A “symbol school”: disputes and strategies of teachers from a school subfield

ABSTRACT The contribution of Bourdieu’s sociological theory to Education is current. The concepts of habitus, capital, and social field, in an articulated way, allow a dialectical understanding of the social agents in society. Thus, with the use of a concept derived from Bourdieu, such as school field and subfield, it is possible to understand the school institution as a builder of its own dynamics, with specific characteristics and demands, far beyond a mere passive consumer of educational projects and policies produced externally to it. In this sense, this work proposes, through systematic narrative observation and interviews with a group of Science and Biology teachers from a subfield of the school, the description and analysis of disputes, capitals, strategies, and positions of teachers in the subfield in question. A different valuation was assigned to each of the strategies according to the greater or minor possibility of social prestige in the subfield. With this, the dynamics of this subfield were understood, contributing to highlighting that within Brazilian schools there are disputes, interests, and demands that must be considered in the relationship with the other subfields, as well as in the development of educational projects and policies.