This study explores an array of attitudes and perspectives that faculty have and directed toward the pedagogical and intellectual work of a school of education in one of the technical public university in Turkey. Some scholarly works acknowledge the complexity of micro- and macro- politics that enact the ‘subjugated’ social position of ed-schools. A few of them argues that lowly status links to “producing large numbers of teachers at minimal cost and with minimal attention to academic and professional quality; to teaching, the largest and least esteemed of the professions; the teaching, more than other professions, draws recruits from groups that are traditionally disadvantaged socially, women and the working class” (Labaree 2003, p. 13). While this research has a contact with this earlier literature, main purpose of this study has a two-tier approach: at the center, “why education schools get no respect”; at the periphery how education schools’ low status is produced, reproduced, and secured in one of the technical university in Turkey (Labaree 1996). Therefore, the study aims to extend the current literature with a focus on institutional habitus of a technical university that serves to reproduce education schools’ existing cultural position in society.

We grounded this study in a specific theoretical framework that relies on the concept of habitus. In explaining the concept, Bourdieu remarks that,

The habitus is a product of history, produces individual and collective practices in accordance with the schemes generated by history. It ensured the active presence of past experiences, which, deposited in each organism in the form of schemes of perception, thought, and action, tend to guarantee the ‘correctness’ of practices and their constancy over time, more reliably than all formal rules and explicit norms (1990, p. 54).

Thus the concept is constituted in practice and embodies a generative formulation that needs to be transferred to the future. In this transfer, social actors internalize the “structured structures” and become responsible for their transformation to “structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 53). The appealing position of habitus for this study is also its concern with the question about ongoing actions of individuals, how are those actions regulated? In particular, the concept addresses “how does human action follow regular statistical patterns without being the product of obedience to some external structure, such as income or cultural norms, or to some subjective, conscious intention, such as rational calculation?” (Swartz, 2002, p. 615). In sum, in unmasking the habitus-governed action, Bourdieu stresses the relationship between society and individual by pointing out the mutually dependent relation in forming the continuity and existence of both sides.

In this study, the system of dispositions is generated by the actors whom we called “cosmopolitans” and “locals” with reference to Alvin W. Gouldner. According to Gouldner (1957), there are manifest and latent social roles which are the basis for two latent organizational roles: cosmopolitans and locals. Latent organizational roles are the ones threatening the equilibrium and irrelevant to the social identities of group members. In that respect, cosmopolitans are defined relying on three variables: “those low on loyalty to the employing organization, high on commitment to specialized roles skills, and likely to use an outer reference group orientation,” while locals are: “those high on loyalty to the employing organization, low on commitment to specialized roles skills, and likely to use an inner reference group orientation” (Gouldner, 1957, p. 290; Gouldner, 1958). In this study, since we found it relational, the same variables are considered for the participants in understanding the perspectives of faculty members about the roles assigned to and the functions education schools carry out in society.

Relying on qualitative research methods, this study focuses on the themes of the ‘the status of a school of education’ at one of the technical public university in Turkey which has an academically appealing image according to QS World University Rankings 2018. The timeline for the research is scheduled between September 2016-December 2017. The research sample was drawn from the names listed on faculty pages and is originally composed of 42 academics from five faculties, graduate schools, and research centers. In identifying the sample, the stratified sampling method is used considering these relevant stratums: female/male, academic rank, educational background, and faculty type. Along the study, semi-structured interviews are used to collect data, and as of yet 22 interviews with academics from 13 different disciplinary areas were conducted. Meanwhile, personal information and academic information forms are applied to participants. In addition to the data drawn from personal information and academic information forms filled by the participants, we also applied to Annual Strategic Planning Reports of the university and Annual Evaluation Reports of Faculty of Education to map the outline of academic profile in the entire university. In this respect, descriptive data include the information about 761 academics concerning to these categories: scientific productivity (publications, scientific projects, etc.), educational background. Also, to assess the quality of publications, an analysis with the help of the SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) and SCI (Science Citation Index), AHCI (Arts and Humanity Citation Index), three influential international scientific indexes, and Web of Science, a scientific citation indexing service was done. Besides, the data related to scientific projects are derived from Office of Scientific Research Projects Coordination of the university. Although Bourdieu acknowledges that individual biographical differences yield different habituses, he mainly stresses the collective nature of habitus (Swartz, 2002). For Bourdieu, “the individual ‘is never more than a deviation’ from his or her collective reference (Swartz, 2002; p.645). In contrasting Bourdieu’s theoretical stance to what is observed in the field, the interview questions are grounded on three interrelated domains: a) the social status of education schools in society, b) the status of education school in the university (institutional habitus), and c) individual perceptions about education schools (individual habitus). The results suggest that there are differences between “cosmopolitans” and “locals” in terms of institutional, social, and disciplinary roles assigned to education schools. The section below portrays the findings of the field results in detail.

I. The low status of education schools in society: Although the data collecting part of the research is still in progress, relying on the conversations we had with the participants so far, it is concluded that the social standing of teaching and the education schools a) cannot be isolated from the unstable nature of education policies in Turkey, b) is related to the profile of population who are placed to education schools by the national university entrance exam, c) is related to formulating teaching as a profession that is confined to the boundaries of vocational domain. (still in progress) II. Institutional Habitus : Relying on the conversations we had with the participants so far, it is concluded that the institutional standing of teaching and the education school a) is linked to the research habitus and disciplinary identity unique to a technical university, b) is linked to the production of space, arguments posed by Lefebvre. As Lefebvre (1991) argues “ (social) space is a (social) product,” in other saying, “space also serves as a tool of thought and of action..in addition to being a means of production, it is also a means of control..of domination..of power (p.289). This research questions the peripheral location of Ed-school and the meaning system behind its location within the university campus. (still in progress) III. Individual Habitus: The research questions that in what ways cosmopolitan and Iocal identities contribute to the reproduction of the existing conditions of Ed-schools. In this respect, the study aims to identify the differences between cosmopolitans and locals in terms of their relationality with Ed-schools. This relationality will be mapped considering the loyalty to employing organizations, commitment to specialized role skills, and reference group orientations. (still in progress)

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