour force. This argument became best knownin the work of Bowles and Gintis who maintained that liberal educationreforms must fail because liberal ideology glosses over the correspondencebetween the relations of production and the relations of schooling. Ed-ucation, in their account, "is best understood as an institution which servesto perpetuate the social relationships of economic life through whichthese patterns are set, by facilitating a smooth integration of youth intothe labor force" (1976, p. 11). This was seen as taking place through theuncontested processes of schooling which taught pupils to internalizethe hierarchically organized patterns of norms, behaviours, and valuescharacteristic of the work place.In the accounts of reproduction which followed Bowles and Gintis'"Correspondence Theory" (CT), it is generally accepted that schoolingdoes have a central role in the reproduction of the social relations of? 1984 by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. PublishedbyJohn Wiley&Sons, Inc.14:2 CCC 0362-6784/84/020151-13 04.00


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production, and that there is, at a general level, some kind of corre-spondence between schooling and work. But while the principle is largelyuncontested, critics have pointed out that CT fails to provide an adequateaccount of the processes and mechanisms through which social repro-duction happens (see Apple, 1979; Giroux, 1981; Willis, 1981; Sarup,1978). Guilty of a functionalist perspective which leads Bowles and Gintisto misrecognize effects as causes, CT implies that school children, inparticular, are infinitely malleable and passive creatures upon whom theinescapable processes of schooling impress those norms and dispositionsrequired of them in the work place. Rooted in the Althusserian notionof the economic structure as determinant "in the last instance" (Althusser,1971, 1979), and entertaining, subsequently, a linear notion of cause inreproduction, from the top down, CT ends up with a deterministic con-ception of agency and social reproduction.The consequences for pedagogic action are severe, for not only hadCT theorists berated what they considered to be well-intentioned butmisguided educators for the futility of their progressive educationalpractices, they had also effectively theorized away any possible openingfor change to take hold. If reproduction does happen in the mannerdescribed, and if children are as compliant and acquiescent as assumedby CT, then there are no prospects for changing oppressive structures.Wary of the politically reactionary consequences of CT's macroso-ciological approach and its overemphasis on the economic structure, the-orists began to focus on what actually goes on in specific classrooms andschools (see Delamont, 1976; Sharp and Green, 1975; Willis, 1978; Anyon,1981; McRobbie and McCabe, 1981) an ethnographic perspective madetheoretically viable by the emergence of various interpretive approachesin the social sciences.2 The examination of the social relations of theclassroom in terms of the everyday production, reproduction, and ne-gotiation of meanings, and of the culture of the school, made it possibleto conceive of existing conflicts, antagonisms, and forms of resistance tothe ideology of the school as analytic tools. As a result, CT's notion ofreproduction could be expanded. Once it was acknowledged that schoolsare relatively autonomous social sites, an important dimension had beengained in theorizing about social reproduction and possibilities for change.The theory of symbolic violence (TSV) is an example of a potentiallymore satisfactoryaccount in that it incorporates this insight and emphasizescultural production as necessarily mediating components facilitating totalsocial reproduction.While sharing concerns with traditional functional analysesof education,TSV departs from them in at least three significant respects: (1) it examineshow education functions to safeguard the dominant position of certaingroups; (2) it emphasizes the unequal communication of the dominantculture; and (3) it defines the concept of socialization as occurring throughmisrecognition of the arbitrary nature of norms.Taking as their point of departure the fact of educational inequality,Bourdieu and Passeron view schools as conserving rather than liberatingkinds of institutions. They argue that schools effectively perpetuate the

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existing social structure in that they promote those students who enterequipped with cultural privileges and progressively eliminate others whosecultural capital differs significantly from that of the dominant group.Since educational institutions present as "natural" inequalities in edu-cational outcomes which are based on "individual differences" and "merit,"and demonstrated through objective testing procedures, the cooling-outprocess is not recognized as such. Rather, failure is attributed to personalinadequacy and accepted as "fate." Similarly, success for those studentswithcultural capital is equally accepted as natural by both the privilegedand the subordinate.

