Students’ identities in rural areas: a study based on Bourdieu’s and Althusser’s concepts

Abstract

This study aims at interpreting the identity reconstruction of students of the rural school Colégio Estadual do Campo Adélia Rossi Arnaldi of Paranavaí/PR - Brazil, in the midst of the various socialization processes to which they have been submitted in their lives. The theoretical framework was based on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1930-2002) contributions on the concepts of habitus, fields and reproduction of social conditions, and the concept of ideology as understood by Louis Althusser (1918-1990). Data was collected through semi-structured and narrative interviews and analyzed according to Pecheux’s discourse analysis theory. We were able to identify, that even though the school is constituted as a ‘rural school,’ its practices impose an urban ideology, which is assimilated and influences the reconstruction of the student’s in the relationship with their families and the rural environment.

Keywords:
Identities; Habitus; Ideology; Rural School.

Resumo

O objetivo deste estudo é interpretar a reconstrução das identidades dos alunos do Colégio Estadual do Campo (CEC) Adélia Rossi Arnaldi, de Paranavaí-PR, oriundos do meio rural, diante das diversas socializações a que foram submetidos. O aporte teórico foi realizado a partir das contribuições de Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) dos conceitos de habitus, campo e da reprodução das condições sociais, e o entendimento de ideologia segundo Louis Althusser (1918-1990). Utilizamos nesta pesquisa depoimentos coletados por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas e de narrativa, submetidas à análise do discurso de Michel Pêcheux (1938-1983). Constatamos neste estudo que a escola, mesmo sendo constituída como do campo, impõe aos alunos práticas carregadas de ideologia urbana, que são assimiladas por eles e reconstroem as identidades no convívio em família no espaço rural.

Palavras-chave:
Identidades; Habitus; Ideologia; Escola do Campo

Resumen

El objetivo de este estudio es interpretar la reconstrucción de las identidades de los alumnos del Colégio Estadual do Campo Adelia Rossi Arnaldi Paranavaí/PR - Brasil, procedentes de las zonas rurales, a partir de los diversos medios de socialización a que fueron sometidos. El marco teórico se llevó a cabo a partir de las contribuciones de Bourdieu de los conceptos de habitus, campo y de la reproducción de las condiciones sociales y del entendimiento de la ideología según Althusser. En esta investigación, utilizamos testimonios recogidos a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas y de narrativa, sometidas al análisis del discurso de Pêcheux. Al final de ese estudio pudimos identificar que la escuela, aunque sea constituida en el campo, les impone a los estudiantes prácticas cargadas de ideología urbana, que son asimiladas por ellos y reconstruyen las identidades en la convivencia familiar en el medio rural.

Palabras clave:
Identidades; Habitus; Ideología; Escuela rural

INTRODUCTION

In organizational studies, little attention has been paid to schools; they are examined almost exclusively through educational studies. Scholarly organizations are a profitable field of study that has not been widely explored in terms of administration, especially in terms of more recent forms, such as schools in indigenous, former slave, squatter and rural communities which are generically referred to as “rural schools.” We can highlight studies produced in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, China and Brazil which study rural schools beyond their pedagogical aspects and deal with managerial issues of leadership, development, and regional and social movements (BAGLEY and HILLYARD, 2011; WILDY, SIGURÐARDÓTTIR and FAULKNER, 2014; KOO, MING and TSANG, 2014; GAGNON and MATTINGLY, 2016; ROBERTS and GREEN, 2013; TARLAU, 2013). These studies have portrayed a new form of organization which is constructed with objectives distinct from traditional schools and seeks to overcome the lack of education that exists in the rural population.

Rural schools are instituted to preserve the identity of those who come from a rural environment as pointed out by the Curricular Guidelines for Rural Education in the State of Paraná (SEED, 2010). However, this objective is in conflict with a space made up of individuals from the city as well as the country, as is the case of the Adélia Rossi Arnaldi State Rural High School (RHS) of Paranavaí, PR, the locale where we have developed this study.

To understand the space that we are examining, we will seek support from the theoretical contributions of Bourdieu (2003, 2011, 2013a), who deals with the relationship between an agent and a structure, in which the agent has the capacity for action marked by practices which are part of his or her habitus. According to the contribution of Althusser (1985), agent practices are imbued with ideology, which is imposed on these subjects within the socializing environments that they occupy.

In investigating the identities of rural students, we have sought to understand the actions and constitution of the school structure based on the silenced voices of students in these rural settings and understand the actions of this organization in their lives. In this sense, the objective of this article is to interpret the reconstruction of the identities of students in the Adélia Rossi Arnaldi RHS, who come from a rural background, in the various forms of socialization that they have been submitted to in their lives.

