A sense of one's place

Restricted networks might serve to entrap socially excluded young adults. In a previous post I suggested that all the hype around Web 2.0 could be irrelevant to these young people. SNSs often thicken existing ties in localized networks and face-to-face friendship groups and so may simply compound social inequities. I felt uneasy with the concept of ‘restricted networks’ because of the deficit implied. In a way it could be more about a misapprehension of a ‘sense of one’s place’ which Bourdieu argues leads one to exclude oneself from places one is excluded from (1984:471). Then perhaps the discourses of exclusion circulate and solidify social position. The high point of an otherwise tedious transatlantic flight was reading Reay, Crozier and Clayton’s lucidly argued piece on working-class students in HE. From a very different perspective it deals with some similar issues about shifting identities, social networks and the tensions involved in crossing boundaries.