Bourdieu knew more than how to play tennis! An empirically based discussion of habituation and reflexivity

Abstract

This paper explores the role of reflexivity in habituation by contrasting the learning of aerobics and basketball with the acquisition of gendered bodily skills. The discussion is inspired by the paper So, how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis? Habitus, consciousness and habituation, by Noble and Watkins (2003), which represents a fruitful contribution to the debate on the roles of reflexivity and consciousness in learning. Still, this model of habituation remains one-dimensional, since it only addresses habituation involving reflexivity. Based on fieldwork at both a basketball club and an aerobic group for Muslim women, along with interviews with participants in the two arenas, we suggest that even though habituation often involves reflexivity, there are also forms of habituation that do not involve high degrees of consciousness. The paper adds to the on-going theoretical debate about the hybridisation of habitus and reflexivity by offering concrete and empirically based examples of different degrees of reflexivity involved in processes of habituation. This adds to a theoretical underpinning of habitus as a lived, changing category.

Keywords:

• Habitus
• Reflexivity
• Learning
• Sport
• Gender socialisation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Olve Krange, Ørnulf Seippel, Lars Tore Ronglan and Ingrid Smette for critical and helpful comments on this article.

Notes

1. The first wave of immigration to Norway from non-western, far-away countries started in the late sixties (Brochman & Kjeldstadli, 2008). By the beginning of 2012, the immigrant population in Norway totalled 13.1% of the total population. The ‘immigrant population’ is a label used both for first generation immigrants and for people who were born in Norway with two foreign-born parents. (www.ssb.no/innvbef/)

2. This Our comparison between learning in sport and learning outside of sport does not imply that learning in sport is always focused and conscious (explicit), and that learning outside sport is always implicit. In the literature on coaching and learning in sport, the role of implicit versus explicit (rule-oriented) learning is debated (see for instance Beek, 2000; Masters, 2000).