A “symbol school”¹: disputes and strategies of teachers from a school subfield²

ABSTRACT

The contribution of Bourdieu’s sociological theory to Education is current. The concepts of habitus, capital, and social field, in an articulated way, allow a dialectical understanding of the social agents in society. Thus, with the use of a concept derived from Bourdieu, such as school field and subfield, it is possible to understand the school institution as a builder of its own dynamics, with specific characteristics and demands, far beyond a mere passive consumer of educational projects and policies produced externally to it. In this sense, this work proposes, through systematic narrative observation and interviews with a group of Science and Biology teachers from a subfield of the school, the description and analysis of disputes, capitals, strategies, and positions of teachers in the subfield in question. A different valuation was assigned to each of the strategies according to the greater or minor possibility of social prestige in the subfield. With this, the dynamics of this subfield were understood, contributing to highlighting that within Brazilian schools there are disputes, interests, and demands that must be considered in the relationship with the other subfields, as well as in the development of educational projects and policies.

Keywords:
Brazilian educational field; school subfield; Science and Biology teachers; Bourdieu

RESUMO

A contribuição da teoria sociológica de Bourdieu para a Educação é atual. Os conceitos de habitus, capital e campo social, de maneira articulada, permitem um entendimento dialético a respeito dos agentes sociais na sociedade. Assim, com o emprego de uma conceituação derivada de Bourdieu, como campo e subcampo escolar, é possível a compreensão da instituição escolar como construtora de uma dinâmica própria, com características e demandas específicas, muito além de uma mera consumidora passiva de projetos e políticas educacionais elaborados externamente a ela. Nesse sentido, este trabalho propõe, por meio de observação narrativa sistemática e entrevistas com um grupo de professores de Ciências e Biologia de um subcampo da escola, a descrição e análise das disputas, dos capitais, das estratégias e posições dos professores no subcampo em questão. Atribuiu-se uma valoração distinta para cada uma das estratégias de acordo com a possibilidade maior ou menor de prestígio social no subcampo, conferida por tais estratégias aos professores. Com isso, compreendeu-se a dinâmica desse subcampo, contribuindo para destacar que no interior das escolas brasileiras há disputas, interesses e demandas que devem ser considerados na relação com os demais subcampos, assim como no desenvolvimento de projetos e políticas educacionais.

Palavras-chave:
campo educacional brasileiro; subcampo da escola; professores de Ciências e Biologia; Bourdieu

Introduction

Pierre Bourdieu’s praxeological perspective (NOGUEIRA; NOGUEIRA, 2004) contributes in different ways to the understanding of modern social dynamics. His sociological theory problematizes, on the one hand, the structuralist or objectivist perspective, under which individuals are merely determined and reproducers of a social logic based on rules that form them and, on the other hand, seeks to distance itself from the existentialist or subjectivist understanding that gives total action to the individual in the mobility and transformation of his reality.

Thus, Bourdieu’s conceptual construction focuses on the dialectic relationship between individuals - for Bourdieu, agents - and the social structure. Hence, the articulated concepts of habitus, capital, and field allow for an analysis that distances itself, at the same time, from the subjectivation and reification of social agents.

Concerning the area of Education, Bourdieu’s contribution is recurrent in Brazilian production, such as, for example, regarding the teaching habitus, the relevance of cultural capital in schooling and school dropout. In addition, the field concept has been used in the analysis of the institution of basic education schools and also of higher education (GENOVEZ, 2008; GENOVESE, 2014), as well as in the analysis of the relationship between these two subfields (MELLO, 2019; MELLO; HIGA, 2021).

However, as Genovez (2008) points out, most research in the educational area using Bourdieu as a theoretical framework does not deepen into the concept of field for the analysis of the school institution.

There is nothing very deep in these works that indicate the existence or even that characterize the particularities of the school field, only general notes are mentioned, such as the use of a more colloquial, childlike language and the use of sensation (emotion) by teachers to explain an action at school, that is, they are stuck only with the notion of habitus linked to the dispositions of a scientist from the academic field to make their notes about the school universe, in short, they despise the structure of the objective relations established between and by schools, the school field, and between and by teachers at school, the field of the school. (GENOVEZ, 2008, p. 17, our translation).

In this sense, the concepts of field and subfield help to understand the School as an institution, with a social position, which relates to other institutions and agents of society hierarchically, with relative autonomy and internally organized under its own disputes for power (capitals), defining the strategies that its agents - the teachers - employ to stand out in this subfield.

In addition, working with the understanding of the school institution as a subfield of the Brazilian educational field based on Genovez (2008) and Genovese (2014), it is understood that the school subfield has its own habitus, since each field or subfield corresponds to a habitus (LAHIRE, 2017).

