Cultural Diversity in the University: Some Mechanisms That Operate in the Shaping of Cultural Identities

Abstract

The research problem was defined as the representations held by first-year students regarding their cultural capital and cultural identity, as well as the way in which they construct knowledge when beginning different higher-education programs, both university and non-university.

With regard to the methodological framework, we carried out participant observations and semi-structured interviews with first-year students in the Health Education and Social Communication degree programs at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. These instruments allowed us to begin collecting and systematizing information about what students understand by knowledge, their reasons for choosing a degree program, the factors that influence the production of knowledge, and the relationship between their personal interests and what the University offers. This is a hermeneutic methodology; that is, a process of interpretation that constantly relates texts—interviews and verbal expressions recorded during observations—to their specific spatio-temporal context.

These data are relevant when reviewing our teaching proposals, so as to respect the latent cultural diversity present in the classroom. To this end, we need to denaturalize the processes of differentiation that operate upon students, constituting violent and even wrenching experiences in their personal and family trajectories as a result of the unequal distribution and, therefore, acquisition of different forms of capital. This situation is institutionally legitimized, since the community of degree holders dominates society through the mediation of knowledge and classifies according to accumulated cultural capital. We consider that in Bourdieu and Foucault we can find some explanations for the social dynamics within educational institutions, characterized by the tension between habitus and field, which gradually configure cultural identities.