Breaking the Wall of Inequality: The Hybrid Academic Habitus of Rural Students in the Heart of Kalimantan’s Academia

Abstract

Educational inequality remains one of the most persistent challenges in higher education, particularly for students from rural and remote areas who often experience unequal access to educational resources, digital technologies, and academic opportunities. While several studies have explored educational disparities and student adaptation, the study of how rural students reconstruct their dispositions during university life remains scarce. This study aims to examine how rural students navigate structural inequalities and construct a hybrid academic habitus in the context of higher education. The study employed a qualitative research design with a phenomenological approach. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with twelve rural students enrolled at Mulawarman University, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Participants were purposively selected to represent diverse rural backgrounds. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis based on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital, and field, complemented by Giddens' agency theory. The findings reveal that rural students experience multiple, interrelated forms of educational inequality, including limited educational resources, academic culture shock, symbolic exclusion, and financial insecurity. Rather than remaining passive recipients of these structural constraints, they actively developed learning, social, and economic adaptation strategies through self-directed learning, digital literacy, peer solidarity, and entrepreneurial activities. These adaptive practices gradually transformed their dispositions by integrating rural collectivist values ​​with modern academic competencies, resulting in the emergence of a hybrid academic habitus. This new socio-cultural disposition enabled students to navigate structural inequalities while maintaining meaningful connections to their rural identities. This study contributes to extending Bourdieu's concept of habitus beyond social reproduction to a more dynamic understanding of identity transformation through the interaction of structure and agency.