Capital Humano

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TRE0010.1177/1477878514530231Theory and Research in EducationEdgerton and Roberts
Article
TRE
Theory and Research in Education
Cultural capital or habitus?

2014, Vol. 12(2) 193–220
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1477878514530231
the explanation of enduring tre.sagepub.com
educational inequality
Jason D. Edgerton and Lance W. Roberts

University of Manitoba, Canada
Abstract
Evidence for Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory and its contributions to understanding
educational inequality has been relatively mixed. Critics discount the usefulness of core concepts
such as cultural capital and habitus and most studies invoking these concepts have focused
only on one or the other, often conflating the two, to the detriment of both. We disentangle
cultural capital and habitus, and argue that taken together – in conjunction with practice and
field – they hold significant explanatory potential. Moreover, we argue that these concepts can
be incorporated into a scientific realist ‘structure–disposition–practice’ explanatory framework
that seeks to address the misalignment between Bourdieuian relational constructs and standard
positivist quantitative research methods. This reframing can help generate practical, actionable
knowledge of the mechanisms underlying persistent socioeconomic disparities in educational
attainment.
Keywords
Bourdieu, cognitive habitus, cultural capital, educational inequality, field, practice, habitus
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social and cultural reproduction is one of the most prominent
attempts to explain the intergenerational persistence of social inequality. Bourdieu con-
tended that the formal education system is a primary mechanism in the perpetuation of
socioeconomic inequality, as it serves to legitimate the existing social hierarchy by trans-
forming it into an apparent hierarchy of gifts or merit (Bourdieu, 1997, 2006; Bourdieu
and Passeron, 1977). In constructing his account of social reproduction, Bourdieu
Corresponding author:
Jason D. Edgerton, Department of Sociology, 318 Isbister Building, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada, R3T 2N2.
Email: J.Edgerton@ad.umanitoba.ca
194 Theory and Research in Education 12(2)
deployed a number of compelling concepts. Cultural capital is arguably the most well-
known of these concepts. Less prominent, but no less integral to his conceptual frame-
work are the accompanying notions of habitus, practice, and field. Yet research on
educational inequality that utilizes Bourdieu’s framework seldom takes all four of these
concepts into account. Most sociology of education research has focused on cultural
capital or habitus, occasionally on both. Most research on cultural capital has been quan-
titative and has focused on operationalizing cultural capital in the objectified state, while
the bulk of research on habitus has been qualitative in nature.
To date, the evidence regarding Bourdieu’s ideas has been somewhat mixed. Some
critics discount Bourdieu’s reproduction theory in its entirety, while others suggest that
some concepts, freed from the baggage of his larger theoretical apparatus, still have ana-
lytical promise. For example, some critics doubt the usefulness of the cultural capital
concept altogether (e.g. Kingston, 2001).Whereas others see it, with some revision, as a
potentially important piece of the educational inequality puzzle, but reject the concept of
habitus as too vague and unquantifiable to offer any important contribution (e.g. Sullivan,
2002; Van de Werfhorst, 2010). Contrary to these positions, we argue that cultural capital
and habitus taken together – in conjunction with the concepts of practice and field – still
hold significant explanatory potential. Moreover, we argue that these concepts can be
incorporated into a scientific realist ‘structure–disposition–practice’ (SDP) explanatory
framework that seeks to address the misalignment between Bourdieuian relational con-
structs and standard positivist quantitative research methods. Such reframing can help
generate practical, actionable knowledge of the mechanisms underlying persistent socio-
economic disparities in educational attainment.
First, we will provide a brief encapsulation of Bourdieu’s notions of cultural capital,
habitus, practice, and field. We will then turn to a consideration of Lareau and
Weininger’s critique of status-marker cultural capital research and their contention that
embodied cultural capital entails both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Next, we will
reflect on habitus in more depth, first, weighing it favorably against commonly leveled
charges of structural determinism, before turning to Nash’s elaborations on the cogni-
tive aspects of habitus and the limits of Bourdieu’s ‘cultural arbitrary’ for explaining
educational inequality. In the next to last section, we discuss the common conceptual
confusion surrounding cultural capital and habitus that contributes to an ‘either or’
tendency in many Bourdieu-inspired accounts of educational inequality. We explicate
the dual nature of dispositions as both habitus and cultural capital and how dispositions
and practice interact with the school field to influence educational success. Last, fol-
lowing Nash, we outline a neo-Bourdieuian ‘SDP’ explanatory scheme that, in concert
with a realist reconsideration of positivist criteria for social explanation and common
sense mixed-methods research techniques, may help equip us with practical tools for
disrupting mechanisms underlying the perpetuation of social disparities in educational
attainment.
In brief: Four key Bourdieuian concepts

