Abstract
Introduction While medical educators typically attend to group trends, groups are made up of unique individuals. An exploration of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, defined as a system of dispositions, may help medical educators think relationally about the collective trajectory of the group and the individual trajectory of each student.
Methods We built on our 4‑year, longitudinal study which reported how field, capital, and habitus worked together to explain how medical students, as a group, navigated transitions in undergraduate medical education. In this secondary analysis, we reviewed serial collections of narratives about students’ peak learning experiences in medical school (19 students, 5 narratives per student), concentrating on first-person representations of self. We then explored the relation between collective and individual trajectories in three illustrative cases.
Results The social space of undergraduate medical education harmonized students’ experience and helped explain the collective trajectory, as evidenced by students’ consistent reports of taking initiative and staying open-minded. But individuals were not totally harmonized. They had unique dispositions that influenced their ability to access valued resources and shaped their behaviour. For example, Emily consistently spoke of being driven by her own goals; Zach focused on meeting expectations of authorities; Hilary routinely oriented toward abstract medical knowledge.
Discussion Habitus provides a useful conceptual lens for thinking relationally about collective and individual trajectories of medical students.