It is identified that this conceptualization of the school as a subfield is controversial for some authors, however, it finds an echo in the empirical investigation from the moment that one perceives its own rules, expected behavior for its agents, specific disputes, positions of the agents based on the differentiated accumulation of capital and a relative autonomy with the other fields and subfields, as described by Genovez (2008).

Therefore, understanding the School under the bias of Bourdieu’s theory of the social field allows us to understand it beyond an institution that merely reproduces the demands of other fields or that only absorbs such demands. On the contrary, the School establishes its own demands, as well as selects, modifies, repels, or absorbs those of other fields and subfields, depending on its internal dynamics and the interests of its agents.

Therefore, this article aims to understand the dynamics of a subfield of the Brazilian educational field from the description and analysis of the organization of a group of Science and Biology teachers from a subfield of the school, concerning their capitals in dispute, the strategies for accumulating capital, and the positions of teacher in this subfield.

Thus, these concepts allow us to see the School more critically, in order to overcome the understanding of the School as an institution in need of intervention from other sectors of society, since, according to this logic, it would not think of itself. Thus, under the bias of the School as a social subfield, it is understood that its internal dynamics influence the successful or unsuccessful development of demands placed by other subfields. With this, they help understand the functioning of projects, supervised internships of degrees, and educational policies in this subfield, for example.

It should be noted that this work derives from the doctoral thesis of the first author (MELLO, 2019), who worked in the context of the supervised internship of the Degree in Biological Sciences and sought to understand what the classifications of the symbolic goods of the school subfield carried out by trainees and teachers from the school subfield indicate about the process of teacher training and the relationship between the school subfield (SS) and the university subfield (US). Thus, among the different aspects addressed in the doctoral thesis, the present work specifically focuses on the characterization of the subfield of the school investigated in question: the disputed capitals, the strategies, and the positions of the agents in the field.

Methodological aspects

We worked with the selection of a subfield of the school that was historically recognized as a partner for the development of supervised internships for the different Degrees of a specific subfield of the university. Based on this selection, an investigation was carried out with Science and Biology teachers from the school’s morning shift, given the scope of the research, when dealing with the internship of the Biological Sciences course at this SS.

At the time of research development, this group consisted of 14 teachers. Among them, there were teachers supervising the internship of undergraduate students and other teachers who, at that moment, did not have any trainees for monitoring.

As a first approximation of the school subfield, it was important to understand aspects of its habitus (BOURDIEU, 1983), as well as apprehend elements that would characterize it as a subfield of the Brazilian educational field (BOURDIEU, 1983; GENOVESE, 2014). For that, we used the method of narrative observation (LESSARD-HÉBERT et al., 2012) and interviews with teachers from this subfield (BOURDIEU, 2001) with an interest in deepening the meanings conferred by a group of teachers from a particular school to the relationship with the university, understanding the internal relationships of this group, as well as the capitals in dispute and the habitus of the SS, focusing on the production of symbolic goods in the institution by its teachers.

In this SS, the teachers of each subject, as they were in large numbers, organized themselves into their subject groups. Thus, each group elected from their peers a coordinator for each shift responsible for bureaucratic attributions in front of the school’s administrative and pedagogical body. The observation was systematically carried out with all 14 teachers during their weekly discipline coordination meetings. In addition, these teachers, mainly the two coordinating teachers of Biology, were accompanied in meetings with the coordinators of the other disciplines and with the school management, in addition to training meetings with all the school’s teachers. Observations were also carried out in the teachers’ rooms, where Biology teachers interacted with other colleagues, trainees, and students.

In this sense, observation is called narrative because there are no categories defined a priori, despite having predetermined objectives, such as understanding the attributions of meaning by agents in a specific context. For this purpose, “logbook, fieldwork notes, description of critical or anecdotal incidents in a given period (“specimens”) (written at the time or retrospectively)” (LESSARD-HÉBERT et al., 2012, p. 149, our translation) were used. These observations generated written material in the field diary and provided information about the habitus of the school’s subfield, internal relationships, and even with other subfields, and about how cultural and symbolic goods of this SS are produced.

For the accomplishment of the interviews, in turn, we worked with the assumption that this technique configures a social relationship and, therefore, is permeated by social hierarchies, and may express symbolic violence (BOURDIEU, 2001). Thus, part of the interviewer’s job is to try to reduce this symbolic violence in the development of the interview and the research itself. In this case, attention was paid to this, for example, when choosing the same professional group as the researcher: Science and Biology teachers, which brings the researcher and research collaborators together in parts, contributing to the work with a cultural framework close to each other and, thus, seeking to mitigate the symbolic violence present in this relationship (BOURDIEU, 2001).

