Bourdieu’s collective enterprise of inculcation: the moral socialisation and ethical enculturation of medical students

Abstract

This paper introduces the idea of enculturation to sociology as a compliment to socialisation in the context of Bourdieu’s ‘collective enterprise of inculcation’ and social theory. Enculturation is positioned as a concept that can be used to address formal education as a factor in social reproduction. Following a discussion of socialisation and enculturation and their interrelation, they are further examined in the context of medical education. In particular, I focus on the moral and ethical aspects of medical education and the social or professional reproduction of medical students. I differentiate between ‘medical morality’ or ‘ethos’ and ‘medical ethics’ or ‘eidos’, arguing that the reproduction of the former is predominantly a matter of socialisation whilst the reproduction of the latter is a primarily a function of enculturation. Nevertheless I make clear that any eidos is not independent of the ethos in which is exists and that, therefore, any medical ethics is dependent on the socio-cultural institution of medicine and its moral ethos. Utilising the concepts of eidos and enculturation in Bourdieuan social theory facilitates a focus on the neglected cognitive aspects of social life, including explicitly pedagogic activities, and provides for a degree of indeterminacy or ‘freedom’ in a theoretical perspective that has been criticised for its deterministic implications.

Keywords:

• social reproduction
• professional reproduction
• socialisation
• enculturation
• ethos
• eidos
• medical education

Notes

1. Bernstein’s code, which is ‘less a linguistic repertoire and more … an orientation to meaning’ (Maton and Muller 2007,16; original emphasis), exhibits some commonalities with the term eidos. Both convey more than simply the linguistic repertoire of the four principles of medical ethics, but also the orientation(s) to meaning that they produce in differing (cultural) contexts of, say, medical practice and ‘academic bioethics’ as an ‘applied ethics’. Unfortunately I do not have the space to explore this connection further, but I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer who drew it to my attention.