By portraying cultural inequalities (cultural capital) as the primaryreason for the existence of social inequality, Bourdieu and Passeron argue,schools help to conceal the real nature of power inequalities (real capital)in the French social structure. Since pedagogic action is so successful inmaking arbitrary power relations appear as legitimate authority, the au-thors consider it a privileged object in the analysis of reproduction. Theysee their task as providing "adescription of the objective processes whichcontinually exclude children from the least privileged social classes."(Bourdieu, 1974, p. 32.) Accordingly, the theory of symbolic violence isconsidered to be scientific and objective.While Bourdieu and Passeron highlight an area of education researchstill largely unexplored by focussing on the socially constructed natureof symbol systems, their uncritical adoption of Althusser's notion of ide-ology has severe consequences for TSV.As a structuralist theory of socialization and reproduction, TSVpreempts its own task by implicitly taking as unproblematic what is thevery issue to be explained: namely that working-class children apparentlyaccept, "of their own free will," their position at the bottom of the socialorder. Bourdieu and Passeron not only sever the dialectic between con-sciousness and structure as an historical process but leave us with structureand eliminate the category of human agency altogether. This is criticalfor a theory which appears to take a radical stance towards inequality.Since there is no account of agency but only abstract and invisible powerrelations which nevertheless directly determine reproduction; the theoryof symbolic violence assumes a mechanistic and one-dimensional character.We are left with a theory of socialization which describes the unproblematictransmission of middle-class culture to middle-class children, a conceptionin which working-class children are, by definition, culture-less (see Bredoand Feinberg, 1979). Desite some valuable insights, the theory ultimatelypresents a structural closure, or as one commentator remarks, "an ex-tremely cultured way of crying 'Help!' in the face of an over-determinedvision" (Davies, 1976).

In the following, I outline briefly the principal elements of the theoryof symbolic violence and then turn to the discussion of those conceptsconsidered most central for both the theory and this argument: "power"and "power relations," the term "arbitrary,"and the "habitus."I concludewith some preliminary remarks concerning the possibilities of humanagency.

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GABRIELELAKOMSKI/CIThe argument presented in Reproductionrests on a premise whichBourdieu and Passeron consider fundamental for a theory of sociologicalknowledge: "Every power to exert symbolic violence, i.e., every power

which manages to impose meanings ... as legitimate by concealing thepower relations which are the basis of its force, adds its own specificallysymbolic force to those power relations" (p. 4). It is important in theauthors' view to stress the relative autonomy and dependence of symbolicrelations with respect to power relations.The theory of symbolic violence consists of four major propositionsand numerous subpropositions and glosses which deal respectively withpedagogic action (PA), authority (PAu), work (PW), and the educationalsystem (ES). The first and most important one suggests that all pedagogicactions are symbolically violent insofar as they seek to impose arbitrarycultural meanings in the context of an arbitrary power relation (p. 5).By pedagogical actions, Bourdieu and Passeron understand all attemptsat instruction, be they carried out in the family, school, or elsewhere.These attempts are considered symbolicallyviolent insofar as the socializerhas arbitrary power over the socializee, power which is rooted in thepower relations between social classes and groups. By the term "arbitrary,"the authors understand something that "cannot be deduced from anyuniversal principle, whether physical, biological or spiritual" (p. 8).There is a second sense in which pedagogic action is objectively symbolicviolence: the meanings which are selected for imposition are those of aparticular group or class. The overall effect of the imposition, as Bourdieuand Passeron see it, is the reproduction of the structure of the distributionof cultural capital among the different groups and classes, and hencethe reproduction of the total social structure. This is only possible ifpedagogic action possesses "authority." Its authority exists precisely tothe extent that neither its dependence on the power structure nor thenature of the culture to be imposed is recognized "objectively." Indeed,it is constantly misrecognizedbecause pedagogic authority entails a con-ception of education as "mere communication" even in nonauthoritarian,child-centered, and nonrepressive forms of education. Since pedagogicaction is the chief instrument of turning power relations into legitimateauthority, the authors contend that it presents a privileged object forthe analysis of the social basis of the paradoxes of domination andlegitimacy.Pedagogic action, insofar as it is symbolicallyviolent, involves pedagogicwork, i.e., a process of inculcation. Socialization results in what the authorscall the "habitus." By this they understand a durable set of habits basedon the internalized principles of the dominant culture. Once established,these habits, which are considered irreversible, perpetuate those veryprinciples. The habitus is never explicit but consists of the tacit sharedunderstandings of social actors. Because it operates beneath the surfaceof consciousness it provides a kind of "deep structure" (Bredo and Fein-berg, 1979) which, in turn, shapes surface beliefs and attitudes. Thefunction of the habitus is thus to safeguard long-term social reproductionthrough the construction of a Meadian "Self." In this way, social actors