Based on these assumptions and methodological precautions, the interviews were carried out with teachers who were willing to do so, composing a group of 10 teachers out of a total of 14 in the morning shift. Of these 10 teachers, 8 were not supervisors of US trainees collaborating on the investigation but were supervisors of other trainees from other institutions. In this way, the two supervisors of the investigated trainees composed the empirical body of this work more systematically. Therefore, in total, an average of 2 interviews were carried out with each teacher among eight teachers who were not supervisors of the US trainees in question, while with the two teachers who supervise the trainees, 4 interviews were carried out with each one.

Chart 1 summarizes the information about the teachers who collaborated on this work.

CHART 1
Information about teachers from the school subfield.

Teacher	Age (years)	Career length (years)	Previously area coordinator	Current Internship supervisor	Effective at school	Collaboration with research
Teacher 1	+- 40	+10	No	Yes and of the US	No	Observation; 4 interviews
Teacher 2	+ 40	+-15	No	Yes	No	Observation; 2 interviews
Teacher 3	+- 50	+-30	No	Yes	No	Observation; 3 interviews
Teacher 4	+60	+30	No	No	Yes	Observation; 4 interviews
Teacher 5	+50	+-25	Yes	Yes	Yes	Observation; 2 interviews
Teacher 6	+40	+-20	Yes	Yes and of the US	Yes	Observation; 4 interviews
Teacher 7	+50	+-30	No	Yes	Yes	Observation; 1 interview
Teacher 8	+50	+-30	Yes	No	Yes	Observation; 2 interviews
Teacher 9	+50	+-30	Yes	No	No	Observation; 1 interview
Teacher 10	+50	+-30	Yes	Yes	Yes	Observation; 3 interviews

• SOURCE: MELLO, 2019

Results and discussion

In this section, the information and analyses arising from the investigation will be presented through the methodology explained above. The presentation and discussion of these data are organized into five subsections. The first locates the SS in question in the school subfield of Paraná; the second is an analysis of the elements disputed in this SS; the third presents the disputed capitals in this subfield; the fourth analyzes the different strategies developed by SS agents, i.e., teachers, for capital accumulation; and, finally, the fifth highlights their positions in this subfield, resulting from the accumulation of teaching capital made possible by the different strategies used by the teachers.

To represent the accumulation of teaching capital (explained in Table 1 and Chart 2), different quantitative values are attributed to each capital accumulation strategy. The quantification of this accumulation is carried out so that the position of the agents of this group in the school subfield can be visualized, thus being a data presentation strategy (LÉSSARD-HÉBERT et al., 2012) used to organize and communicate the data resulting from the analysis.

TABLE 1:
Distribution of cultural, social, and symbolic capital by teacher.

Teacher	Cultural Capital	Social Capital	Symbolic Capital	Total Teaching Capital
Teacher 1	10	14	0	24
Teacher 2	11	7	0	18
Teacher 3	10	6	5	21
Teacher 4	15	6	0	21
Teacher 5	22	12	0	34
Teacher 6	26	29	5	60
Teacher 7	20	13	0	33
Teacher 8	14	5	0	19
Teacher 9	13	6	0	19
Teacher 10	16	13	0	29

• SOURCE: MELLO, 2019.

CHART 2
Strategies and teaching capital of SS agents.

The values attributed to each strategy to obtain capital had as a reference the one that could give the teacher greater recognition through his/her peer teachers and students. In addition, the strategy that gives it a higher hierarchy in the distribution of classes by the State Department of Education is also taken as a reference, as this is a constant objective of teachers and the target of dispute for permanence in the subfield.

In this sense, strategies are identified about what is relevant for teachers to take not only classes in this subfield but also certain types of activities that make up the workload assigned to teachers.

Thus, different strategies were identified and the following values were given for each of them: 5 points for the strategy that most allowed recognition in the field; 3 points for the strategy with the average capacity to obtain recognition; and 1 point for the one that least presented this possibility.

The school subfield in the school subfield of Paraná

The collaborating school occupies a position of social prestige in the school subfield of Paraná due, among other factors, to its founding history, the social, cultural, and political position of its students and teachers, and its physical and work structure for its teachers. The position of the SS is inferred from a characterization of its history, through the contribution of Straube (1993), and what it represents for Science and Biology teachers, as evidenced in their interviews.

Among these physical and teaching work conditions, it is worth mentioning the existence of a library, teaching laboratories for different disciplines, computer labs, sports and athletics courts, a swimming pool, an astronomical observatory, a language center, a band, choir, theater, a magazine for scientific publication of the works of its teacher, among others.

The school was the first high school in the state of Paraná, in 1846, when it was still subject to the province of São Paulo, and went through different phases, following the educational reforms of the 19th and 20th centuries. In this sense, it began as a high school with paid and subsidized education for only a few specific students, such as those descended from soldiers in the Paraguayan war; it was extinguished a few times due to a lack of public and teachers; it shared its space with other institutions; it functioned as a preparatory high school, vocational courses, and teacher training courses, until the current model, a school, in 1942 (STRAUBE, 1993). Currently, it receives students from the state education network of Paraná in High School and Middle School.

