Agency and Structure

On Agency and Structure: Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron's Theory of Symbolic
Violence
Author(s): Gabriele Lakomski
Source: Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Summer, 1984), pp. 151-163
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto
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and
Structure:
On
Agency
and
Jean-Claude
Bourdieu
Pierre
Theory
Passeron's
Violence
of Symbolic
GABRIELE LAKOMSKI
College of Education, Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Theories which purport to explain the relationship between schooling

and work, and the production and reproduction of social inequality, have
occupied educators for some time. In this article, I examine a theory of
socialization which recognizes as central the function of ideology in social
and cultural reproduction: Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron's
theory of symbolic violence (1977).1
This theory, while originating in France and dealing with the French
education system, is part of a growing body of theories of reproduction
which began to emerge in the wake of the reform movements in the
sixties. As it became increasingly clear that the promises of liberal education reform were not to be fulfilled, political economists and radical
educators charged that the objectives of progressive education could not
be achieved in a capitalist society. They argued that equality of opportunity, more democratic social structures, and moral autonomy public
schooling goals were impossible since the schools' function was the reproduction of a stratified labour force. This argument became best known
in the work of Bowles and Gintis who maintained that liberal education
reforms must fail because liberal ideology glosses over the correspondence
between the relations of production and the relations of schooling. Education, in their account, "is best understood as an institution which serves
to perpetuate the social relationships of economic life through which
these patterns are set, by facilitating a smooth integration of youth into
the labor force" (1976, p. 11). This was seen as taking place through the
uncontested processes of schooling which taught pupils to internalize
the hierarchically organized patterns of norms, behaviours, and values
characteristic of the work place.
In the accounts of reproduction which followed Bowles and Gintis'
"Correspondence Theory" (CT), it is generally accepted that schooling
does have a central role in the reproduction of the social relations of
? 1984 by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.
CCC 0362-6784/84/020151-13$04.00
CURRICULUM INQUIRY 14:2 (1984)

152
GABRIELE LAKOMSKI/CI
production, and that there is, at a general level, some kind of correspondence between schooling and work. But while the principle is largely
uncontested, critics have pointed out that CT fails to provide an adequate
account of the processes and mechanisms through which social reproduction happens (see Apple, 1979; Giroux, 1981; Willis, 1981; Sarup,
1978). Guilty of a functionalist perspective which leads Bowles and Gintis
to misrecognize effects as causes, CT implies that school children, in
particular, are infinitely malleable and passive creatures upon whom the
inescapable processes of schooling impress those norms and dispositions
required of them in the work place. Rooted in the Althusserian notion
of the economic structure as determinant "in the last instance" (Althusser,
1971, 1979), and entertaining, subsequently, a linear notion of cause in
reproduction, from the top down, CT ends up with a deterministic conception of agency and social reproduction.
The consequences for pedagogic action are severe, for not only had
CT theorists berated what they considered to be well-intentioned but
misguided educators for the futility of their progressive educational
practices, they had also effectively theorized away any possible opening
for change to take hold. If reproduction does happen in the manner
described, and if children are as compliant and acquiescent as assumed
by CT, then there are no prospects for changing oppressive structures.
Wary of the politically reactionary consequences of CT's macrosociological approach and its overemphasis on the economic structure, theorists began to focus on what actually goes on in specific classrooms and
schools (see Delamont, 1976; Sharp and Green, 1975; Willis, 1978; Anyon,
1981; McRobbie and McCabe, 1981) an ethnographic perspective made
theoretically viable by the emergence of various interpretive approaches
in the social sciences.2 The examination of the social relations of the
classroom in terms of the everyday production, reproduction, and negotiation of meanings, and of the culture of the school, made it possible
to conceive of existing conflicts, antagonisms, and forms of resistance to
the ideology of the school as analytic tools. As a result, CT's notion of
reproduction could be expanded. Once it was acknowledged that schools
are relatively autonomous social sites, an important dimension had been
gained in theorizing about social reproduction and possibilities for change.
The theory of symbolic violence (TSV) is an example of a potentially
more satisfactory account in that it incorporates this insight and emphasizes
cultural production as necessarily mediating components facilitating total
social reproduction.
While sharing concerns with traditional functional analyses of education,
TSV departs from them in at least three significant respects: (1) it examines
how education functions to safeguard the dominant position of certain
groups; (2) it emphasizes the unequal communication of the dominant
culture; and (3) it defines the concept of socialization as occurring through
misrecognition 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 liberating
kinds of institutions. They argue that schools effectively perpetuate the