To fulfill this objective, we have conducted a qualitative study that seeks to collect information about these students and their parents through semi-structured and narrative interviews that will make it possible to interpret the actions associated with the school’s practices in reconstructing the identities of these students. The information collected has been submitted to the discourse analysis of Michel Pêcheux (1938-1983), and we have observed the aspects that have been defended and combatted as well as the conditions that have produced this discourse.

This article is divided into five sections, beginning with this introduction and followed by the theoretical bases used for this study. The third section deals with the methodological procedures, which are followed by the analyses of the interviews and our conclusions.

BOURDIEU AND ALTHUSSER: IDENTITIES WITHIN THE STRUCTURE

This study is theoretically based on the contributions of Bourdieu (2004, p. 149), who proposes “constructivist structuralism” which permits the understanding of the existence of “objective structures, independent of consciousness and the will of these agents, which are capable of guiding or coercing their practices and representations,” such as, for example, the school. The contributions of Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) may be identified in the works of Burke (2015) and Edgerton and Roberts (2014) who present the utilization of Bourdieu’s reproduction theory to understand educational inequalities, as well as the works of Burawoy (2012), Decoteau (2016), Susen (2014), Warczok and Zarycki (2014) who deal with topics such as symbolic, field and ideological domination. In addition to the idea of reproduction, the constructivist contribution which the author relates to his work makes it possible, through the concepts of habitus and a field, to understand the “social genesis of schemes of perception, thinking and action” (BOURDIEU, 2004, p. 149).

Based on Bourdieu’s conception (2006) in terms of the influence of the agent on the structure, in which the author emphasizes the use of the term agent, returning to the characteristics lost in traditional structuralism in which agents are “simple epiphenomena of structure” (BOURDIEU, 2004, p. 21).

Another issue addressed by Bourdieu (2004, 2013a, 2013b) is the concept of habitus, which consists in the creative and inventive action of an agent within a structure. The lasting dispositions that make up habitus in the author’s opinion are managed according to the experiences of agents, and are socially constructed and can be considered to the results of the objective needs or related rules of a group. The construction of an agent’s habitus begins with the first socializations which constitute the agent’s primary habitus (BOURDIEU, 2013a).

To Bourdieu (2011, 2013a), habitus manages distinct practices, which are different from each other, and distinctive practices, which differentiate practicing agents. Therefore, habitus demonstrates the agent’s social position and makes it possible to relate this person to a group or space within the social structure (BOURDIETU, 2004). The Bourdieu’s construction of the concept of habitus (2003) encompasses notions of ethos, as a practical system, and eidos, a system of logical schemes, and the hexis as dispositions of the body, posture, gestures, and this way speaks of the habitus of the agent to understand this individual’s way of thinking, and the practices and principles internalized by this person’s body. Decoteau (2016), in discussing the reflexivity of habitus, and how it is related to chances for social change, portrays it as constantly emerging in relation to a group’s dynamics.

Another concept that we wish to explore is the concept of the field that Bourdieu (2003, p. 119) refers to as “structured spaces of positions,” which is related to a given habitus. We understand that the relationship that exists between a field and a habitus is established by the rules of the field’s existence. Bourdieu (2001) emphasizes the need for the existence of agents willing to dedicate their money, time, honor and life to become part of a given field. The field can also be described as a field of forces, that impose their needs on agents, and wage battles to maintain their structures and transform them by virtue of the battles and disputes of their agents (BOURDIEU, 2003, 2011).

The battle between agents in a field arise due to the distribution of capital and the shared interests of the agents that motivate them to fight or not to fight. In the same way that different fields make up a social structure, different forms of capital make up these fields, such as cultural, economic, social and symbolic capital, and each field possesses its own specific form of capital that should be invested by its agents and which guides their battles in the field (BOURDIEU, 2003).

The forms of capital that Bourdieu deals with (2013b, 2011) are present in various fields in the same way that fields overlap with other fields. The individual who has a specific form of capital in a field also has authority within it, which Bourdieu (1983) points to as a form of social capital, or in other words, “a group of current or potential resources that is linked to the possession of a durable relationship network” (BOURDIEU, 2007, p. 67). Symbolic capital, meanwhile, is addressed by Bourdieu (2003, 2013a) as a synthesis of other types of capital and is not linked to their material aspects, as occurs with economic capital. It is related to the social recognition that comes from other forms of capital. As we saw in the previous example, in which the accumulation of cultural capital conveys authority over a field, the prestige granted by this authority converts the accumulated cultural capital into symbolic capital.

