Habitus as a Sense of Place

Abstract

The parents in our study reside in three urban locales which differ in a variety of complex ways. These include size of city, ethnic diversity and global links. London is the key global, cosmopolitan city which in turn offers a rich variety of resources and experiences to those in a position to exploit them, leading Butler with Robson (2003) to describe the London middle-classes as embodying a ‘metropolitan habitus’. Whilst we do not set out to explore the existence of a ‘metropolitan habitus’ in Riverton and Norton, we draw on this idea to compare and contrast the similarities and differences for the families in our study, extant across the three sites. In particular we explore how different geographical spaces impact on the parents’ choice of school. We look at the ways that geography gives rise to differential distribution of goods and resources which in turn exacerbates the competitiveness between social classes and class fractions. This aspect is particularly salient for our parents in terms of the availability of the ‘acceptable’ local school and the supplementary educational support they often felt they needed to provide for their children.