Researching the habitus of global policy actors in education

Abstract

This paper reprises the argument for the emergence of a global education policy field and then focuses on the shared habitus of global and national policy actors and technicians. We argue that this shared habitus is constituted as a reflection of and a contribution to the creation of the global education policy field. We use Bourdieu’s approach to habitus as both methodological tool and concept and argue the significance of the interview encounter to understanding habitus. We also draw on the content of interviews with five elite policy makers and technicians. We found the policy actors and technicians shared a similar middle class embodied habitus; in terms of schemes of perception, they identified with a high-modernist confidence in both science and technology; they identified with a cosmopolitan outlook and sensibility; and demonstrated scientistic approaches that held real confidence in understanding the social through quantitative social science methods.