AGENCY AND STRUCTURE
153
existing social structure in that they promote those students who enter
equipped with cultural privileges and progressively eliminate others whose
cultural capital differs significantly from that of the dominant group.
Since educational institutions present as "natural" inequalities in educational outcomes which are based on "individual differences" and "merit,"
and demonstrated through objective testing procedures, the cooling-out
process is not recognized as such. Rather, failure is attributed to personal
inadequacy and accepted as "fate." Similarly, success for those students
with cultural capital is equally accepted as natural by both the privileged
and the subordinate.
By portraying cultural inequalities (cultural capital) as the primary
reason 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 in
making arbitrary power relations appear as legitimate authority, the authors consider it a privileged object in the analysis of reproduction. They
see their task as providing "a description of the objective processes which
continually exclude children from the least privileged social classes."
(Bourdieu, 1974, p. 32.) Accordingly, the theory of symbolic violence is
considered to be scientific and objective.
While Bourdieu and Passeron highlight an area of education research
still largely unexplored by focussing on the socially constructed nature
of symbol systems, their uncritical adoption of Althusser's notion of ideology has severe consequences for TSV.
As a structuralist theory of socialization and reproduction, TSV
preempts its own task by implicitly taking as unproblematic what is the
very issue to be explained: namely that working-class children apparently
accept, "of their own free will," their position at the bottom of the social
order. Bourdieu and Passeron not only sever the dialectic between consciousness and structure as an historical process but leave us with structure
and eliminate the category of human agency altogether. This is critical
for a theory which appears to take a radical stance towards inequality.
Since there is no account of agency but only abstract and invisible power
relations which nevertheless directly determine reproduction; the theory
of symbolic violence assumes a mechanistic and one-dimensional character.
We are left with a theory of socialization which describes the unproblematic
transmission of middle-class culture to middle-class children, a conception
in which working-class children are, by definition, culture-less (see Bredo
and Feinberg, 1979). Desite some valuable insights, the theory ultimately
presents a structural closure, or as one commentator remarks, "an extremely cultured way of crying 'Help!' in the face of an over-determined
vision" (Davies, 1976).
In the following, I outline briefly the principal elements of the theory
of symbolic violence and then turn to the discussion of those concepts
considered most central for both the theory and this argument: "power"
and "power relations," the term "arbitrary,"and the "habitus." I conclude
with some preliminary remarks concerning the possibilities of human
agency.