Another issue addressed by Bourdieu (2013b) is the role of the system in teaching the reproduction of class relationships, a function that according to the author remains hidden behind a discourse that features neutrality and equality. This role is initiated by the determination of what content should be most valued and learned. According to Bourdieu and Passeron (1992) this choice of content promotes a different form of selection based on the student’s social origin, which is reflected in the possession of an individual’s cultural capital which is determined by the professions and education of the parents. In prioritizing various forms of knowledge, the school separates students who possess cultural capital by inheritance, or in other words who have received it from their family, from those who do not.

This reproduction, besides preserving social differences, is an affirmation of a given type of culture. In this manner, students from lower classes cannot consume or acquire the cultural goods transmitted by the school, because they require the instruments necessary for their acquirement which are furnished by the family.

We add to this body of theory Althusser’s approach to ideology (1985) and his contribution to the understanding of the conditions that make the continuity of these structures possible. We are analyzing the relationship between the agent and the school structure and how this relationship affects the identities of these agents. In this sense, the ideological approach enables us to understand the effects that the structure has on the agent. When Althusser (1985, p. 83) conceives of ideology, he presents it as “an imaginary bricolage, a pure dream, empty and vain, constituted by the ‘daily residues’ from the only full and positive reality, that of the concrete history of concrete, material individuals materially producing their existence.”

We understand that ideology from the Althusserian perspective represents the relationship between the imaginary construction that man has of himself and his existence and the real conditions of his existence. Another thesis of Althusser (1985) in respect to ideology refers to its material existence, which the author discusses when he presents the existence of state ideological apparatuses (SIAs), with these being realized as ideologies, such as religious SIAs, school SIAs and family SIAs.

To Althusser (1985), SIAs are a means to produce and reproduce the production of social formation, which also can be understood as social reproduction in the eyes of Bourdieu and Passeron (1992). This relationship can be observed in the analysis performed by Stoneman (2014) of the ideologies of the “American Dream” and the “Working Class Promise,” as a way to reproduce existing social conditions.

The approach that we are taking in terms of Bourdieu as well as Althusser, does not deal directly with the theme of identity. However, in researching this subject, we have identified works that present the authors’ concepts of habitus and ideology related to the identity of the individual (ADAMS, 2006; BAXTER and BRITTON, 2001; BOTTERO, 2010; DALLYN, 2014; McNAY, 1999; SORENSEN and VILLADSEN, 2015).

When Bourdieu (2011) deals with the dispositions that make up habitus, he presents them as existing in all of the forms of this agent’s socialization within the various structures that comprise the social space. In turn, Althusser (1985) points to ideology as occurring through ideological practices, generated by means of specific tools. Our understanding is that the ideological practices generated for each type of SIA are imposed on the agent who intends to become part of the field that belongs to this SIA. By assimilating the latest dispositions of these ideological practices, the agent reconstructs his or her habitus.

Because it is made up of distinct practices, which Bourdieu (2011, 2013a) calls distinct and distinctive, and because it deals with a system of internalized dispositions, as Bourdieu (2004) terms it, habitus initially exists in the social aspect and will be assimilated by agents when they become part of a field. This occurs due to the agent’s socialization, as Rampazo and Ichikawa (2013, p. 107) point out, which occurs by means of “the incorporation of lasting dispositions.”

In this sense, identity to Rampazo and Ichikawa (2013), is constructed within the social space, when the agent assimilates its lasting dispositions or habitus and accepts the field’s rules as normal. These ideological practices begin with the first instance of the individual’s socialization: the family. This first socialization, which is discussed by Bourdieu (2013a), occurs during the formation of the agent’s initial identity which will guide the following socializations and contribute to the reconstruction of this identity. To Rampazo and Ichikawa (2013), the perception of this individual occurs according to his or her initial perceptions, or in other words, the initial identity which will provide guidance in assimilating given practices and becoming a member of a given group.

METHODOLOGY

To achieve these objectives, we decided to study the students of the Adélia Rossi Arnaldi RHS in Paranavaí, after receiving authorization from the Regional Center of Paranavaí, which administrates 51 schools in 21 municipalities in the micro-region of Paranavaí. We decided to study this school in particular, because among the seven rural schools in the micro-region of Paranavaí it is the only one situated within the urban boundaries of the central municipality. It should be noted that this article is part of a larger investigation, in which we interviewed teachers, pedagogues, parents and students between the months of August and November 2015. In this article, due to questions of space and scope, we present some of the interviews with the parents and students, with there being eight interviews presented here in total, five of them with high school students and three with parents.

