Connolly, P. & Neill, J. (2004) Symbolic violence, locality and social class: the educational and career aspirations of 10-11 year old boys in Belfast, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 12(1): 15-33.

This article is based upon a comparative, ethnographic case study of two groups of 10-11 year old boys – one middle class, the other working class – living in Belfast. Drawing upon Bourdieu's related concepts of symbolic violence and habitus it shows how locality can help to explain the very different educational and career aspirations found between these two groups of boys. While the local area in which the middle class boys live had very little significance to them, the working class boys' locality played a central role in mediating their experiences and perspectives. The article shows how it tended to represent the parameters of the boys' world-view and thus to significantly limit their educational and future career aspirations. The article concludes by arguing that there is a need to move beyond simplistic notions of power based upon crude freedom/constraint dualisms and, instead, to explore the complex ways in which broader processes and structures of inequality tend to reach into and impact upon the very psyche of individuals.

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