154
GABRIELELAKOMSKI/CI
The argument presented in Reproductionrests on a premise which

Bourdieu and Passeron consider fundamental for a theory of sociological
knowledge: "Every power to exert symbolic violence, i.e., every power
which manages to impose meanings ... as legitimate by concealing the
power relations which are the basis of its force, adds its own specifically
symbolic force to those power relations" (p. 4). It is important in the
authors' view to stress the relative autonomy and dependence of symbolic
relations with respect to power relations.
The theory of symbolic violence consists of four major propositions
and numerous subpropositions and glosses which deal respectively with
pedagogic action (PA), authority (PAu), work (PW), and the educational
system (ES). The first and most important one suggests that all pedagogic
actions are symbolically violent insofar as they seek to impose arbitrary
cultural meanings in the context of an arbitrary power relation (p. 5).
By pedagogical actions, Bourdieu and Passeron understand all attempts
at instruction, be they carried out in the family, school, or elsewhere.
These attempts are considered symbolically violent insofar as the socializer
has arbitrary power over the socializee, power which is rooted in the
power relations between social classes and groups. By the term "arbitrary,"
the authors understand something that "cannot be deduced from any
universal principle, whether physical, biological or spiritual" (p. 8).
There is a second sense in which pedagogic action is objectively symbolic
violence: the meanings which are selected for imposition are those of a
particular group or class. The overall effect of the imposition, as Bourdieu
and Passeron see it, is the reproduction of the structure of the distribution
of cultural capital among the different groups and classes, and hence
the reproduction of the total social structure. This is only possible if
pedagogic action possesses "authority." Its authority exists precisely to
the extent that neither its dependence on the power structure nor the
nature of the culture to be imposed is recognized "objectively." Indeed,
it is constantly misrecognizedbecause pedagogic authority entails a conception of education as "mere communication" even in nonauthoritarian,
child-centered, and nonrepressive forms of education. Since pedagogic
action is the chief instrument of turning power relations into legitimate
authority, the authors contend that it presents a privileged object for
the analysis of the social basis of the paradoxes of domination and
legitimacy.
Pedagogic action, insofar as it is symbolically violent, involves pedagogic
work, i.e., a process of inculcation. Socialization results in what the authors
call the "habitus." By this they understand a durable set of habits based
on the internalized principles of the dominant culture. Once established,
these habits, which are considered irreversible, perpetuate those very
principles. The habitus is never explicit but consists of the tacit shared
understandings of social actors. Because it operates beneath the surface
of consciousness it provides a kind of "deep structure" (Bredo and Feinberg, 1979) which, in turn, shapes surface beliefs and attitudes. The
function of the habitus is thus to safeguard long-term social reproduction
through the construction of a Meadian "Self." In this way, social actors

155
successfully and smoothly reproduce their own misrecognition of domination. According to Bourdieu and Passeron, there is no possibility of
breaking out of the circle. "The man who deliberates on his culture is
already cultivated and the questions of the man who thinks he is questioning the principles of his upbringing still have their roots in his upbringing" (p. 37). While differences of attitude, belief, and opinion are
possible and do occur, these are only apparent differences since they
are produced by the same generative habitus. Pedagogic work is successful,
the authors claim, when the habitus not only generates the practices of
the dominant culture in a wide range of areas, but also reproduces them
exhaustively. Since these practices are legitimated by pedagogic work,
certain cultural products are also sanctioned as legitimate: the notion of
intelligence as a student's "private property," for instance. Hence, the
authors argue, the power structure is reproduced by the inculcation of
internalized controls, a fact which, it is claimed, makes coercion
superfluous.
Finally, pedagogic work operates differently with different groups depending on their relative position vis-a-vis the dominant culture. The
further removed a subculture is from the dominant habitus of "symbolic
skills," for example, the more difficult is the task of teaching it. Rather
than 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 maintain inequality, working-class children are doubly punished: while they
lack the dominant culture to begin with, they are nevertheless measured
and 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 system
can help to perpetuate cultural privileges without those who are privileged
having to use it" (1974: p. 42).
While the theory of symbolic violence is an interesting contribution to
the debate on the ideological function of culture as structuring and legitimating the system of social relations, its latent idealism and lack of
explanatory power prevent it from formulating an adequate conception
of how a transformative educational practice might be developed. In
support 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 relations," but critical as these concepts are, the reader is not provided with
a conceptual or any other kind of analysis. The conception of "power"
which is predominant in their discussion emphasizes its legitimating potential in relation to agents, actions, and products. In this sense, "power"
means the same as authority. While the authors are correct in emphasizing
the symbolic aspects of "power," they underplay it as the result of objective
control of resources, and of sheer physical coercion. This neglect is rather
obvious in the discussion of the education system. While schools are selfreproductive in the way Bourdieu and Passeron describe them, they can

