Education and Identity in Rural France: The Politics of Schooling

by Deborah Reed-Danahay

Overview

Drawing on an ethnographic study of a remote community in the Auvergne, Dr. Reed-Danahay challenges conventional views about the operation of the French school system. She shows how parents subvert and resist the ideological messages of the teachers, and describes the ways in which a sense of local difference is sustained and valued, even in the official educational discourse. A significant contribution to the anthropology of education, this book offers fresh insights into the ways in which French culture is transmitted to the coming generation. Dr. Reed-Danahay also provides lucid and critical discussions of sociological theories on education, including those of Bourdieu.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521483124
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/07/1995
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology , #98
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Deborah Reed-Danahay is Professor of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She is author of Education and Identity in Rural France: The Politics of Schooling (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Locating Bourdieu (Indiana University Press, 2005), and editor of Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social (Berg, 1997), and (with C. Brettell) Citizenship, Political Engagement and Belonging: Immigrants in Europe and the United States (Rutgers University Press, 2008).

Table of Contents

l. Introduction: journey to Lavialle; 2. Theoretical orientations: schooling, families, and power; 3. Cultural identity and social practice; 4.Les notres: families and farms; 5. From child to adult; 6. Schooling the Laviallois: historical perspectives; 7. Families and schooling; 8. The politics of schooling; 9. Everyday life at school; l0. Conclusions: persistence, resistance, and co-existence

Editorial Reviews

"This socio-political-economic study adds a significant dimension in the field of rural France scholarship..." Choice

"...I found Education and Identity in Rural France very compelling reading, and I recommend it." Alan DeYoung, Anthropology & Education Quarterly

"It will be of considerable interest to all those interested in the school, as well as to those specifically interested in how local and national cultures interact within the French institutional framework. Danahay convincingly demonstrates the way that national institutions and ideologies are shaped by local cultures just as much as the other way around." Alexandra Jaffe, Anthropological Quarterly

"A fascinating ethnographic account.... Reed-Danahay provides rich materials for those interested in the sociology of education; in the relationship between the state, teachers, parents, and children; and in the endurance and dynamism of rural communities well into the twentieth century." Contemporary Sociology

"Reed-Danahay presents a first-rate description of the local kinship system, domestic organization and socialization practices." David S. Moyer, Anthropologica

From the Publisher