The selection of the interviewees was performed through the mediation of the school’s pedagogical team which indicated the students who live in the country and studied in Adélia Rossi Arnaldi RHS in 2012, the year that the school moved to the country. The statements were collected through semi-structured interviews and narratives, to value, as Flick (2004) points out, the concepts of the interviewees and their experiences. The script for the semi-structured interviews consisted of four questions. First, the interviewees were asked about their lives, origins, childhood and other themes. Second, the interviewees were questioned about the activities developed on their farms, including a description of these activities in terms of the daily work routines of their parents and the involvement of the children in these routines. The third question asked the parents and children what the school represented to them. Last, we asked the students what they intended to do after they finished their studies and what the parents hoped for their children after they completed their education.

The data analysis was performed through Pechetian discourse analysis, which proposes, according to Maldidier (2003), associating linguistics, historical materialism and psychoanalysis. Pecheux’s contribution to discourse analysis goes beyond the understanding of discourse as a linguistic formation, and also extends to the construction of the subject who reproduces this discourse. One of the issues emphasized by Pecheux (1997) is the reproduction of discourse and, with this reproduction, we have the reproduction of the ideology that constitutes this discourse. Every discourse is ideological and analyzing the ideology present in these discourses makes it possible to understand the constitution of the subject (PÊCHEUX, 1997).

In this manner, beginning with the relationship between linguistics, historical materialism and psychoanalysis, we began our analyses with the linguistic aspect of the structure of the discourses. Following the contribution of historical materialism to the analysis of Pechetian discourse, we sought to identify the conditions of the production of this discourse and its ideological aspects. And, finally, in terms of psychoanalysis we sought to identify, as Pêcheux (1997) mentions, the existence of the Other in the discourse, or in other words, the reproduction of the hegemonic discourse which does not belong to the subject.

We would also like to point out that the names used here are fictitious and we opted to maintain the grammatical errors in the interviewee statements: however, these errors, far from disqualifying, reaffirm the conditions of production of their discourses and the locations in which this discourse has been produced.

THE CONSTRUCTED AND RECONSTRUCTED IDENTITIES OF THE STUDENTS FROM A RURAL BACKGROUND

We researched, in the beginning of this study, the documents related to rural education, to understand the differentiated treatment dispensed at the Adélia Rossi Arnaldi RHS because it is considered to be rural, and which practices are formally instituted in this school space.

The Adélia Rossi Arnaldi RHS is covered by the exception stipulated by Federal Decree No. 7,352/2010 (BRASIL, 2010), which, in its first article, states that a rural school is one that is situated in a rural area, or which is situated in a city, but “mainly serves the rural population.” We observed during this documental research that the school is legally constituted with the goal of meeting the needs of students who reside in rural areas, but what are the needs of these students? The guidelines of rural education point to content such as: the diversification of crops and the use of natural resources; agroecology; the use of native seeds; agrarian issues and agrarian reform; soil preparation; and other subjects, such as themes of interest to these students, and argue that rural students should seek better conditions to remain in the country.

In this sense, in conducting these interviews, we identified the relationship between the students and the school and the plans that they and their parents have for the future. The parents expressed the importance they attach to the school in their statements:

(1) You study to work with your head, don’t you? I tell him, I don’t want to see you with these worn-out hands (Dalva - mother of a male student).

In Excerpt 1, Dalva emphasizes that studying offers other possibilities in terms of work when she cites that she tells her son to study so that “he can work with his head,” and highlights the semantic paths of the difficulty of rural work and the valuing of intellectual work. To the enunciator, her son needs to study not to submit to the heavy work of the country. This discourse, produced by a rural worker who harvests oranges, calls attention to the marks that a rural worker bears: in mentioning the state of her hands, she affirms that rural workers feel the hardness of their work in their bodies, which values brute force. On the other hand, working with one’s head is not something that marks the subject, which is understood by the enunciator as lighter work.

To avoid the marks of rural work, Dalva’s advice is that her son should study, because in the presented excerpt, the more that he studies, the more intellectual work he will be able to perform. When we analyze the ideological aspects portrayed in this discourse, we come across the argument that studying makes better work opportunities possible. However, analyzing this ideological aspect based on the conceptions of Althusser (1985), we understand that the ideology of study as a guarantee of better professional prospects belongs to a specific group, that of the city, which possesses the real conditions to assume the best conditions or the necessary capital, as Bourdieu (2011, 2013a) points out. When subjects produce these discourses as rural workers defending this ideological aspect that Althusser (1985) terms as a falsehood, or in other words, this ideology “masks” the real situation of the subject and the real opportunities to have access to these better possibilities.

As Bourdieu (2011) points out, the possibilities that agents have to move within the structure are proportional to the type and the quantity of capital that they possess, as well as the distinct and distinctive practices that make up their primary habitus. The real possibilities of Dalva’s son have a limit, which is related to the family’s origin and the education of her and her husband. When Bourdieu and Passeron (1992) deal with the reproduction of social conditions through the school structure, they emphasize the cultural capital that a family transmits to students which determines whether they take or do not take advantage of the cultural capital transmitted by the school.

Following the same guideline, in Excerpt 2 Nivaldo underlines the importance of his daughter continuing her studies:

(2) I wouldn’t want her to be like me, no. I think of my daughter, of my children, because I have three, you know. I would never want them to do what I do, never... never... never... it’s enough that I do it. I want them to go to the city and want them to progress in some service that’s worthwhile, you understand? I’ve made my way with this life, but that’s because I never studied, because if I’d studied I wouldn’t be here, no, understand, I’m doing everything in my life so that they can study, to have an opportunity to perform a better service in the city. I don’t want this life here, no, because besides earning little, you don’t have that good life that you can offer them and you don’t have either. Is it all easy here on the farm? It isn’t all easy... it’s difficult, one day you have something, the next day you don’t, and it’s suffering even today, but today, thank God, our life is much more stable, we’ve suffered a lot, much more, double, double, worse. Today, with this crisis harming everyone, but it isn’t just me, it’s everyone, in the past only the worker was harmed, the rural worker was the last, he was always harmed in the service area (Nivaldo - father of a female student).

In this excerpt, the enunciator, in presenting his plans for his daughter’s future, justifies his plans with the past. We interpret this discursive excerpt based on two semantic paths: the city as the location of better perspectives and the country as the location of less qualified workers. Among these analytical possibilities we can make a few points, such as the defense of the ideological aspect of the importance of study. The enunciator states that if he had studied he would not have had to work in the country and this is the motivation behind his efforts to make sure his children study. At the same time that he defends this ideological aspect, the enunciator points to the defense of the ideology of the city as the place of opportunity when he says “it’s for them to study, to have the opportunity to perform a better service in the city,” it’s implicit that the country does not offer good work opportunities. According to Nivaldo, to work in the city you need to have studied, and having studied, his daughter will succeed in getting a good job in the city.

The defense of the ideological aspect of the city as the place of opportunity is explicit in Excerpt 2, when Nivaldo talks about his plans for his children to study when he points out his own situation, in saying “if I had studied, I wouldn’t be here.” We understand that, in pointing out his own condition, the enunciator is using the defense of the ideological aspect of the importance of education to legitimize his situation as a subject, which consists of the reproduction of the hegemonic discourse of the school as a place of opportunity.

We understand, based on Althusser (1985), that the school is an organization that is constituted based on an ideology and which reproduces this ideology in its practices - which the author terms ideological. The ideology that the school reproduces is the ideology of the group that constitutes it, or in other words, holds power or, according to Bourdieu (2013a), the group that possesses the economic, social and symbolic capital to hold authority. For many years there were no educational institutions in the country, and the guidelines of rural education in referring to the history of rural education demonstrate that it was only in the 1990s that rural individuals came to have the right to access to an educational institution, and we can also perceive the reality of the parents interviewed who did not conclude their education:

(3) Her dream is to be a lawyer, “daughter, being a lawyer’s going to be too expensive for your mother to pay.” And she told me like this, “Mom I’m going to choose a career that’s free, so it won’t be a burden to Dad, because at least with the money I make, I’ll help you out at home and you won’t have to pay for college.” (Nice - Mother of female student).

In Excerpt 3, Nice as mother of the student and Nivaldo’s wife, shares with her husband the defense of the ideological importance of study for the construction of a better future, far from rural work. We’d like to point out in this excerpt that the enunciator, in pointing out the family’s lack of an ability to pay, reinforces the aspect pointed out by Bourdieu (2011, 2013a) in terms of the mobility of the subject within the social structure. In his theorization, the author deals with the need of capital to assume positions in the country and the possibilities that agents have to change these positions. In this case, the student’s first option to construct her professional future comes up against her family’s lack of financial capital, which leads her to choose another option which will be free and with her work, she will be able to earn enough to sustain herself.

Nina’s discourse presents her daughter’s relationship with work, which is also emphasized in the daughter’s statement (Excerpt 4) and the statements of the other students interviewed in terms of their relationship with rural activities:

(4) I always used to help my father. My mother waited 7 years before my middle brother was born, and so I helped my father, I didn’t remain inside helping my mother, I helped my father. And I prefer to work with my father, picking oranges with him, as compared to staying at home doing housework. When I was younger, I helped my father with his tasks, I helped in the planting and helped get sacks of feed for his calves, helped take care of the cows, and drove the tractor for him (Jane - student).