156
only be so because they have the State's backing in the form of the compulsory attendance law. Since this institutional aspect remains quite abstract, power relations appear as immaterial and yet constitutive principles
of the social order. A possible explanation might be found if we consider
another post-structuralist's conception of power. While there is no direct
reference, Bourdieu and Passeron's notion is quite similar to that of Michel
Foucault (1980). For the latter, "power" is neither a group of institutions
and mechanisms, nor a mode of subjugation, nor a general system of
domination. Any analysis of "power," he argues, must not assume that
either 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 in
the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization
... Power'scondition of possibility,or in any case the viewpointwhich permits
one to understand its exercise ... and which also makes it possible to use its
mechanismsas a grid of intelligibilityof the social order, mustnot be soughtin
the primaryexistenceof a centralpoint ... it is the moving substrate of force
relations which, by virtue of their inequality, constantly engender states of
power. [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) "power
relations" are always in process. Here the question arises, that if the state
and the law are only the terminal forms of power, where does power
itself have its roots? Willis (1981) is quite correct when he notes, "that
original production of power is mythical, and, finally, an assumption
which allows the hall of mirrors of culture to stand and reflect at all. We
have a pre-given asserted structure of power which is then reproduced
culturally" (p. 54). Post-structuralism, with its emphasis on the process
of structuration, has not given a clear answer regarding its own foundations. This is a critical shortcoming for "power" is a central concept
in the theory of symbolic violence. Since TSV purports to be materialist,
it is essential that its foundations be made clear. Some additional insights
are 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 opinion
or preference; (3) unrestrained in the exercise of will, of uncontrolled
power or authority, it also means "not based on the nature of things,"
a meaning acknowledged by Bourdieu and Passeron (p. 8). A possible
further use of the term is as equivalent to "contingent." Support for this
is found in the discussion of the "choices" which constitute a culture as
arbitrary when compared to all present and past cultures, or to the (imaginary) universe of all possible cultures. The authors state that the choices
"reveal their necessity as soon as they are related to the social conditions
of their emergence and perpetuation" (p. 8). This may be interpreted
to mean that the only kind of necessity (other than logical or biological)
is one which is defined by the specificity of historically produced social
conditions of existence. Indeed, Bourdieu and Passeron's orientation is
critical of the "purely synchronic grasp of cultural facts," meaning loosely,
of the ahistorical understanding of social facts which finds its logical con-

157
clusion in "genesis amnesia" (p. 9). But again, as we saw earlier in our
discussion of "power", while the flavour is distinctly historical-materialist,
the substance of materialism in terms of the productionof history, is absent.
The brief analysis of "arbitrary"shows that, in the end, there is no account
of possible change. Specifically, the critical notion of human agency, of
struggle over meanings and definitions which creates structure, is absent.
Consequently, the dialectical mediation between actor and structure cannot
even be raised as an issue.
In side-stepping the problem of foundations, the theory of symbolic
violence maintains its ambiguous character by insinuating a radical stance
while hiding its objectivist nature. It assumes that social actors are merely
the passive bearers of ideology who carry out its universal reproductive
function. There is no mention of the subjective meanings actors place
upon their experiences in given structures. The closest the authors come
to capture that realm of shared meanings is, of course, the conception
of the "habitus." But again, we are not given an explanation of how
actors come to construct it in the first place. Indeed, the "habitus" is
described in merely functional terms: it is "the equivalent, in the cultural
order, of the transmission of genetic capital in the biological order" (p.
32). This notion assumes that (1) there are no competing bases of legitimacy, and (2) the behaviour and beliefs reproduced in working-class
children are those of the dominant lasses, albeit in watered-down form.
But from the fact that the habitus helps reproduce the dominant culture
it neither follows that there are no competing bases of legitimacy, nor
that the dominant culture is the only possible one. The first assumption
ignores what has been called the "hidden" or informal curriculum, and
that children respond to both what is being said in school, and how it is
said (Eggleston, 1977). Bearing this distinction in mind, there are at least
five ways in which children might respond to the ideology of the school:
(1) The explicit message is believed and children experience no
contradictions;
(2) The explicit message is believed but there are also other messages
which stand in contradiction to it. Children do not know which
message is the "right" one. These tensions may lead to attitudes
and behaviours such as
(3) "I know what your game is; I will not play it, but rather play my
own", or
(4) "I know what your game is; I will play, and win!"3 Finally, there
also may occur
(5) Complete confusion resulting in "craziness," other serious mental
disorders, and even suicide.
Logically, none of these five options can be excluded in advance. Which
particular option is chosen in practice is an empirical question. Bourdieu
and Passeron present the first of these possibilities as the only one, and
then 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

