Social background still plays a major role for “educational success”, this is particular true for countries like Germany and Austria. Critical knowledge about and the reflection of social inequality is therefore a central challenge for teacher education and is increasingly demanded by students and experts as part of critical professionalization (Mecheril et al., Messerschmidt 2013, Czejkowska 2018). In the presentation I draw on results from the project “Habitus.Power.Education – Transformation through Reflection” that was conducted at the Department of Educational Research and Teacher Training of the University Graz from 2019 to 2021. Together with students in teacher training the project team researched experiences of privilege and discrimination in educational settings. One of the main objectives of the project was to develop Open Educational Resources for higher education, in particular teacher training, that support processes of critical professionalization. A central concept in the project is habitus reflexivity. Following Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social inequality habitus reflexivity is not so much about an individual exploration of one’s habitus, but rather about the question of how one is involved in unequal power relations as an educator as well as the question of how institutions like the school or the university are involved in the reproduction of social inequality.

Often pedagogical perspectives on social inequality are reduced to conceptions of diversity in which all inequalities are treated almost interchangeably. But issues of race, class, gender or disability have specific, though interwoven, histories, operate differently, though in the context of each other, and ask for different pedagogical perspectives and positions (e.g. Prengel 1995). The focus of the presentation is on the rather neglected category of class, understood in its intersectionality with other categories of social inequality. In the project we draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of class as economic, cultural, social and symbolic relational concept as well as to his theory of the subtle mechanisms of power in educational settings (Bourdieu 1985, 1993, 1997,2001). We also refer to bell hooks’ intersectional conception of class (hooks 2020) and the concepts of classism by Andreas Kemper and Heike Weinbach (2009). Invisibility seems central in relation to class and classism (e.g., Wellgraf 2014). Experiences of classism are often articulated indirectly through emotions like fear or shame. In particular the myth of meritocracy renders discrimination invisible because it suggests that inequality in a consequence of achievement and thus fair and rational. However, making classism visible is an ambivalent pedagogical endeavor. In the presentation I will discuss some of the challenges when dealing with class and classism in higher education and briefly present the Open Educational Resources (Froebus et al., 2021) developed in the project.

The methodology of the project is informed by participatory practice research (e.g., Unger 2014) and action research (e.g., Altrichter/Posch & Spann 2018). The main idea is that teachers explore their own teaching practice with the aim of understanding and changing it. Since not only teachers, but also students are experts in learning, they have been actively involved in the research process. Drawing on different qualitative research methods like interviews, group discussions and in particular memory work (Haug 2021) students in teacher training together with the project team observed and analyzed their experiences of social inequality in educational settings. Most of this research took place in the course “Introduction to Pedagogical Research” and was provided by students for the development of the Open Educational Resources. Another methodological approach we followed in the project is the analysis of fictional, autoethnographic and socioanalytic texts on questions of education and class/social background. In recent years, some of such texts have appeared (most famously Eribon 2016, but also Ernaux 2020, Louis 2018, Hudson 2014, Baron 2020, Ohde 2020). We particularly draw on a collection of portraits of “class passengers” that illustrate the intersectionality of class, gender and race (Aumair & Theißl 2020). These narratives show how class privilege or disadvantage are experienced by subjects and help to understand (in Bourdieu’s sense of the concept) oneself and others (Bourdieu et al., 1997), that is to link personal experiences with power relations (for the use of socioanalysis in dealing with social inequality see also Schmitt 2015).

The Open Educations Resources consisting of theoretical texts and practical exercises are now available at the project webpage. They can be used in higher education, in particular teacher training, or continuing education. Drawing on our empirical research I will present six pedagogical challenges in dealing with matters of class and classism in a critical way that we also cover in the Open Educations Resources: First, breaking the taboo of class; second, finding ways and creating spaces to speak about experiences of classism without repeating power dynamics and injuries; third, deconstructing differences and challenging the moral valuations that come along with classism; fourth, debunking the myth of meritocracy that supports the invisibility of classism; fifth, handling students’ resistance to deal with issues of class and classism; sixth developing possibilities of collective action and pointing to the limits of pedagogy.

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