Bourdieu (1997) delineates three fundamental forms of capital: economic capital, which is
readily convertible; social capital, which is comprised of ‘social obligations’ or
Edgerton and Roberts 195
‘connections’; and cultural capital or ‘cultural competences’, which can be embodied

(internalized and intangible), objectified (cultural products), and institutionalized (offi-
cially accredited). Bourdieu (1997) sees the forms of capital as mutually constitutive in that
economic capital affords the time and resources for investment in the development of chil-
dren’s cultural capital, which is associated with future educational and occupational suc-
cess and, in turn, contributes to the accumulation of economic capital. Socioeconomic
success is also associated with greater social capital in that one’s social network becomes
broader, more influential, and more conducive to opportunity and further enhancement of
one’s other capital stocks.
Habitus is the learned set of preferences or dispositions by which a person orients to
the social world. It is a system of durable, transposable, cognitive ‘schemata or structures
of perception, conception and action’ (Bourdieu, 2002: 27). Habitus is rooted in family
upbringing (socialization within the family) and conditioned by one’s position in the
social structure. Bourdieu termed it ‘socialized subjectivity’ or subjectivity conditioned
by structural circumstances. Habitus shapes the parameters of people’s sense of agency
and possibility; it entails perceptual schemes of which ends and means are reasonable
given that individual’s particular position in a stratified society.
The term field refers to the formal and informal norms governing a particular social
sphere of activity (e.g. family, public school, higher education, art, politics, and econom-
ics). Fields are organized around specific forms of capital or combinations of capitals,
which ‘are both the process within, and product, of a field’ (Thompson, 2008: 69). Fields
are relational in nature and are characterized by their own particular regulative principles
– the ‘rules of the game’ or ‘logic of practice’ – which are subject to power struggles
among different interests seeking to control the capital (and ‘rules’) in that field.
Individuals’ positions within a particular field derive from the interrelation of their habi-
tus and the capital they can mobilize in that field. People’s practices or actions – their
behavioral repertoire – are the consequences of their habitus and cultural capital interact-
ing within the context of a given field. Fields overlap and exist at various levels, with
smaller fields (e.g. family) nested in larger fields (e.g. educational field, economic field).
Fields are semi-autonomous, but often share similarities (homologies) in terms of defin-
ing social patterns and practices. All fields fall within the overarching field of power
(social space), which is structured by two competing principles of social hierarchy: the
distribution of economic capital and the distribution of cultural capital.
Cultural capital: Status signal or tool kit?