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successfully and smoothly reproduce their own misrecognition of dom-ination. According to Bourdieu and Passeron, there is no possibility ofbreaking out of the circle. "The man who deliberates on his culture isalready cultivated and the questions of the man who thinks he is ques-tioning the principles of his upbringing still have their roots in his up-bringing" (p. 37). While differences of attitude, belief, and opinion arepossible and do occur, these are only apparent differences since theyare produced by the same generative habitus. Pedagogic work is successful,the authors claim, when the habitus not only generates the practices ofthe dominant culture in a wide range of areas, but also reproduces themexhaustively. Since these practices are legitimated by pedagogic work,certain cultural products are also sanctioned as legitimate: the notion ofintelligence as a student's "private property," for instance. Hence, theauthors argue, the power structure is reproduced by the inculcation ofinternalized controls, a fact which, it is claimed, makes coercionsuperfluous.Finally, pedagogic work operates differently with different groups de-pending on their relative position vis-a-vis the dominant culture. Thefurther removed a subculture is from the dominant habitus of "symbolicskills," for example, the more difficult is the task of teaching it. Ratherthan adjusting teaching methods and criteria to suit the subculture,teachers teach at the level of those already in possession of symbolic skills.Consequently, since teachers only need to treat children equally to main-tain inequality, working-class children are doubly punished: while theylack the dominant culture to begin with, they are nevertheless measuredand evaluated by its standards. Since these standards are believed to be"fair"and "objective,"neither parents nor children doubt their legitimacy."Thus," Bourdieu comments, "by its own logic the educational systemcan help to perpetuate cultural privileges without those who are privilegedhaving to use it" (1974: p. 42).While the theory of symbolic violence is an interesting contribution tothe debate on the ideological function of culture as structuring and leg-itimating the system of social relations, its latent idealism and lack ofexplanatory power prevent it from formulating an adequate conceptionof how a transformative educational practice might be developed. Insupport of this argument, I now turn to the conception of "power" and"power relations," and to the meaning of the term "arbitrary,"and the"habitus."Bourdieu and Passeron are concerned with "power" and "power re-lations," but critical as these concepts are, the reader is not provided witha conceptual or any other kind of analysis. The conception of "power"which is predominant in their discussion emphasizes its legitimating po-tential in relation to agents, actions, and products. In this sense, "power"means the same as authority. While the authors are correct in emphasizingthe symbolic aspects of "power,"they underplay it as the result of objectivecontrol of resources, and of sheer physical coercion. This neglect is ratherobvious in the discussion of the education system. While schools are self-reproductive in the way Bourdieu and Passeron describe them, they can

