Seeing “Unprepared” Undergraduate Business Students through a Bourdieusian Lens, or Making the Invisible Visible: An Essay

Abstract

It is a running theme at my school that our Business Administration students are unprepared to do the work asked of them. ‘Unprepared’ suggests both a manifest message and a latent message. The manifest message ‘unprepared’ sends is that students are literally not ready for the work we assign them to do. The latent message, implied by research, is that these students are not socialized into the middle class, though college is organized around middle-class norms. I argue for a rethinking of practical applications of handling unprepared students based on incorporating Bourdieu’s work on habitus, cultural capital, and social class