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Reclaiming bodily dispositions through the humanities: homeless people learning
Stevenson, John Yashin-Shaw, Irena Howard, Peter
Stevenson, John
Yashin-Shaw, Irena
Howard, Peter
Abstract
This paper examines data drawn from interviews with homeless people who were undertaking a Clemente programme offered by the Australian Catholic University in the Vincentian Village in East Sydney. The Clemente programme, conceptualised by Shorris, is based on the belief that an education in the humanities empowers people to engage in a more controlled way with the world in which they live, and that they will therefore be less likely to react simply to contexts and events. Two of the striking things about the interview data were the rejection of ‘vocational courses’ and the way in which the learners referred to changes in their bodies that flowed from the humanities programme: the way they walked, the straightness of their backs, together with the metaphor of climbing. The present paper seeks to interpret these and other changes in terms of Mauss’s and Bourdieu’s conceptions of habitus, bodily hexis and dispositions, and possible implications for teaching and learning in vocational education.
Keywords
Date
2007
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of Vocational Education and Training
Book
Volume
59
Issue
4
Page Range
419-434
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled