Field Transitions and Symbolic Violence in Educational Mobility: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Educated

Muna Yastuti Madrah, Nailil Muna, Diana Dewi Sartika, Siti Salwa md Sawari, Duna Izfanna

Abstract


This article contributes to the sociology of education by reading Tara Westover's memoir, Educated (2018), as a sociological case of habitus reconfiguration across competing fields. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, habitus, field, capital, and symbolic violence, the study examines how educational mobility entails both emancipation and symbolic displacement as learners move from religiously bounded familial fields into academic fields structured by unequal distributions of cultural and symbolic capital. Through a theoretically informed close reading of key narrative episodes, the article identifies processes of hysteresis, capital conversion, and field negotiation, including gendered dimensions of epistemic authority and misrecognition. The findings demonstrate that learning is not merely cognitive acquisition but a field transition that reorganises belonging, identity, and recognition. By conceptualising memoir as sociological inquiry, the article advances critical debates on educational mobility, symbolic violence, and habitus transformation within stratified fields of power.

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References


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