(5) On the farm, I help my mother in the house, clean the yard, help my father. Because there, it’s like this, ok? You have the cooler, you have to wash the milk cans, but the one that’s in the cooler is not the one where you pour the milk, it’s for water, you place water in it and then you put the milk inside. Then you have to wash them (Tais - student).

(6) I help my father carry oranges and drive the tractor (Leandro - student).

(7) I help my father on the ranch. We work with fattening heifers on the ranch. [...] I’ve never had the experience of working in the city, because I’ve always worked with my father. I’m very proud of what I do, because I’m helping my father and my mother, you understand? At least up until now, right? Also you can take a little of what you see in school home with you, can’t you? I work together with my father, partly because I want to help him, and also because I’m still living under his roof, you know? There’s no way. My father says: “you can go get a job outside if you like” you just have to pay our electricity and water bills and it’ll be fine (Rafael - student).

(8) I’m still working on the farm. I am the citric pest monitor, my work is to inspect pests, my job is to protect this portion of the crops, you understand? I get a magnifying glass and look and say “we’ve got natural enemies,” we help the oranges with the natural enemy, you know? They have pests that will harm them and I control these natural pests, understand? I’ve been working with this for 6 years (Edilson - student).

In these excerpt, we have highlighted the use of two different verbs to represent their relationship with the country: “help” and “work.” We’ve highlighted them to make sense of what they represent: while “help” denotes something transitory which does not represent the continual construction of an activity, “work” indicates continuity and a sense of responsibility involved in a task.

In helping their parents in their farm work, Jane, Tais and Leandro show that the performance of these activities is not a routine, it’s not an obligation. The enunciators do not identify themselves as people who perform farm work, but rather they perform these tasks out of respect for their parents. On the other hand, Rafael and Edilson use the verb “work,” or in other words there is a responsibility in the execution of these activities and these students identify with the activities that they perform.

When Bourdieu (2011, 2013a) deals with the practices that constitute habitus, we understand that they contribute to the subject’s identity. The students who present their rural activities as helping out demonstrate that these practices are not part of their identity, and even though they perform them, they do not do so to sustain themselves. When we relate the interviews of the parents with the children who use the verb “help” in describing their rural activities, we may perceive that Jane and Tais, because they are children of rural workers who don’t have their own land to work on, the orientation they have received is to seek opportunities outside the farm. We have identified this relationship in the interviews with Nice and Nivaldo, Jane’s parents, who have emphasized messages including the importance of studying and the difficulties of farm work to her, and these have guided the construction of her first habitus which does not identify with rural activity, but rather performing professional activities in a city.

Leandro (Excerpt 6) also presents his activity as a way of helping his father, but in a different manner as compared to Jane and Tais, and his parents own a farm, and he’s one of the interviewed students with the most economic capital. However, this economic capital also brings with it cultural capital, because his parents are the only ones to have completed high school. According to what Bourdieu presents us (2011), this higher quantity of cultural and economic capital gives him access to tools that other students who wish to pursue higher education do not have.

Reinforcing the previous analysis, the quantity of capital that the family possesses offers Leandro, being the son of a rural landowner, better conditions to choose a future profession that Jane, for example, who has greater limitations due to the quantity of economic capital that her family possesses.

The students who cite rural activities as work demonstrate their relationship with the country and the construction of their plans for a future based on these activities. Rafael (Excerpt 7) relates his motivations to work for his father including a sense of responsibility to help his family. In Rafael’s discourse, we can identify the defense of the hegemonic discourse of society and the ideological aspect of the need to have an occupation; when he affirms that he takes pride in what he does, we understand this to be due to the fact that it is directed towards this hegemonic discourse, that he needs to have a job and help cover his family’s expenses.

Comparing Discourse 7 (Rafael) with Discourse 1 (Rafael’s mother), we can observe that while she indicates the importance of her son’s studies and working in an area other than rural activities, he is more motivated to continue to work alongside his father. The portion of Excerpt 7 in which he says “you can take a little of what you learn at school home with you” also demonstrates that his motivation to help is related to his father’s lack of schooling. We can see in Rafael’s statement the defense of the ideological aspect of the importance of work and study as a source of opportunities and tools for the subject’s social survival. We understand the latter ideological aspect when Rafael presents the possibility of taking what he learns at school home with him. Edilson (Excerpt 8), who also mentions the verb “work,” presents even stronger ties to the country when he talks about his work in agroindustry and cites the position that he occupies in the company as a “citric pest monitor.” Unlike the other students, Edilson is already a member of the job market and we identify him as the only one who can be understood to be a rural worker. We can relate this characteristic to his age - he is the oldest of the students interviewed (23 years old).

