The individualization of social inequality: symbolic domination in university experiences

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, social inclusion is one of the most present characteristics in policies for admission to higher education. These policies have led to a social diversification of the university population, but the trajectories of the benefited students are marked by encounters with social inequality. This article addresses this theme by problematizing the associations that students establish between difficulties arising from social inequality and individual talents and gifts, characterizing such association as a product of symbolic domination. The reports collected through interviews show that the so-called "new students" needed to be super-selected through school to acquire habitus and cultural capital that enabled their admission to the university. The encounter with social inequality can occur, especially, through economic and academic paths, with the latter being configured as a more potent symbolic violence because it claims to be natural. The data brought in this article show that the students themselves question and classify their performances by associating them with issues of capacity and gift, without the need for any institutional intervention or evaluation. Unconsciously, students employ categories of perception that make them enter the university game, even in an unfavorable situation. That is, students act as accomplices in this relationship of domination because their dispositions have already been dominated by recognizing the legitimacy of the university, believing in the individualizing discourse of merit, and ignoring the power relations that are maintained for the reproduction of an unequal society through school success.