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only be so because they have the State's backing in the form of the com-pulsory attendance law. Since this institutional aspect remains quite ab-stract, power relations appear as immaterial and yet constitutive principlesof the social order. A possible explanation might be found if we consideranother post-structuralist's conception of power. While there is no directreference, Bourdieu and Passeron's notion is quite similar to that of MichelFoucault (1980). For the latter, "power" is neither a group of institutionsand mechanisms, nor a mode of subjugation, nor a general system ofdomination. Any analysis of "power," he argues, must not assume thateither the state, or the law, or overall domination is given at the outset.They are only the terminal forms "power" takes. He continues:Power must be considered as the multiplicityof force relations immanent inthe sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization... Power'scondition of possibility,or in any case the viewpointwhichpermitsone to understandits exercise ... and which also makes it possible to use itsmechanismsas a grid of intelligibilityof the socialorder, mustnotbesought ntheprimary xistence f a centralpoint ... it is the moving substrate of forcerelations which, by virtue of their inequality, constantly engender states ofpower. [Emphasisadded] [1980: p. 93].Like Foucault, Bourdieu and Passeron seem to be saying: (1) "power"does not emanate from a fixed center, first principle, etc.; (2) "powerrelations" are always in process. Here the question arises, that if the stateand the law are only the terminal forms of power, where does poweritself have its roots? Willis (1981) is quite correct when he notes, "thatoriginal production of power is mythical, and, finally, an assumptionwhich allows the hall of mirrors of culture to stand and reflect at all. Wehave a pre-given asserted structure of power which is then reproducedculturally" (p. 54). Post-structuralism, with its emphasis on the processof structuration, has not given a clear answer regarding its own foun-dations. This is a critical shortcoming for "power" is a central conceptin the theory of symbolic violence. Since TSV purports to be materialist,it is essential that its foundations be made clear. Some additional insightsare gained by considering the term "arbitrary."While the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the term "arbitrary"as (1) dependent upon will or pleasure; (2) derived from mere opinionor preference; (3) unrestrained in the exercise of will, of uncontrolledpower or authority, it also means "not based on the nature of things,"a meaning acknowledged by Bourdieu and Passeron (p. 8). A possiblefurther use of the term is as equivalent to "contingent." Support for thisis found in the discussion of the "choices" which constitute a culture asarbitrary when compared to all present and past cultures, or to the (im-aginary) universe of all possible cultures. The authors state that the choices"reveal their necessity as soon as they are related to the social conditionsof their emergence and perpetuation" (p. 8). This may be interpretedto mean that the only kind of necessity (other than logical or biological)is one which is defined by the specificity of historically produced socialconditions of existence. Indeed, Bourdieu and Passeron's orientation iscritical of the "purely synchronic grasp of cultural facts,"meaning loosely,of the ahistorical understanding of social facts which finds its logical con-

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AGENCY AND STRUCTUREclusion in "genesis amnesia" (p. 9). But again, as we saw earlier in ourdiscussion of "power", while the flavour is distinctly historical-materialist,the substance of materialism in terms of the production f history, is absent.The brief analysis of "arbitrary" hows that, in the end, there is no accountof possible change. Specifically, the critical notion of human agency, ofstruggle over meanings and definitions which creates structure, is absent.Consequently, the dialectical mediation between actor and structure cannoteven be raised as an issue.In side-stepping the problem of foundations, the theory of symbolicviolence maintains its ambiguous character by insinuating a radical stancewhile hiding its objectivist nature. It assumes that social actors are merelythe passive bearers of ideology who carry out its universal reproductivefunction. There is no mention of the subjective meanings actors placeupon their experiences in given structures. The closest the authors cometo capture that realm of shared meanings is, of course, the conceptionof the "habitus." But again, we are not given an explanation of howactors come to construct it in the first place. Indeed, the "habitus" isdescribed in merely functional terms: it is "the equivalent, in the culturalorder, of the transmission of genetic capital in the biological order" (p.32). This notion assumes that (1) there are no competing bases of legit-imacy, and (2) the behaviour and beliefs reproduced in working-classchildren are those of the dominant lasses, albeit in watered-down form.But from the fact that the habitus helps reproduce the dominant cultureit neither follows that there are no competing bases of legitimacy, northat the dominant culture is the only possible one. The first assumptionignores what has been called the "hidden" or informal curriculum, andthat children respond to both what is being said in school, and how it issaid (Eggleston, 1977). Bearing this distinction in mind, there are at leastfive ways in which children might respond to the ideology of the school:

(1) The explicit message is believed and children experience nocontradictions;(2) The explicit message is believed but there are also other messageswhich stand in contradiction to it. Children do not know whichmessage is the "right" one. These tensions may lead to attitudesand behaviours such as

