Bourdieu in the Classroom Grenfell, Michael (2004) Bourdieu in
the Classroom. In, Olssen, Mark (ed.) Culture and Learning:
Access and Opportunity in the Classroom. Greenwich, USA,
Information Age, 49-72. (International Perspectives on
Curriculum). Full text not available from this repository.
Bourdieu begins his 1964 publication Les Héritiers with a
quotation from Margaret Mead’s Continuities in Cultural
Education. In it she describes the practice amongst North
American Indians of using visions as a social rite de passage.
Young men who had not yet received visions would listen to
others’ accounts of what constituted a true vision and the
special circumstances from which it arose. This preparation was
important in developing knowledge of the ‘authentic’ vision and
thus having your own. A vision conferred on the visionary the
right to start a business, to hunt and fight in war. In the case
of the Omaha Indians, however, this knowledge was withheld. All
young men had the potential for visions. They would go out