We can understand the presentation of Edilson (Excerpt 8) in relation to his occupation as a manifestation of his identity, while the other students relate their rural activities as a way to help their parents, emphasizing that they have other plans for the future. In Excerpt 8, the enunciator sees himself as a rural worker and describes how his work is performed, or in other words, we can see that he identifies with the activity he performs. In order to better understand this relationship between Edilson and rural work, we can analyze one of the moments during his interview in Excerpt 9 in which he also presents his relationship with the school:

(9) The school has contributed a lot to my life, but I relaxed and failed five grades and stopped studying for two years. Even in this job that I have, they’ve begun to demand more, you know? “Oh, there are a load of better jobs for you, but you don’t have the education” [...]. With that I returned to high school (Edilson - student).

(10) And I lived on the farm, and to me I was indifferent because I was always thinking, “why am I going to study, I’m going to die on the farm, I’m going to stay here on the farm just because of my parents, I’m not going to study, I’m not going to the city.” [...] And then I began to perceive the reality of life that it wasn’t like this, and even staying on the farm, I needed to have some education, you know? At least to know how to talk with people from the outside, and you don’t need to stay just on the farm. You’re not going to die on the farm, you need to go to the city at some point and do something, right? (Edilson - student).

In this excerpt, Edilson relates that he stopped studying and points out the reason he returned to school. Analyzing these two excerpts based on their semantic paths indicates the importance of study to entering the job market and that it’s unnecessary in performing rural activities.

Producing his discourse as a rural worker, in presenting the period in which he was away from school, Edilson justifies his decision based on the understanding that he had at the time, that he only needed to study if he were planning to leave the country. In Excerpt 10, the enunciator confirms the hegemonic discourse of the importance of study. This discourse supports the ideological aspect of school, as a right and need of all citizens, independent of the conditions that they live in. The conditions of the production of Edilson’s discourse reflect his family’s origin and contact with rural activities which guided him during a period in which he was far from the ideology of the importance of school. His past acts presented in this discourse defend the marginalized discourse of the country and study as something that’s only necessary in the city.

However, in presenting two different times in his analysis, Edilson shows their conflicting rationales, and with the chance to assume other functions in the company in which he works, he argues that his previous thinking was wrong. In Excerpt 10, when he analyzes his idea of remaining on the farm and the need to study, we perceive that this enunciator is defining a line between what signifies the country and the city. In his discourse, when he points out that “he has to go to the city at some point to do something,” he emphasizes that even staying on the farm he needs to have some education to be able to go to the city, or in other words, academic education is important just to the extent that a country man needs to interact with men in the city. It is as if the city and the country are different worlds in which people who live in one or the other do not speak the same language.

The solution for this impasse due to the differences between country and city dwellers can be found in the utilization of a tool which acts as a translator or communicator between these two spheres, which in Edilson’s discourse (Excerpt 10) is presented as the school. We have identified in this discourse the reconstruction of the primary habitus. Bourdieu (2013a), in dealing with the concept of the primary habitus, presents it as the guide for the agent’s future choices. In Edilson’s statements, the habitus constructed based on his family’s socialization revolved around the importance of farm work, or in other words, the valuing of work and the devaluing of education.

However, due to the socialization that he goes through in his work environment, he began to come into contact with situations which demonstrate the importance of education; these situations caused him to question his previous practices and he decided to incorporate study into his habitus. Modifying his habitus and his identity in this way, he has begun to see himself differently and now is planning his future based on different concerns.

From the discursive excerpts analyzed, the presence of the city ideology in the country is evident, based on the understanding of Althusser (1985) of the school as an SIA. We understand that it, in its constitution as a city organization, carries with it urban practices and ideology. We can perceive these aspects of ideology in the relationships between the school and the parents and students. To the parents who were interviewed, the school represents an opportunity for children to become a part of urban life. We understand that even if this school is formally organized as a rural school, its organization follows the ideological teachings of an SIA constituted by urban ideology. In this sense, the school transmits to the students the values necessary for a life in the city, as a way to go to college and get the necessary qualifications for work in the city.

We understand that these new values have modified their eidos, or in other words, their way of thinking and understanding reality as they experience it. The students have come to understand the necessity of assuming the ideological practices of the city in seeking to train themselves for the job market in the city, and with this they assume the practices related to urban life, such as the seeking of scientific knowledge to legitimize the practices of rural workers. In the socialization that takes place at school and at work, these rural subjects assume new practices in following worker legislation, union instructions, training, and professional courses of study and preparation for college exams, and thus they reconstruct their identities.

