Catholic Schools: Mission, markets and morality

At a time when the schools are a matter of political debate, Gerald Grace, Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London, has written a valuable book on Roman Catholic schools in England and Wales. He begins with theory, moves to historical, cultural and research contexts and then gives details of Ž eldwork in three English cities. All this is tied together by a practical engagement with contemporary education. The opening chapters introduce two theoretical frameworks. The Ž rst is drawn from the work of the French intellectual Pierre Bourdieu from whom are taken the notions of ‘legitimation’ and ‘habitus’. Legitimation concerns the validity of Catholic schooling, its right to exist, and its consequent relationship with society and culture. It also concerns, in this case, the impact of parental choice upon the functioning of Catholic schools since, when the market was opened up as a force in educational practice, Roman Catholic parents, in some numbers, disagreed with the position taken by their bishops. Thus the legitimation of Catholic schools occurs in two ways: by the historic mission and theology of the Roman Catholic Church and by the consumer-driven choice of assertive parents. The habitus of Catholic education is its ‘cultural unconscious’ that represents the consolidated tradition of Catholic schooling worldwide over many years. The habitus is the rigid pattern of prayers and masses, of symbols and retreats, of typical attitudes and procedures for character formation. Indeed, Grace has an interesting historical account of the habitus of Catholic schools taken from literary descriptions in novels and autobiographies. The most famous of these is found in James Joyce whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man paints a sharp and ultimately hateful picture of the disciplines of Irish education and the theological terrors they held for his generation. Since Vatican 2 this habitus has been largely revised so as to be more receptive of secular culture and more pluralistic in its intentions. The new diocesan comprehen-