(3) "I know what your game is; I will not play it, but rather play myown", or(4) "I know what your game is; I will play, and win!"3 Finally, therealso may occur(5) Complete confusion resulting in "craziness," other serious mentaldisorders, and even suicide.Logically, none of these five options can be excluded in advance. Whichparticular option is chosen in practice is an empirical question. Bourdieuand Passeron present the first of these possibilities as the only one, andthen maintain that it exists equally for working- and middle-class children,thus deciding the race before it ever got started.But we do not have to accept their radical defeatism and can develop

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GABRIELE LAKOMSKI/CIthe outlines of a more constructive and active conception of agency inwhat follows. I noted in the beginning that, as a result of the criticismsof CT, theorists were directing their attention to the actual events in theclassroom which facilitated recognition of conflicts, antagonisms, andopposition to the ideology of the school. The most detailed account ofhow children do experience contradictions and tensions in the dominantideology is Paul Willis' (1978) rich ethnography.4 Willis argues that agroup of working-class children, "the lads," not only do not accept thedominant ideology but actually develop antagonistic strategies in whathe describes as "counter-school culture." He shows that the import ofthese strategies is not known in any theoretical or conscious sense, butis expressed in working-class specific visual, stylistic, and behaviouralforms. This is to say that there are actual, however diffusely expressed,resistances to the imposition of the dominant culture which are rootedin the dominated culture. In these interactions there are moments whenchildren catch a glimpse of their real position at the bottom of the socialstructure. But these "penetrations" are never more than impulses sincethey always encounter "limitations," i.e., "those blocks, diversions, andideological effects which confuse and impede the full development andexpression of these impulses" (Willis, 1978: p. 119). According to Willis,these acts of defiance presuppose agency and a cultural realm differentfrom the dominant one. But while the rejection of the school's ideologyis evidence of "resistance" it also affirms the status and role of the dom-inated which fids its logical conclusion in the neat insertion into manuallabour. Commenting on the outcome of his study, Willis notes at theconclusion of his book, "This may not be the Millenium but it could beMonday morning. Monday morning need not imply an endless successionof the same Monday mornings" (1978: p. 192). It need not, but giventhe nature of his argument, it does.In focussing on the oppositional practices of the lads, Willis' notionof agency captures the moments of contestation and struggle, insightswhich are lacking in Bourdieu and Passeron's notion of "habitus." Butlike the latter, Willis' conception, too, leads to reproduction, a result,which far from being paradoxical, follows from his treatment of "re-sistance." He accepts, with apparent innocence that the lads' showy op-positional practices are practices of resistance to the reproduction ofoppression: Willis commits the ethnographic error of "going native." Hedoes not conceive of "resistance" as an historical, dialectical notion, andcan therefore take appearances for essences. This misrecognition leads,then, quite logically, to reproduction-with a vengeance.Not only do the lads willingly affirm their own oppression, they continueto be veritable oppressors within their own class by exercising their racistand sexist practices. By choosing to withhold their learning power, thelads turn their backs on essential intellectual tools which would enablethem to acquire skills and concepts necessary to develop a self-consciousand theoretical account of their social position and oppression. And yet,they are portrayed as the only group which "penetrates" the official ide-ology, no matter how spuriously, and in whom the possibility for trans-