In 1947, when the Secretary of Education and Culture of the State of Paraná was created, the school was considered a model center for other secondary education establishments. This explains the fact that, as evidenced in the interviews with teachers, even today, the State has an understanding of the need for educational projects to be first experienced in this school.

Therefore, since its foundation, even going through troubled periods, the school occupies a prominent and privileged position in the school subfield of Paraná, both due to the cultural, economic, and social position of the teachers who have taught in it throughout its history, as well as for its students with their political and cultural prominence, in addition to its physical structure and the importance for the cultural scenario of the State of the institutions that shared space with the school (STRAUBE, 1993). In addition, this position also comes from the relationship established with the State, granting it autonomy and determining, for example, that some educational projects be tried first in it (STRAUBE, 1993), as mentioned.

In this way, all these aspects raised here are attractive for teachers in the school subfield of Paraná, and the school becomes, therefore, a target of a dispute as a workplace, between permanent teachers and also among temporary teachers, for representing a social prestige to be part of the faculty of this subfield of the school, which occupies a high hierarchical position in this subfield.

The elements of dispute in the school subfield

In addition to the social recognition given to the school’s teachers as it is a target of dispute, its student body also represents a dispute between teachers. This dispute derives from some characteristics of the students at the school - with a habitus marked by the recognition obtained by these students in national exams, entrance exams, awards in knowledge olympiads (of Physics and Mathematics, for example), and sports competitions, for the discipline and effort when studying, which can be understood as “cultural goodwill” (BOURDIEU, 2015), characteristic of the relationship established by the middle class with the school, the main public of this school.

Thus, the student body stands out in the school subfield. In this way, this element of the habitus of the SS, characteristic of its students, is also considered one of the elements disputed by the teachers of the different schools of the school subfield.

So, the public is very varied, but at the same time it is a selected public because they enter according to the curriculum, so it is a public that is a little more concerned than what I noticed in the other schools that I taught until last year. In other schools, they are not, the students are still not very concerned with the issue of classes, entrance exams, that kind of thing, and here they are. (Teacher 1, our translation).

Teacher 1 also highlights the existence of competition in the school for the students’ attention, which, according to her, can help teachers stand out in that subfield, in order to get positions and classes. That is, the relationship with students represents a dispute because it means a strategy for greater recognition in the SS.

Sometimes it’s a competition to catch the attention of the students, of the school, to show work, to show yourself interesting, and maybe get something next year, positions. So I think maybe, not only the position but being able to take classes. Because like I told you, it’s not like other schools, everyone there wants to teach. So, sometimes you have to stand out [...] everyone wants to stay there. So sometimes you have to stand out in some way to try to achieve some things. (Teacher 1, our translation).

Another element in dispute by the agents of this subfield is its physical and pedagogical structure composed of different teaching laboratories, auxiliary professionals for the teachers’ activities, photocopying resources, teachers’ room, sports practice, band, theater, and language center open to the external community, among others.

[...] I have the classroom teacher, the laboratory teacher, the Biology review teacher, and the assistant teacher for those who are not doing badly but who want to clear up doubts, there is a laboratory, with several laboratory teachers, I have the area pedagogue and I have the class pedagogue. I have seven professionals to help me in Biology. (Teacher 3, our translation).

Perhaps other schools in the state that do not have the money we have will suffer more. For example, we have exams photocopied by the school. There are other schools in the state that have to pay for them. So I think this ends up harming the teacher evaluation system. (Teacher 9, our translation).

Furthermore, unlike other schools in the same state, the school can manage its own financial resources in hiring employees, having greater autonomy. According to the teachers:

And we also have a certain autonomy, a certain independence, sometimes, that other schools do not achieve. They are more tied to what SEED [State Department of Education] orders. And here, sometimes we have greater autonomy to work with what we need here. (Teacher 10, our translation).

State budget destined for this institution here. The whole resource comes and... For example, employee payroll here goes from this resource that is received. Different from other schools, payment is made directly with the Secretary of State. (Teacher 5, our translation).

Therefore, being a teacher in this subfield of the school is the objective of several teachers in the state network due to the existence of the elements mentioned above: physical structure, work structure, social prestige, students’ habitus, and autonomy in relation to SEED. Consequently, teachers formulate different strategies to enter and stay in this subfield.

Different types of teaching capital

As previously discussed, the SS in question is disputed by teachers from the state network of Paraná. This dispute is translated into the differentiated accumulation of teaching capital (GENOVEZ, 2008), granting a certain position in the subfield to the teachers who accumulate it. This teaching capital is formed by three types of capital: a) school cultural capital; b) school social capital (GENOVEZ, 2008); and c) school symbolic capital (MELLO, 2019).

