HABITUS o concern with how formal education and informal

PIERRE BOURDIEU everyday cultural experiences enhance an individual’s

I. BIOGRAPHY  o stylistic ease​, familiarity with which the individual
o Born into a lower-middle-class family in a small town
in ​southwestern France​ in ​1930​.
o excelled academically and made a career at ​College 
de France​, Paris
o 1950s, completed required military service in Algeria
(following the French-Algerian war)
o Worked at University of Algeria; conducted an
ethnographic study of social relations in the province
of Kabylia.
o died ​2002​; age 72
II. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION (CAPITAL) 
o Society should be thought of as being ​hierarchically 
organized or stratified​ as ​a three-dimensional 
space
o “a space whose three fundamental dimensions are
defined by volumes of capital​, ​composition of
capital,​ and c​ hange in these two properties over
time​ (manifested by past and potential trajectories in
social space)”
o within social spaces, there are ​different classes​ and
class subcomponents
- “their ​overall volume of capital​, understood
as the set of actually ​usable resources​ and
power​ – ​economic capital​, ​cultural capital​,
and ​social capital​”
o Class factions ​– subcomponents of social classes
Economic Capital  enhances your economic capital
o straightforward and ​easy to measure
o those that ​can be tallied​ and ​note the volume​ or
amount of their economic capital compares to others
Example
o Among super-rich yatch owners and among
Manhattan’s elite who use zip codes as marker of
distinction
Cultural Capital  o all types of capital are ​exchangeable;​ a person can
o have parallels with Weber’s conceptualization of
social status​ and ​lifestyle  type
o difficult to itemize or make a tally (unlike economic
capital)
cultural competence
carries oneself
o different social contexts ​vary in the value​ placed on
specific cultural competencies
o Upper class ​– mostly highly valued; known as a
legitimate culture
o because the upper class uses ​strategies of 
exclusion​ and ​inclusion​ made possible by
their privileged location in society; enables
them to ​institutionalized hierarchical 
distinctions​ between their culture and the
tastes they don’t value
Types of Cultural Capital
1. Embodied​ - skills
2. Objectified ​- instruments
3. Institutionalized ​– credentials that show competence
or authority
Social Capital 
o individual’s ​social connections​, the ​social networks
and ​alliance​ that link them in all sorts of direct as well
as indirect and informal ways to opportunities that can
enhance their stock of capital (whether economic,
cultural, or social, or any combination)
o in measuring social capital: volume is contingent not
so much on the number of people you know ​but on 
how important the people you know are​ (how
much capital to they possess)
o enhancing your social capital also independently
Additional Notes on Capital
o Bourdieu focused on the role of ​economic ​and
cultural capital ​in producing and reproducing ​social 
inequality
- Both are analytically independent resources
o an individual can have a lot of economic capital and
relatively little social and cultural capital
use one type of capital to gain more of another 
- each type of capital is and has to be usable
o Capital is not simply something that an individual or a
social class or class faction has, it is also something

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 they use​, and ​use to show​, ​establish​, or ​change  classroom and among one’s peers on the playing
their positioning in​ and ​among the  fields and other activities
economic-social-cultural hierarchies​ that is in the IV. TASTE AND EVERYDAY CULTURE (​HABITUS​) 
society. o Habitus​ r​ efers essentially to the ​everyday tastes ​and 
III. FIELD  dispositions ​we actively and literally (though
o Institutional Field - ​the range of different, specialized unconsciously) ​embody​, the relatively enduring
institutions in society (economy, family, law, schemes of perception​, ​appreciation​, and
education, culture, religion, etc) appropriation ​of the world that we enact
o Social arenas​ where people can express and - Tendency​ to ​certain behaviors
compete for capital o It is the ​individual’s personality structure​ (lifestyle,
o there is a very dynamic relation between the different values, cultural capital, disposition, expectations from
types of capital and the conditions for their exchange certain social groups)
and accumulation within and across particular - Influences the way one reacts to the world
institutional fields o Acquired​ through a​ ctivities​ and​ social life 
o Analysis of institutional fields (culture, education, experiences
religion, etc.); highlights how the particular practices - from the ​repetitive, everyday habits​ that
or the logic and competencies within one field may we experience (enact / practice) within our
vary from those of other fields and how all institutional family of origin​, a social – cultural context
fields work to reproduce inequality within their which itself is conditioned by social class and
respective field and within society as a whole by the particular everyday habits that
Role of Family and School  distinguish each social class