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AGENCY AND STRUCTUREformation is placed. Recalling the distinctions I made earlier, the ladsare examples of the third category; they play their own game-and lose.Willis does not even consider the possibility that students may actually"play the game," and win! But it is precisely this possibility which canbe found even in his own ethnographic material. I wish to draw attentionto two other groups mentioned in the study, groups whose significancefor reproduction theory has not been sufficiently recognized. The groupsin question are the "ear 'oles," or "lobes," i.e., the conformists, and the"marginals," those on the outskirts of the counter-school culture. Theear-holes are, like the teachers, the natural enemies of the lads, and theyare described as follows:It seems that they are always istening,never doing: never animated with theirown internal life, but formless in rigid reception. The ear is one of the leastexpressiveorgans of the human body: it respondsto the expressivityof others... That is how "the lads" liked to picturethose who conformed to the officialidea of schooling [Willis, 1978: 14].The conformists' response to the lads is generally one of fear, jealousy,and anxiety. The lads might disrupt the normal flow of learning, whichmeans interfering with their investment. But while the conformists acceptthe official definition of schooling Willis also notes in passing, "althoughthis is the conventional response, it is not realized or 'won' in its ownterms without hard work, a degree of rationality and personal commit-ment" (1978: p. 99). Tony, an "ear'ole," is quoted as saying, "we've hadto face up to the fact that we've got to come to school. We've got to dothe work, else you wouldn't get on. So you more or less train yourself to belikethat(1978: p. 99, emphases added). The implications and consequencesof this kind of training are most interesting when these students get intothe work force. Willis writes:While conformists are preferred for "skilled"work, when they enter morehumdrum workunaidedbyculturalsupports,diversions,and typicalhabituatedpatterns of interpretation theycan beidentifiedbythose n authority s morethreateningand less willing to acceptthe established tatus quo. For these boys still believe, as itwere, in the rubric of equality,advancethrough meritand individualismwhichthe school has moreor lessunproblematically assedon to them.Thus, althoughthere is no surfaceopposition, no insolent manner to enrage the conventionalonlooker, neither is there a secret pact, made in the reflex moment of anoppositionalstyle, to accept a timeless authoritystructure:a timeless "us andthem."Consequently,these kids are more likelyto expect real satisfactionan,lthe possibilityof advancefrom their work. They expect authorityrelations,inthe end, to reflect only differences in competence. All these expectations, coupledfrequently with a real unhappiness in an individual unrelieved by a socialdiversion,make the conformistveryirksomeand "hard o deal with."In manualand semi-skilled obs, then, those in authorityoften prefer "the lads"to the'ear'ole'type [1978: p. 110, emphases added].Finally, the last group, those who fall between the categories, also appearto suffer the most. Since they are neither "ear'oles" nor "lads", they areignored by the first and despised by the last. According to Willis, thelack of a shared cultural involvement "removes an important mediationbetween the self and work. Where that work is basically mindless and

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repetitive, it more relentlessly racks and twists the unprotected humansensibility" (1978: p. 112). This separates the "marginals" from the ladswhose boisterous affirmation and extrinsic satisfaction buffer subjectivefeelings to a much higher degree. Consequently, the former encountermanual labour in its raw immediacy, unprotected by layers of shopfloorculture. They also keep themselves separate from the lads whom theydislike.

Summing up, it seems that all three groups choose to resist the practicesof the school in some form.5 The conformists do not simply internalizethe dominant ideology: their conformity is the result of deliberate, self-conscious action based on the "correct"insight that, in order "to get on"one has to comply with the demands of the school, at least in appearance.6The lads opt for open resistance, and, as far as we can determine fromWillis' account, the "marginals"opt for keeping themselves to themselves.In order to avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to point out thatagents are not conceived as Kantian autonomous egos availing themselvesof "free" choices. Rather, agents are complex, material entities whoserange of choices depend on their social, psychological, and behaviouraldispositions which, in turn, are bounded by the specific sets of historicalmaterial conditions in which they occur. What constitutes a choice, then,is dependent on one's repertoire of conceivable and practicable options.The repertoire may be decreased or increased depending on agents'changing life situations, in other words, we can learn to do things dif-ferently. While this is a concrete possibility, it does not follow that agentsnecessarily do learn to do things differently, although they may be forcedto under certain circumstances, nor does it entail that doing things dif-ferently means doing them better.