To enter the subfield and accumulate teaching capital, gaining recognition in the school subfield, teachers adopt different strategies. One of the entry strategies, for the teacher who is already an agent of the school subfield but who is not assigned to that specific subfield, is known as the Service Order³. Through it, some teachers manage to be part of the SS - even if for a limited period of one year - and enjoy the symbolic capital that it has in comparison to other SSs.

Teacher 1 recognizes, according to the following excerpt, the existing dispute in the school subfield and its reverberation in the relationships between teachers:

Some people can, some people cannot. [They want] to stay here. And then, there is this tension, this dispute, this competition, this struggle to stay. So, perhaps, this influences the interaction between teachers. [...] Because if every year there is this distribution, this struggle, this: “I’m going to get a class, I’m not going to get a class and such”. You know, “Oh, did you make it? You passed in front of me and such”. “I did such a thing to get it”. And then it ends up generating stress in the group and making interaction difficult. (Teacher 1, our translation).

Once inserted in this subfield, the agents, with an illusio⁴ in it, try to remain in it, making use of strategies according to the type of capital to be accumulated. Thus, the different types of teaching capital and the strategies developed by this particular group of teachers to accumulate them will be described.

Teaching capital in the form of school cultural capital

a) Institutionalized: this type of cultural capital in this specific SS is represented by the position of an effective teacher, composing the Permanent Teaching Staff of Paraná, through a public examination and by diplomas in postgraduate courses, both strictu and lato sensu. However, the conversion of institutionalized cultural capital through postgraduate university diplomas is low, and the distinction arising from approval in the examination to become a Basic Education teacher has more value in the school subfield, according to Genovez (2008). This characteristic was also observed in the subfield in question. Bourdieu reflects on the distinction that the teaching examination provides to the approved teacher; in addition to the cultural capital he/she possesses, being selected in the examination distinguishes the approved teacher from their peers:

It is enough to think of the examination, based on the continuum of infinitesimal differences between performances, which produces durable and brutal discontinuities, from everything to nothing, such as the one that separates the last approved from the first rejected, and institutes an essential difference between the statutorily recognized and guaranteed competence and the simple cultural capital, constantly summoned to demonstrate its value. In this case, one can clearly see the performative magic of the power to institute, the power to make people see and believe, or, in a single word, to make people recognize. (BOURDIEU, 2015, p. 87, our translation).

b) Incorporated cultural capital: it is having that becomes being, according to Bourdieu (2015), integrating a habitus and, therefore, requiring time to be assimilated and constructed by the agents. Thus, it is inferred that this type of cultural capital for teachers in the school subfield is associated with time in the teaching career and, specifically, when dealing with the subfield in question, with the time when that teacher works in that specific school (GENOVEZ, 2008). This time confers an advantage to the agent, known as “the sense in the game” or habitus.

c) Intended cultural capital: this subtype of cultural capital is expressed in the materiality provided by the teaching action in dialogue with the incorporated cultural capital. As Bourdieu explains:

Cultural capital in the intended state has a certain number of properties that are defined only in relation to the cultural capital in its incorporated form. Cultural capital intended in material supports, such as writings, paintings, monuments, etc., is transmissible in its materiality. [...] Thus, cultural goods can be the object of material appropriation, which presupposes economic capital, and of symbolic appropriation, which presupposes cultural capital. (BOURDIEU, 2015, p. 85, our translation).

Teaching capital in the form of school social capital

The social teaching capital, in turn, is related to the accumulation of prestige provided by the lasting relationship networks of teachers in the school subfield. Because it is this subfield, it must be considered that the main relationship network is the student (GENOVEZ, 2008). In this way, those strategies that provide a greater possibility of a relationship with students, in qualitative and quantitative terms, are considered of greater relevance for highlighting agents in this subfield. Bourdieu conceptualizes social capital as follows:

Social capital is the set of current or potential resources that are linked to the possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of inter-knowledge and inter-recognition or, in other words, to the link to a group, as a set of agents that not only are they endowed with common properties [...], but they are also united by useful and permanent links. [...] The volume of social capital that an individual agent possesses depends on the extent of the network of relationships that one can effectively mobilize and on the volume of capital (economic, cultural, or symbolic) that is the exclusive possession of each one of those to whom it belongs. (BOURDIEU, 2015, p. 75, our translation).

