Praxiological thinking of Pierre Bourdieu: mediations and contributions to research in the field of higher education

Abstract

This study analyzes some contributions of Pierre Bourdieu's praxiological thought to research in the field of higher education, understood as a multifaceted social space with a dynamic marked by struggles, strategies, and interests of different agents and institutions. It reflects on the mediations and contributions of the notion of field as a theoretical-methodological proposition for research in the field of higher education, articulated with the concepts of habitus and practical sense. Methodologically, the production of the text stems from the bibliographic appreciation of the author's works from the perspective of grasping structuring elements of praxeology, as well as from others that focus on the complexity and challenges of this field in contemporary society. It is concluded that, having institutional diversity and heterogeneity as distinctive marks, higher education also constitutes a field that possesses structured spaces of positions in which there are objects of disputes and specific preferences that mobilize agents and institutions toward the struggles established within it, taking into account confrontations that gain strength in different social fields. Consequently, marked by disputes and contradictions, the definition of higher education policy is a historical and relational construction, which occurs through the negotiation of preferences and worldviews expressed by different social agents. Furthermore, it points out that the concept of field contributes to identifying ideological premises, contradictions, confrontations, strategies, and interests implicit in the discourses and actions that help to understand higher education policy.