o Has a role in the production of cultural capital   o Habitus ​starts from childhood 
o School and family produce and transmit cultural - Primary socialization
capital (academic credential and cultivated o permanent ​and is kept by an individual forever
disposition)  o In SWOT Analysis, ​habitus​ can mostly be found on
- Educational capital becomes a force in the “strengths” part
interclass competition (rather than simply a o Habitus ​creates ​habitus
mechanism of upward class mobility) - Because we learn from our experiences
o School also reproduce social divisions both o Taste is a part of our cultural ​habitus
objectively, through the impact of credentialing and - Individual tastes are patterned along social
positioning individuals in the occupational-social class class lines
hierarchy, and subjectively, by inculcating individuals - We like what we like not on the basis of
with ways of perceiving and evaluating the social individual sensory or aesthetic taste but as a
world consequence of what it is that we have
o Family’s cultural capital – determinant on the learned to like or appreciate as a result of
individual’s class position the social conditions and class culture in
o there is a close relationship b/w socio-economic which we live in
background and educational capital o Each social class produces ​its own distinctive class 
o children who grew up in families of high habitus
socio-economic status (high eco and cultural capital) o Through every day practices​, that the ​macro 
will have higher chances to and succeed in college structures of society – stratification, gender, 
o children who grows up in families with cultural capital family, religion​, for example, g ​ et institutionalized in 
are exposed to everyday cultural experiences and the individual’s everyday life
habits that cultivate in them the natural disposition Food (​Habitus)
and habits necessary for success at school – in
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 o The treatment, selection, and the act of eating food - established upper class play the game of
reaffirms ​and ​reproduce​ the ​different class habits  culture with the playful seriousness that
and cultures comes only from familiarity with its rules​,
o For working class​ – concerned with eating as a the spoken and unspoken rules, the
functional task (something necessary to nourish and insider’s knowledge​ of and ​feel for the 
replenish the body) game
- prefer large portions of heavy foods like - Different social class and class fractions play
meat and stews and don’t pay much the cultural game through the everyday
attention to the meal’s presentation practices of taste and consumption
o For upper class ​- deny eating’s primary bodily o There is no way out of the game of culture
function   - We variously engage in practices that we
- prefer small portions of light food and instead know are arbitrary (why should visiting an art
construe the meal as a social ceremony  museum be considered more culturally
o For men​ - drinks and eats more especially stronger worthy than visiting a sports museum)
things; meat over fish Working Class ​Habiti
o For women ​– prefer diet and (before) most were o Produces a taste and style that are dictated by
diagnosed with anorexia, ​they tend to do without  economic ​and ​cultural necessity
History of ​Habitus o Necessity​ imposes a taste for necessary which
o Aims to resolve the history of philosophical thinking implies ​a form of adaptation​ to and consequently
itself acceptance of the necessary
o Among thinkers who predate bourdieu in describing - a resignation to the inevitable
something akin to “​habitus”​ are Aristotle, Durkheim o Choices are not determined by economic capital
and Weber. alone but with cultural necessity
o Bourdieu cited other thinker’s works as precursor o Conformity rather than personal autonomy is valued
ideas to his own conception o Given what they’ve got, ​each class makes 
o A particularly direct influence was Panofsky’s “​Gothic reasonable strategic investments ​in order to
Architecture and Scholasticism” expand and maximize their symbolic capital
o Bourdieu deliberately used the term “​habitus”​ to break Habitus​ in the Reproduction of Social Inequality 
with past accounts related to the term habit o Different economically conditioned class cultures of
Upper Class ​Habiti everyday life produces
o Marked by an ​aesthetic disposition​ that requires - Objective distinctions between the class
upper class to admire a work of art or music for its - The boundaries between the class and the
stylistic for ​rather than practical function​ it might dispositions that class-situated individuals
have o Consequence - reinforcement of class inequality
- Also with regards to clothes, food, furniture, o We distinguish ourselves by the distinction we make
and other everyday objects o Habitus​ reveal who we are
o The upper class produced (and required to) the - Reveals our social class conditioning and
engagement of practices that have no practical embodied in our everyday habits,
function reproduced and extends the social class
- Power to keep economic necessity at  conditioning and the social class difference
arm’s length   that characterize everyday cultural choices.