Symbolic teaching capital in the form of school symbolic capital

Despite having a diffuse conceptualization admitted by Bourdieu himself (MARTIN, 2017), symbolic capital can be distinguished from other types of capital by its association with the recognition offered to a particular agent or with honor and power, that is, the prestige of that agent is legitimate. Thus, Bourdieu states that “any kind of capital (economic, cultural, social) tends (in different degrees) to function as symbolic capital [...] when it obtains an explicit or practical recognition, that of a habitus structured according to the same structures of the space in which it was engendered” (BOURDIEU, 2001, p. 285 apud MARTIN, 2017, p. 111, our translation).

This type of capital is proposed (MELLO, 2019) for the SS in question, observing the relationships within the school subfield and the subfield of the school through which recognition and social prestige are attributed to teachers. Thus, in this work, symbolic capital is associated with social capital. However, it acts differently from this one, since the analysis is not based on the resources that the agent’s relationship networks can allow to these agents (social capital) but rather on the recognition that other individuals give it (symbolic capital). Thus, this type of capital is determined by “[...] the way an individual is perceived by others” (NOGUEIRA; NOGUEIRA, 2004, p. 51, our translation).

The strategies

In this section, we describe the strategies used by Science and Biology teachers at that particular moment and in that specific subfield for recognition in the subfield. In this sense, the capital in dispute is described and, from there, the strategies to obtain it and the teachers’ positions in face of the differentiated accumulation of this capital.

According to Genovez (2008), the main strategy for the dispute for capital on the part of the school subfield teacher is the relationship with the student. Thus, the teachers collaborating on the investigation commented that they were concerned with students’ learning, with materials that stimulate their attention, and with ways to reduce their attention dispersion, among other pedagogical skills. Thus, the other strategies are largely conditioned to the relationship with the students.

In this sense, strategies are identified mainly from what is relevant for teachers to take not only classes in this subfield but also certain types of activities that make up the workload assigned to teachers, such as review lessons.

As previously explained, the strategies used for the distinction in the school subfield were identified and different values were assigned to them to present data (LESSARD-HÉBERT et al., 2012), enabling the visualization of teaching capital accumulation and, consequently, the position of the different agents in this subfield.

Thus, for the institutionalized cultural capital, it is found that between being effective in the analyzed SS and having a postgraduate degree, the former has greater relevance in the internal dispute of the subfield, at least among the group of Science and Biology teachers. This is evidenced in the annual allocation of classes carried out by SEED, for which it is more relevant for the teacher to be effective in this school so that he/she can be allocated there, although the postgraduate academic title helps him/her to score in the classification.

In addition to what was mentioned above, the little conversion of the postgraduate degree obtained in the university subfield to work in the school subfield is pointed out by the collaborating teachers, due to the little knowledge used in classes coming from these postgraduate courses, in addition to representing a low increase of salary per title presented in the teaching career, according to the teachers.

Thus, three strategies were identified for the accumulation of institutionalized cultural capital: being an effective teacher in the subfield of the investigated school (5 points); being an effective teacher in another school subfield (3 points); postgraduate degree (1 point).

For the analysis of strategies for the accumulation of incorporated cultural capital, the time that allows greater or minor contact with cultural goods is considered and, therefore, greater incorporation of them. Furthermore, career length is one of SEED’s criteria for classifying teachers in the annual distribution of classes.

So I entered on that date, and those who entered after me stay behind regardless of whether they already had a master’s or doctorate, you know? Then over time, you can level up but you don’t pass in front of those who have more years of service there. [It is considered] the years of service to take classes. It’s like, I take the laboratory because I have more length of service there. (Teacher 6, our translation).

Thus, for the distribution of cultural capital incorporated in the SS investigated, the following score was adopted: teacher at that school for more than 10 years (5 points); teacher in other subfields for more than 10 years (3 points); teacher at that school for less than 10 years (1 point); teacher in other subfields for less than 10 years (1 point).

To obtain intended cultural capital, which is accumulated through the relationship with material goods, several strategies were observed. Among these, classes as a laboratory teacher stand out, the most disputed in the subfield for being obtained by teachers with a longer career and for allowing contact with students through an activity that they value, in addition to enabling leaving the standard classroom.

Therefore, the teacher’s occupation in the laboratory represents a distinction between this group of teachers for different reasons that will be highlighted below, and which involve the relationship with the student, the main dispute in this subfield, as mentioned before.

Thus, the following strategies were identified: laboratory classes (5 points); classes as a student at another college while being a teacher at the school (3 points); review classes, assistance, teacher in the preparatory course of the school’s subfield, classes with field trips, classes using different materials and games, participation in study groups at the school, participation in study groups at the university, supervision of trainees from the university subfield, and work in other Higher and Technical Education institutions (1 point).

All teachers have access to most of these resources and structures. However, there is a difference regarding the laboratory: not all are laboratory teachers. Among the teachers collaborating on the research, 3 were laboratory teachers, in addition to having “theoretical”⁵ classes in their weekly workload.