What emerges from these considerations is that of the possible optionsonly some are perceived as options by agents.7 In this sense one canconsider choice as "determined." In our specific case, we can argue thatthe conformists and the lads chose the way they did because those optionsseemed appropriate to deal with their problems.8 Agency, in this account,means that agents weigh their options in relation to specific problems.They may, of course, be mistaken about the appropriateness of theirchoices. Whether or not specific options have reproductive or non-reproductive consequences (where "reproduction" is understood as the"reproduction of oppression") cannot be determined a priori. It followsthat we have to grant that all agents "resist" the manifest material con-tradictions in their lives, and indeed transform their situations. This doesnot exclude that some forms of resistance can be resistance to the re-production of oppression, but this need not necessarily be so. Change,then, does occur in the social structure as ongoing, possibly violent, pro-cesses. It is appropriate to speak of transformation as largely (but notexclusively) small-scale, locally-produced, and more wide-spread occur-rences than commonly assumed by radical theorists. Only the lived con-sequences of agents' actions will show, in the end, whether or not anyor all were indeed politically progressive or reactionary. In the meantime,we are not absolved from theorizing about democratic educational practice.

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AGENCYAND STRUCTUREIt has to be done, and in doing so, we cannot assume that our "expert"social science knowledge is superior to the common sense knowledge ofthe people we theorize about. In my view, the central task for educatorsis to teach students that there are alternative accounts which explaintheir social positions in terms of class, race, and gender. Those accountsmay provide students with more powerful epistemic tools which not onlyhelp them understand the production of their own histories, but alsoenable them to conceive of new and different ways of doing things. Ratherthan proposing a theory which gives no power to the people, or onewhich concedes some power to some people, my proposal is that poweris the property of all people.NOTES1. Reproduction n Education, Societyand Culture. Translated by Richard Nice,Sage Studies in Social and Educational Change, 5, (London: Sage, 1977). Pagereferences in the text refer to this edition.2. For a good discussion on some critical, theoretical issues of ethnographicwork in relation to schooling see "PartI: SocialTheory and the Study of Schooling".T. S. Popkewitz and R. Tabachnik (Eds.) The Study of Schooling-FieldBased Math-odologies n Education Researchand Evaluation. (N.Y.: Praeger Studies in Ethno-graphic Perspectives on American Education, 1981).3. It is rather amazing that in contemporary theories of reproduction the optionof winning is absent, even as a speculation. I am greatly indebted to James C.Walker, of the University of Sydney, for having drawn my attention to the coun-terproductive defeatism of much contemporary radical theorizing, and for muchof the account of agency which concludes this paper.4. His study has been challenged (in the British context) by Angela McRobbieand T. McCabe's work on adolescent females in Feminismor Girls:An AdventureStory.(London: RKP, 1981) McRobbie takes him to task over his lack of attentionto sexism. A recent ethnography which does challenge the radical posture ofWillis' and McRobbie'swork and expands it theoretically isJ. C. Walker'sFootballers,Poofs, Puffheads and Wogs:An EthnographicStudy of AdolescentMales in the InnerCity. Sydney:MellAssociates,1983). Forthcoming.5. I am assuming here that the marginal group also resist at school. We encounterthem in Willis' study mainly in the workforce, that is after transition.6. In the light of this assessment, the conformists' resistance to the lads' pranksand general unruliness, is quite logical since the lads threaten their futures bythreatening their learning. One might well ask which form of resistance is themore progressive: the lads' which leads to negative consequences for themselves,and for their fellow oppressed, particularly women, or the conformists' who gaincontrol over their own learning, and whose insertion into the work force appearsnot only more disruptive but also potentially challenging to the relations ofproduction.7. Thus I do not think that one of Anthony Giddens' most central argumentsregarding agency, namely, that the agent "could have acted otherwise," is tenableif he thinks that "could" denotes a real psychological possibility. If, on the otherhand, "could" merely indicates a logical possibility, then no harm is done. Butsince Giddens abstains twice (1979, 1981) from clarifying this matter, his conceptionof agency leaves one in a quandry. We can easily produce counterexamples whereagents could not have acted otherwise. A case in point is that of battered womenwho return, and keep returning, to their abusive husbands. One very interesting