- “​conscipicius consumption, gratuitous o Habitus​ is what brings together things and people that
luxury”, squandering go together
o Produces the ​cultural game IV. LINKING THE MICRO AND MACRO 
o Micro individual action –​ habitus
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 - individual choices​ are invariable Endless Stratification
conditioned​ by and work back on ​macro  o We cannot escape the game of culture
structural process ​(inequality in society, - distinguishing ourselves by the taste
work, etc) distinctions we make every day;
o Bourdieu’s writings ​demonstrates the agency of  - everything we do and express reflects and
individuals in everyday life yet the individual, no  feeds into a system of stratification
matter how avant garde or autonomous, does not  o Bourdieu focused on the ​minutiae of different 
act alone or in some sort of existential vacuum lifestyles​, ​not as individual lifestyles per se​, but ​as 
o Ordinary everyday existence is saturated by society socially conditioned and socially contextualized 
and we cannot escape from its structural and cultural individual choices​ and tastes, can be extended to
forces make us ​aware the social inequality​ is found and
o Individual agency is always constrained & always  reproduced not just in the big structures and
structured ​by formal education, social class, family institutions of society ( like education, sports, wall
habits, and the distinctive and unequal cultural codes street, etc) but also in what we might ordinarily think
and practices that these contexts teach us and which of as relatively benign everyday sites (dinner table)
we reproduce more or less through our everyday and everyday activities (having a picnic)
social relations and behavior Bourdieu’s Analysis
o Bourdieu presents us with ​a portrait of society  o His conceptualization of the ​habitus s​ hows how m ​ icro 
wherein individual embody the habits and  practices are conditioned by and reproduce 
attitudes, the culture, of those around them, and  marcro structures ​(e.g. of class inequality)
act back on that culture in everyday social life  o Also, on how ​objective macro structures​ (e.g.
with a certain degree of individual autonomy (like  educational system, social class system, etc) ​get 
choosing chicken or fish).   internalized into individual’s everyday habits and 
o Yet the ​cultural options available​ to the most dispositions
agential of individuals​ are themselves ​constrained V. CRITICISMS 
by an objective ​class and racial and gender  1. Strengths:
structure​; wherein, the distribution of resources - It was able to define itself in relation to
including economic and cultural resources ​makes  others
certain options more reasonable, more natural  - Gives place in the society; we are part of a
than others​. group
Theory of Social Practice - Bourdieu used it to address the problem of
o Structuralist vs Subjectivist Perspective structure and agency
● Structural: objective social structures that - Hysteresis of Habitus is an important
influence the way people behave contribution
● Subjectivist: capable of directing their own 2. Weaknesses
thoughts and actions without being overly - he put a lot of emphasis on the notion of
influenced by external social forces. ‘reproduction’
o Opposition between structuralism and subjectivism is - There is no clear distinction between cultural
a false dichotomy (for Bourdieu) capital and ​habitus
o Bourdieu proposes that human agency and objective
social structures exist in a dynamic, interdependent END OF REPORT 
relationship.
o Self-determination exists within certain limits that are
established by the common practices and structures
of the social world.
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