To be a laboratory teacher, one of the main requirements is the time of public service, valuing those with more time. Thus, the existence of rules for occupying the position also contributes to the understanding that there is a dispute between teachers. For the other activities that teachers perform, such as assistance, tutoring, and being an assistant professor, it happens in the same way as for teachers in the laboratory: they are activities conditioned to requirements, the main one is the time of public service, that is, conditioned to the incorporated capital of the teacher.

So it depends on the teacher’s rating. The older [longer career time], the more points you have and you get a certain rank. But then some people retired, who were in the laboratory. And then we go up the ranking, right? (Teacher 6, our translation).

Thus, through these activities developed in the laboratory, the teachers come into contact more intensely and directly with the students.

Participating in study groups at the SS and US, being a student at the university in a course related to one’s professional area, as well as working in other Higher and Technical Education institutions in an area related to one’s performance also represent, even if with minor value, a strategy for obtaining intended cultural capital in the subfield, since agents relate to cultural goods that can be incorporated into their professional activity in the SS.

The relationship with students can also mean a strategy for obtaining intended cultural capital, which is, for Genovez (2008), the main strategy for obtaining this type of capital for the teacher. Such a relationship acquires this meaning from the moment the teacher uses it to be able to work with the content of his/her school subject in the classroom. Laboratory classes, in this sense, also acquire this meaning because students like these classes.

Here at the laboratory, I think it’s a good incentive, you know? To the scientific, I say a lot: “You are scientists, you are small, but you are. You are working with cells, with microscopes, plates, coverslips, pigment.” This is being a scientist, so you have to have a position as a scientist here. [...] But in general, I see that the laboratory is, like, receptive to them, you know? like, “Oh, cool, I have a lab class.” [...] I think that is because of their autonomy to do things, that we propose activities that they can get up and do. They don’t get it ready. So they have to get up, prepare the plate and look at it and focus. To get by. So I think that autonomy they have, I think they like it. (Teacher 6, our translation).

This relationship between students’ satisfaction and the teachers’ intention to satisfy them, allowing, on the other hand, the accumulation of intended cultural capital, also occurs in classes with field trips, known to be valued by students and which allows teachers to work on contents with an activity that pleases the students. This is a strategy employed by Teacher 6 and Teacher 1:

What do they like best? So, the field trip still has that feeling of celebration, you know? [...] So this connotation of going out, taking the bus, then they bring food, then they bring clothes, shoes. So that brings them the feeling of a party, right? (Teacher 6, our translation).

However, although the other activities carried out by the teachers mentioned here provide a relationship with the students beyond the standard classroom, their value is lower than the laboratory classes for the accumulation of cultural capital by the teacher, since they are more sporadic and with a smaller number of students.

The strategies identified for the accumulation of social capital were: laboratory, area coordination, field trip, workshop development by SEED, classes with different materials and games, administrative position at school (5 points); participation in study groups at the school, participation in study groups at the university (3 points); review class teacher, support class teacher, reception teacher, preparatory course teacher, college student as a teacher in the school subfield, supervision of trainees in the university field, and work in other institutions of Higher and Technical Education (1 point).

As previously highlighted, the contact with students represents an aspiration for teachers in the SS and, according to Genovez (2008), constitutes the main strategy for accumulating teaching capital. Thus, review and assistance classes, classes in the preparatory course, field trips, and work in the reception room allow for a more intense interpersonal relationship with the students, that is, a greater possibility of accumulating social capital, when compared to the teacher who dedicates himself/herself especially to the activities in the classroom. However, as the number of students participating in these activities is small, they are not the main strategies used to obtain social capital by these teachers.

The laboratory classes also represent a possibility of a more positive relationship with the students, since they like these classes, being, therefore, a strategy for accumulating social capital. In addition, the number of students who attend the laboratory is greater than those who attend review, assistance, reception, and preparatory classes, for example.

In this sense, the relationship with students and fellow teachers allows an accumulation of social capital to stand out in the subfield and achieve a position of greater recognition. As Teacher 1 points out, through a relationship with the students recognized as positive by the management, for example, the teacher may, in the following year, be able to remain or have a greater number of classes in that SS, since it depends on the approval of the school management.

Thus, despite the final decision for the continuity of the teacher in the SS to be made by the school management, it is based on the judgment of the agent’s work in the subfield. Since the teaching work in the SS is based on the direct or indirect relationship with the student (GENOVEZ, 2008), it can be inferred that, to some extent, the judgment of the school management regarding the teaching work is indirectly considering the relationship that the teacher develops with his/her students.