158
the outlines of a more constructive and active conception of agency in

what follows. I noted in the beginning that, as a result of the criticisms
of CT, theorists were directing their attention to the actual events in the
classroom which facilitated recognition of conflicts, antagonisms, and
opposition to the ideology of the school. The most detailed account of
how children do experience contradictions and tensions in the dominant
ideology is Paul Willis' (1978) rich ethnography.4 Willis argues that a
group of working-class children, "the lads," not only do not accept the
dominant ideology but actually develop antagonistic strategies in what
he describes as "counter-school culture." He shows that the import of
these strategies is not known in any theoretical or conscious sense, but
is expressed in working-class specific visual, stylistic, and behavioural
forms. This is to say that there are actual, however diffusely expressed,
resistances to the imposition of the dominant culture which are rooted
in the dominated culture. In these interactions there are moments when
children catch a glimpse of their real position at the bottom of the social
structure. But these "penetrations" are never more than impulses since
they always encounter "limitations," i.e., "those blocks, diversions, and
ideological effects which confuse and impede the full development and
expression of these impulses" (Willis, 1978: p. 119). According to Willis,
these acts of defiance presuppose agency and a cultural realm different
from the dominant one. But while the rejection of the school's ideology
is evidence of "resistance" it also affirms the status and role of the dominated which fids its logical conclusion in the neat insertion into manual
labour. Commenting on the outcome of his study, Willis notes at the
conclusion of his book, "This may not be the Millenium but it could be
Monday morning. Monday morning need not imply an endless succession
of the same Monday mornings" (1978: p. 192). It need not, but given
the nature of his argument, it does.
In focussing on the oppositional practices of the lads, Willis' notion
of agency captures the moments of contestation and struggle, insights
which are lacking in Bourdieu and Passeron's notion of "habitus." But
like the latter, Willis' conception, too, leads to reproduction, a result,
which far from being paradoxical, follows from his treatment of "resistance." He accepts, with apparent innocence that the lads' showy oppositional practices are practices of resistance to the reproduction of
oppression: Willis commits the ethnographic error of "going native." He
does not conceive of "resistance" as an historical, dialectical notion, and
can therefore take appearances for essences. This misrecognition leads,
a vengeance.
then, quite logically, to reproduction-with
Not only do the lads willingly affirm their own oppression, they continue
to be veritable oppressors within their own class by exercising their racist
and sexist practices. By choosing to withhold their learning power, the
lads turn their backs on essential intellectual tools which would enable
them to acquire skills and concepts necessary to develop a self-conscious
and theoretical account of their social position and oppression. And yet,
they are portrayed as the only group which "penetrates" the official ideology, no matter how spuriously, and in whom the possibility for trans-

