Appropriating, Renovating, and Reflecting on Bourdieu In the Sociology of Education In East Asia

Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, reaching well beyond capital, habitus, and field to symbolic violence and affect, has profoundly shaped the sociology of education worldwide. Yet its travels into East Asia remain undertheorized, often reduced to straightforward application rather than critical engagement. This session asks how researchers in and of East Asia appropriate, renovate, and reflect upon Bourdieu’s thinking tools when confronting the region’s distinctive histories, hierarchies, and educational aspirations. We approach his sociology as a living toolkit to be remade.

We invite contributions along several lines:

• Conceptual and methodological work that interrogates the portability of Bourdieusian categories and refines them for East Asian realities;
• Empirical studies, whether qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, of educational fields across the lifecourse, from early childhood through higher education and beyond;
• Research on international student mobility, where students from East Asia studying abroad remain within the region's scope;
• Comparative studies within East Asia or between the region and elsewhere;
• Theoretical dialogues that read Bourdieu alongside intersectionality, postcolonialism, feminism, and cognate frameworks.

Above all, we hope this session will foster a sustained dialogue between East Asian scholarship and Bourdieusian theory, contributing to the development of empirically grounded and theoretically innovative approaches specific to the region.

Selected presenters will be invited to develop their papers into chapters for a planned edited volume, contingent on the quality and fit of their abstracts and presentations. Early-career scholars are especially welcome.