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GABRIELELAKOMSKI/CIexplanation for this phenomenon is the concept of "learned helplessness" whoseroots may be found partly in early gender socialization. This means, of course,that helplessness can be un-learned given a supportive environment. On thisissue see M. Hendricks-Matthews "The Battered Woman: Is She Ready for Help?"Social Casework,63, 3, (March) 1982, pp. 131-137.8. While I employ Deweyean concepts, I am not obliged to, and indeed do not,accept Dewey's naturalism. My own position is much more akin to what R. Rorty(1980) calls "epistemological behaviorism" meaning that there are no privilegedrepresentations of reality (including that of Marxism), and that the social practicesof justification are both necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge.REFERENCESALTHUSSER, L. For Marx. London: Verso, 1979.Reading Capital, with Etienne Balibar. London: Verso, 1979.ALTHUSSER, L. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards anInvestigation)" In Lenin and Philosophyand OtherEssays. N.Y. and London:Monthly Review Press, 1971, pp. 127-186.ANYON, J. "Elementary Schooling and Distinctions of Social Class". Interchange,12, 2 & 3, (1981): 118-132.APPLE, W. Ideologyand Curriculum.London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.BOURDIEU, P., and PASSERON, J-C. Reproduction n Education, Societyand Culture.Translated by Richard Nice. Sage Studies in Social and Educational Change,5. London: Sage, 1977.BOURDIEU, P. "The School as a Conservative Force: Scholastic and Cultural In-equalities." In ContemporaryResearch in the Sociologyof Education. Edited by S.J. Eggleston. London: Metuen, 1974.BOWLES, S., and GINTIS, H. Schooling in Capitalist America. London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1976.BREDO, E., and FEINBERG, W. "Meaning, Power and Pedagogy: Pierre Bourdieuand Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture,"

CurriculumStudies, Vol. 11, 4 (1979): 315-332.COMPACT EDITION OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, Vol. 1. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1979, 17th Printing.

DAVIES, B. Social Controland Education. London: Methuen, 1976.DELAMONT, S. Interaction in the Classroom.London: Methuen, 1976.EGGLESTON, j. TheSociologyof the Classroom.London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1977.FOUCAULT, M. The History of Sexuality,Volume I, An Introduction. New York:Vintage Books, 1980.GIDDENS, A. "Agency, Institution and Time-Space Analysis" In Advances n SocialTheoryand Methodology,Towardan Integrationof Micro- and Macro-Sociologies.Edited by K. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel. Boston, London, and Henley:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981."Agency, Structure". In CentralProblems n Social Theory. Berkeley andLos Angeles: University of California Press, 1979.GIROUX,H. "Hegemony, Resistance, and the Paradox of Educational Reform".Interchange12, 2 & 3 (1981): pp. 3-26.Ideology,Cultureand theProcessof Schooling.London: The Falmer Press,1981.HENDRICKS-MATTHEWS. "The Battered Woman: Is She Ready for Help?" SocialCasework,63, 3, (March 1982): pp. 131-137.KENNETT, J. "The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu," EducationalReview, 25, 3 (June1973): pp. 237-249.MCROBBIE, A., and MCCABE, T. (eds.) Feminismfor Girls:An Adventure tory. London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981.

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AGENCYAND STRUCTURE 163POPKEWITZ, T. S., and TABACHNIK Eds. The Study of Schooling-Field Based Methodologiesin EducationResearchand Evaluation. New York: Praeger Studies in EthnographicPerspectives on American Education, 1981.RORTY, R. Philosophy nd the Mirrorof Nature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University

Press, 1980.SARUP,M. Marxismand Education. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.SHARP, R., and GREEN, A. Education and Social Control. London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1975.WALKER,J. c. Footballers, oofs, PuffheadsandWogs:AnEthnographic tudyofAdolescentMales in theInner City. Sydney: Mell Associates, 1983.WILLIS, P. "Cultural Production is Different from Cultural Reproduction is Dif-ferent from Social Reproduction is Different from Reproduction." Interchange,12, 2 & 3, (1981): pp. 48-67.Learning to Labour.Westmead, Farnborough: Saxon House, 1978.

Lakomski on Agency and Structure

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