159
formation is placed. Recalling the distinctions I made earlier, the lads

are 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 can
be found even in his own ethnographic material. I wish to draw attention
to two other groups mentioned in the study, groups whose significance
for reproduction theory has not been sufficiently recognized. The groups
in question are the "ear 'oles," or "lobes," i.e., the conformists, and the
"marginals," those on the outskirts of the counter-school culture. The
ear-holes are, like the teachers, the natural enemies of the lads, and they
are described as follows:
It seems that they are alwayslistening, never doing: never animatedwith their
own internal life, but formless in rigid reception. The ear is one of the least
expressive organs of the human body: it responds to the expressivityof others
... That is how "the lads" liked to picture those who conformed to the official
idea 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, which
means interfering with their investment. But while the conformists accept
the official definition of schooling Willis also notes in passing, "although
this is the conventional response, it is not realized or 'won' in its own
terms without hard work, a degree of rationality and personal commitment" (1978: p. 99). Tony, an "ear'ole," is quoted as saying, "we've had
to face up to the fact that we've got to come to school. We've got to do
the work, else you wouldn't get on. So you more or less train yourself to be
likethat(1978: p. 99, emphases added). The implications and consequences

of this kind of training are most interesting when these students get into
the work force. Willis writes:
While conformists are preferred for "skilled"work, when they enter more
humdrum work unaided by culturalsupports,diversions,and typicalhabituated
patterns of interpretation theycan be identifiedby thosein authorityas morethreatening

and less willing to accept the establishedstatus quo. For these boys still believe, as it
were, in the rubricof equality,advance through merit and individualismwhich

the school has more or less unproblematicallypassedon to them. Thus, although
there is no surface opposition, no insolent manner to enrage the conventional
onlooker, neither is there a secret pact, made in the reflex moment of an
oppositional style, to accept a timeless authority structure: a timeless "us and
them." Consequently,these kids are more likely to expect real satisfactionan,l
the possibilityof advance from their work. They expect authority relations, in
the end, to reflect only differences in competence. All these expectations, coupled
frequently with a real unhappiness in an individual unrelieved by a social

diversion, make the conformistvery irksomeand "hardto deal with."In manual
and semi-skilledjobs, then, those in authority often prefer "the lads" to the
'ear'ole'type [1978: p. 110, emphases added].
Finally, the last group, those who fall between the categories, also appear
to suffer the most. Since they are neither "ear'oles" nor "lads", they are
ignored by the first and despised by the last. According to Willis, the
lack of a shared cultural involvement "removes an important mediation
between the self and work. Where that work is basically mindless and

160
repetitive, it more relentlessly racks and twists the unprotected human

sensibility" (1978: p. 112). This separates the "marginals" from the lads
whose boisterous affirmation and extrinsic satisfaction buffer subjective
feelings to a much higher degree. Consequently, the former encounter
manual labour in its raw immediacy, unprotected by layers of shopfloor
culture. They also keep themselves separate from the lads whom they
dislike.
Summing up, it seems that all three groups choose to resist the practices
of the school in some form.5 The conformists do not simply internalize
the dominant ideology: their conformity is the result of deliberate, selfconscious 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.6
The lads opt for open resistance, and, as far as we can determine from
Willis' account, the "marginals"opt for keeping themselves to themselves.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to point out that
agents are not conceived as Kantian autonomous egos availing themselves
of "free" choices. Rather, agents are complex, material entities whose
range of choices depend on their social, psychological, and behavioural
dispositions which, in turn, are bounded by the specific sets of historical
material 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 differently. While this is a concrete possibility, it does not follow that agents
necessarily do learn to do things differently, although they may be forced
to under certain circumstances, nor does it entail that doing things differently means doing them better.
What emerges from these considerations is that of the possible options
only some are perceived as options by agents.7 In this sense one can
consider choice as "determined." In our specific case, we can argue that
the conformists and the lads chose the way they did because those options
seemed 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 their
choices. Whether or not specific options have reproductive or nonreproductive consequences (where "reproduction" is understood as the
"reproduction of oppression") cannot be determined a priori. It follows
that we have to grant that all agents "resist" the manifest material contradictions in their lives, and indeed transform their situations. This does
not exclude that some forms of resistance can be resistance to the reproduction of oppression, but this need not necessarily be so. Change,
then, does occur in the social structure as ongoing, possibly violent, processes. It is appropriate to speak of transformation as largely (but not
exclusively) small-scale, locally-produced, and more wide-spread occurrences than commonly assumed by radical theorists. Only the lived consequences of agents' actions will show, in the end, whether or not any
or all were indeed politically progressive or reactionary. In the meantime,
we are not absolved from theorizing about democratic educational practice.