Likewise, the position of coordinating Science and Biology teachers can provide this greater knowledge and recognition by peers in the SS. Teacher 10 points out that this occupation allows her greater flexibility in her workload. Thus, of the 40 hours of this teacher’s work, 10 hours are devoted to coordination, 5 to activity hours, and 25 hours in the classroom. In addition, Teacher 10 states that the position provides her with a deeper knowledge of the functioning of the school, which may be related to the possibility of accumulating social capital, since, through area coordination, she participates in meetings with the other teachers of other subjects and with the school’s management, thus promoting interpersonal relationships, to which most of the teachers in her group may not have access. Another aspect in this sense is the relationship with the pedagogical coordination that the position allows or requires, as highlighted by Teacher 9.

Regarding symbolic capital as the recognition among field agents, two strategies were identified for accumulating this capital: a tribute from school leavers (5 points) and developing a workshop for SEED (3 points).

Considering that the strategies that allow for greater accumulation of capital are those related to the subfield itself, receiving a tribute as a teacher from students leaving the third year of high school is of great value. Furthermore, considering that students represent the main capital for the Basic Education teacher (GENOVEZ, 2008), this strategy may have even greater value.

Being invited by SEED to hold workshops for other teachers in the school subfield during the continuing education week also represents an element of recognition for this guest teacher. This was observed only in the case of one teacher. However, as it is a subfield other than school, this strategy has less value compared to the first.

Agents’ positions in the school subfield

After describing the types of teaching capital and the strategies developed by teachers in this subfield to obtain them, Table 1 was constructed to illustrate the distribution of teaching capital and the consequent position of teachers in the SS group.

In Chart 2, the accumulation of teaching capital resulting from the different strategies developed by Teacher 6 in the SS is exemplified. The chart with the other teachers is in Mello (2019). It is noted that Teacher 6, the one with the highest position in the SS as shown in Table 1, accumulates the three types of teaching capital. To this end, she uses strategies internal to the SS that allow her great prestige, such as being a laboratory teacher, using different materials in her class, and having been a subject coordinator, for example. At the same time, the teacher uses strategies that represent demands from other subfields, such as being an internship supervisor at the SS, holding a workshop for teachers undergoing continuing education at SEED, and participating in study groups at the SS, among others. However, in the conversion of strategies from other subfields, its value does not necessarily represent a great possibility of a more intense relationship with students or of assigning classes in that subfield and, therefore, does not confer expressive capital accumulation to teachers, in comparison with strategies internal to the SS, such as laboratory classes and discipline coordination.

Final considerations

With this work, the strategies developed by the teachers of a subfield of the school within the reality with which they deal daily to be recognized in that subfield became evident. Thus, whether through pedagogical work with their students or through participation in projects from other subfields (such as SEED pedagogical workshops or supervision of trainees from the university subfield), teachers move in the school field, establish their demands, build strategies, and define the dynamics of their school and, consequently, of the school subfield.

It appears that the school, from the perspective of taking it as a subfield of the Brazilian educational field, has its own organization that goes beyond the organization proposed by the education departments in different areas, as well as the dynamics imagined by the different subfields of the Brazilian educational field - such as the university subfield - to the school. The school as part of a subfield has characteristic disputes, specific habitus, its teachers share an illusio to remain there, and, therefore, it is described as a social field according to a concept inherited from Bourdieu. However, at the same time, schools share some characteristics of these elements with each other, which ends up defining them as a subfield.

In addition to this theoretical conceptualization, the empirical finding allows the understanding that disputes, capital, interests, and the search for recognition and social distinction of its agents characterize relations of relative autonomy with other subfields within the Brazilian school field. In this way, the look at educational projects and policies can go beyond the simple urgency of applicability in the school to seek, in the understanding of its relationships and internal dynamics, the establishment of joint demands and with greater development successes, also avoiding situations of symbolic violence in the relationships between the subfields, as evidenced in Mello and Higa (2018; 2021).

Thus, when we analyze a “symbol school”, we seek to draw attention to the potential that Bourdieu’s praxiological perspective has for the debate about the school in Brazil and, in a broader sense, the relationships established between the different subfields in the Brazilian educational field.

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• 1
  Title in reference to Erasmo Pilotto’s sentence, “a school that looks like a symbol”, referring to the school that this work deals with.
• 2
  Research developed with funding from CAPES.
• 3
  “The Service Order is a benefit granted by SEED to the teacher (QPM [Teaching Staff]/QUP [Single Personnel Table]) so that he/she can be in activity for a certain period (maximum until December 31 of each year), in a place other than its capacity, obeying the criteria of the specific normative instruction and considering the availability of vacancies” (SEED, 2019, our translation).
• 4
  According to Bourdieu, social agents have an illusio with a certain social field from the moment they recognize it as such, as well as recognize their disputes, invest and act in that field.
• 5
  The term “theoretical classes” was chosen to refer to classes routinely developed in a standard classroom, other than in the laboratory.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  20 Mar 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  13 May 2022
• Accepted
  11 Nov 2022