The Cultivation of Learning Dispositions among First-Generation Disadvantaged Students at a South African University

Abstract

This article discusses the learning dispositions of first-generation disadvantaged students at a university in South Africa’s Western Cape Province. Based on qualitative data collected over a 2-year period, it focuses on findings from 7 purposively selected students at this university. Utilizing Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Wacquant’s conceptual elaboration of this concept, the article explores the affective, cognitive, and conative (practices) dimensions of the students’ habitus as interrelated aspects crucial to understanding how they develop their dispositions to learn. The article illustrates how the students’ learning dispositions are produced through the active and strategic exercise of each of these 3 (affective, conative, and cognitive) interrelated embodied dimensions. I argue that understanding these embodied habitus generating practices are crucial for comprehending how they establish effective learning dispositions for successful educational engagement at their university. The significance of this article lies in offering a perspective of first-generation disadvantaged students’ learning dispositions in respect of establishing their educational engagement practices at the university.