The school’s understanding of rural workers makes it possible for them to assume new practices adjusted by the ideological discourse of the city. To assume these practices and reconstruct their identities, we understand that they are not immutable, and that they can be preserved by formally constituted regulations and practices. Another point we would like to highlight is the inexistence of the same identity for all rural students, which contradicts the contents of the SEED (2010) rural educational guidelines, which points to the existence of a rural identity, judging that all of them have the same demands.

In our student interviews, we were able to identify that each one has an identity which is reconstructed based on contact with the school environment. In going to the city to study, these students are introduced to a new field and come into contact with the practices relevant to this field. These practices which characterize formal school education can be differentiated from the practices of these students at home, where their parents teach them about rural activities, or in other words, offer them practical instruction. Therefore, the inexistence of a dividing line between what is urban and what is rural leads us to understand that the dissemination of urban ideology through the school, even a rural school, has made it possible for rural students to come to a new understanding of their reality, which makes them need the good opportunities offered by the city to feel that they are more able “citizens.” This new perception creates new practices and behaviors, or body dispositions, which summarize the reconstruction of the identities of these students, expressed by their habitus.

In analyzing the ideology of the city in its totality, we may perceive that it is part of the ideological apparatus present in capitalist societies. The submission and control of the rural worker is an indispensable condition that permits the worker’s exploitation by capital to take place. It is possible to identify in the current rural-urban relationship the elements that make up the genesis of capitalist society itself, such as the expropriation of workers and their means of production and the legitimization of this through the dissemination of the dominant ideology as if it were an absolute truth. An example of this is Dalva’s interview, in which we see through her own body the results of the relationship between work and capital within the capitalist mode of production. Her self-awareness of belonging to an exploited class, the rural proletariat, is evident in her statements about the type of work she has performed and the consequences she has suffered because of it. However, the actions of the SIAs impede her from perceiving the exploitation which she has suffered as a worker, which is the real cause of the suffering that she has been submitted to and its long-lasting effects. This comprehension can be understood when she attributes a lack of education as the motive for her condition, and believes that if her son studies, he will be free from the same exploitation she has suffered. In this sense, urban education or the absence of it serves to legitimize the violence present in rural worker relationships, and the subject assumes the responsibility for her own suffering and passively accepts her exploitation by capital.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude this study with the understanding that the country and the city do not have a clear dividing line, because it is possible to identify in rural subjects, in terms of both the interviewed parents and students, the reproduction of ideological practices that have originated in the city. We understand that this is an imposition of the city on the country, given that the school and the family as SIAs reproduce urban perceptions, practices and dispositions. We can identify in the parents’ statements related to instructing their children to seek better professional opportunities in the city, the reproduction of the hegemonic discourse of urban education. In the children’s statements, we find that to have access to good job opportunities, they need to assume new practices and perceive their reality as being far from the country, or in other words, they need to assimilate the practices of city life. In this sense, they should fulfill the demands of the capitalist society to which they belong and should not question their exploited condition.

For the analysis of the reconstruction of the identities of these students, we have based it on the primary socialization of these students visible in the interviews with their parents. In this aspect, we can identify the transmission of the values that guide their children’s practices in seeking a better future in the city, or in other words, the family as an SIA reaffirms the urban ideology of the importance of education. In the school space, these students have contact with urban practices and reaffirm their understanding of reality constructed by their primary habitus, generating new postures and body dispositions.

In this way, the students assume new practices, dispositions and forms of perceiving the reality that they experience, and reconstruct their identities as they reconstruct their primary habitus. This reconstruction occurs in consonance with the urban ideology reaffirmed by the school and family SIAs in which students perform practices of primary and secondary socialization. In modifying their way of understanding reality, these subjects assume new dispositions and practices which alter their identities, or in other words, the way in which they visualize themselves within the space they belong to.

In this sense, the rural school presents itself as one of the main ideological tools of the state, whose objective is to make rural students accept their relationship with work in a capitalist society. This role is not summarized by introducing city values into the country, but rather perpetuating the existing relationship between work and capital. In this way, the students of the Adélia Rossi Arnaldi RHS are, at the same time, prepared to fulfill the needs of capital and ideologically indoctrinated to accept their exploited condition without questioning it.

Finally, we would like to mention that in examining the reproduction of this urban ideology among rural subjects, we asked ourselves whether the actions of this rural school constitute a form of symbolic violence, because they act in a way that disqualifies rural culture and work. Does the education promoted by rural schools constitute the reproduction of urban social structures, and is it thus a way of legitimizing the dominance of the city over the country? As we can tell from this investigation, there is no way of denying that the answer is yes.

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• [Translated version] Note: All quotes in English translated by this article’s translator.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jan-Mar 2019
• Date of issue
  Mar 2019

History

• Received
  21 Sept 2017
• Accepted
  02 Aug 2018