AGENCYAND STRUCTURE
161
It has to be done, and in doing so, we cannot assume that our "expert"
social science knowledge is superior to the common sense knowledge of
the people we theorize about. In my view, the central task for educators
is to teach students that there are alternative accounts which explain
their social positions in terms of class, race, and gender. Those accounts
may provide students with more powerful epistemic tools which not only
help them understand the production of their own histories, but also
enable them to conceive of new and different ways of doing things. Rather
than proposing a theory which gives no power to the people, or one
which concedes some power to some people, my proposal is that power
is the property of all people.
NOTES
1. Reproductionin Education, Society and Culture. Translated by Richard Nice,
Sage Studies in Social and Educational Change, 5, (London: Sage, 1977). Page
references in the text refer to this edition.
2. For a good discussion on some critical, theoretical issues of ethnographic

work in relation to schooling see "PartI: Social Theory and the Study of Schooling".
T. S. Popkewitz and R. Tabachnik (Eds.) The Study of Schooling-FieldBased Mathodologiesin Education Research and Evaluation. (N.Y.: Praeger Studies in Ethnographic Perspectives on American Education, 1981).
3. It is rather amazing that in contemporary theories of reproduction the option
of 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 counterproductive defeatism of much contemporary radical theorizing, and for much
of the account of agency which concludes this paper.
4. His study has been challenged (in the British context) by Angela McRobbie
and T. McCabe's work on adolescent females in Feminismfor Girls:An Adventure
Story.(London: RKP, 1981) McRobbie takes him to task over his lack of attention
to sexism. A recent ethnography which does challenge the radical posture of
Willis' and McRobbie's work and expands it theoretically isJ. C. Walker'sFootballers,
Poofs, Puffheads and Wogs: An EthnographicStudy of AdolescentMales in the Inner
City.(Sydney: Mell Associates, 1983). Forthcoming.
5. I am assuming here that the marginal group also resist at school. We encounter
them in Willis' study mainly in the workforce, that is after transition.
6. In the light of this assessment, the conformists' resistance to the lads' pranks
and general unruliness, is quite logical since the lads threaten their futures by
threatening their learning. One might well ask which form of resistance is the
more progressive: the lads' which leads to negative consequences for themselves,
and for their fellow oppressed, particularly women, or the conformists' who gain
control over their own learning, and whose insertion into the work force appears
not only more disruptive but also potentially challenging to the relations of
production.
7. Thus I do not think that one of Anthony Giddens' most central arguments
regarding agency, namely, that the agent "could have acted otherwise," is tenable
if he thinks that "could" denotes a real psychological possibility. If, on the other
hand, "could" merely indicates a logical possibility, then no harm is done. But
since Giddens abstains twice (1979, 1981) from clarifying this matter, his conception
of agency leaves one in a quandry. We can easily produce counterexamples where
agents could not have acted otherwise. A case in point is that of battered women
who return, and keep returning, to their abusive husbands. One very interesting

GABRIELELAKOMSKI/CI
162
explanation for this phenomenon is the concept of "learned helplessness" whose

roots may be found partly in early gender socialization. This means, of course,
that helplessness can be un-learned given a supportive environment. On this
issue 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 privileged
representations of reality (including that of Marxism), and that the social practices
of justification are both necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge.
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J. Eggleston. London: Metuen, 1974.
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WALKER,J. c. Footballers,
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