While Bourdieu’s conceptualization of cultural capital is abstract and much debated, in
North America, particular elements have been brought into relief and handed down as
essential. Lareau and Weininger (2003) observe that the prevailing interpretation that has
guided the majority of cultural capital research in North America is based on two prem-
ises: (1) cultural capital entails appreciation of ‘highbrow’ cultural tastes and (2) cultural
capital is ‘conceptually and causally’ distinct from other knowledge or ability involving
technical skills or competence (i.e. human capital). Lareau and Weininger (2003) argue
that this interpretation misrepresents Bourdieu’s ideas and has needlessly circumscribed
the scope of cultural capital–related research.
Lareau and Weininger (2003) revisit Bourdieu’s treatment of cultural capital and offer
a broader interpretation of the concept that they argue is not only more consistent with
his intentions but, most importantly, is also more analytically useful than the received
interpretation. First, they contend that cultural capital entails more than being conversant
with highbrow cultural preferences – which are arguably of decreasing importance in
contemporary North American society anyway (e.g. Erickson, 1996; Lamont, 1992).
They argue, rather, that cultural capital includes adaptive cultural and social competen-
cies such as familiarity with relevant institutional contexts, processes, and expectations,
possession of relevant intellectual and social skills (e.g. ‘cultural knowledge’ and ‘vocab-
ulary’), and a more ‘strategic conception of agency’. In the field of education, these
competencies work in concert to enhance parental ability to successfully affect their
children’s educational outcomes by cultivating these same skills in their children at home
from an early age and by effectively liaising with schools. Second, they argue that cul-
tural capital cannot be divorced from academic/technical skills or ‘ability’; the two inter-
penetrate. Citing a number of passages from his writings on education, they argue that
Bourdieu saw the boundary dividing ‘technical’ skill from ‘social-behavioral’ compe-
tence as largely a social construction, an imposition of evaluative standards by ascendant
interests invested in preserving and justifying the means of their ascendance. In
Bourdieu’s words, the ‘ . . . dominants always tend to impose the skills they have mas-
tered as necessary and legitimate and to include in their definition of excellence the
practices at which they excel’ (quoted in Lareau and Weininger, 2003: 582), and moreo-
ver, to define excellence in these practices as deriving wholly from individual merit –
independent of social status. Accordingly, the artificial separation of the technical
‘ability’ (cognitive skills) from the social competence (non-cognitive dispositions)
aspects of academic performance conceals their underlying continuity; their shared ori-
gins in family background and thereby their class-contingent nature. Separating the tech-
nical from the social-behavioral bases of achievement obscures the fact that the technical
competencies by which academic merit is evaluated are rooted – together with social-
behavioral competencies that enable individuals to both conform and distinguish
themselves – in the familial transmission of cultural capital.
Lareau and Weininger’s (2003) notion of cultural capital avoids this bifurcation,
instead viewing both technical and social-behavioral skills as aspects of cultural capital
and as synergistic determinants of the individual’s capacity to comply with prevailing
evaluative standards. Their understanding of the concept focuses on ‘ . . . micro-
interactional processes whereby individuals’ strategic use of knowledge, skills, and com-
petence comes into contact with institutionalized standards of evaluation. These special-
ized skills are transmissible across generations, are subject to monopoly, and may yield
advantages or “profits”’ (p. 569). While some scholars (e.g. Kingston, 2001) express
concern over a more expansive definition of cultural capital, a broader conceptualization
as posited by Lareau and Weininger offers useful language for discussing important
aspects of how socioeconomic advantage translates into academic advantage, of how
‘higher SES families produce more of the kinds of skills [cognitive and non-cognitive]
that schools reward’ (Davies and Guppy, 2006: 106).1 For example, Swidler (1986)
describes culture as a ‘“tool kit” of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct
“strategies of action”’ (p. 273). The composition of this tool kit is largely dependent on
one’s location within the social structure which conditions how a person perceives and
relates to the world. This invites a much richer conception of cultural capital, viewing
culture as the situated frame through which we meet our world rather than the more lim-
ited notion of culture as marker of class position. Thus, in this broader sense, cultural
capital becomes not merely an arbitrary set of elitist aesthetic and social hallmarks, but
rather an adaptive set of cognitive skills – such as verbal, reading, writing, mathematics,
and analytical reasoning skills – and behavioral skills – such as achievement motivation,
self-regulation, and delay of gratification – that are associated with academic and, subse-
quently, occupational success (Farkas, 2003).2 The implements of this cultural ‘tool kit’
– the skills and preferences conducive to successfully negotiating the ‘rules of the game’
in particular areas of social action – are not evenly distributed across the socioeconomic
spectrum, and these disparities tend to be transmitted intergenerationally. Put another
way, the behavioral repertoire (practices) available to middle-class families – via their
habitus and cultural capital – has greater currency within formal institutional settings
such as the school (field) than does that of working-class families, and the resulting dif-
ferences in educational and socioeconomic outcomes tend to perpetuate this imbalance
across the next generation.
Lareau’s research reveals important differences in the cultural tool kits that families
from different class backgrounds bring to bear on their interactions with teachers and the
school and how these differences can translate into disparate educational trajectories.
Middle-class students and parents are advantaged in terms of the greater congruence
between their dispositional skills and the school’s ‘institutionalized standards of evalua-
tion’ which enables them to more successfully manage institutional encounters and effect
favorable academic outcomes. Middle-class parents are more likely to exhibit, and instill
in their children, the micro-interactional skills required for successful compliance with
school expectations of ‘active, engaged, and assertive’ parenting (Lareau and Weininger,
2003: 590). Middle-class parenting practices tend to emphasize reasoning and negotiat-
ing and to employ talking as a form of discipline, whereas working-class parents were
more likely to employ directives and physical discipline (Lareau, 2002, 2011).
Additionally, Lareau (2002, 2011) has noted a greater ‘sense of entitlement’ among
middle-class parents, in terms of greater propensity to question and intercede with insti-
tutional authorities (e.g. teachers, doctors), than among working-class parents who tend
to be more restrained and deferential, although at the same time distrustful, in their
approach. These different attitudes and interactional styles, in turn, tend to be passed on
to their children. Additionally, middle-class parents also tend to have greater institutional
knowledge and problem-solving resources that allow them to more effectively facilitate
their children’s educational trajectories (Lareau and Cox, 2011). Lareau (2011) refers to
the more interventionist middle-class parent cultural logic of parenting as ‘concerted
cultivation’. Parents invoking this logic are much more actively involved in attempting
to engineer appropriate life-skill-promoting activities and experiences, compared to the
more laissez-faire approach to extra-curricular activity she observed among working-
class parents – which she terms the ‘accomplishment of natural growth’. This interven-
tionist logic, premised on the belief in the necessity of actively fostering their children’s
skills and talents, is also evident in later adolescence as middle-class children transition
from high school into post-secondary education or the work force. Middle-class parents
are generally actively involved in the strategic mapping of their children’s educational
careers, while working-class parents remained comparatively hands off regarding their
children’s educational paths (Lareau, 2011; Lareau and Weininger, 2008).
Also consistent with the notion of cultural capital as cultural tool kit is evidence of the
diminishing importance of highbrow culture as a status signifier and the increasing
importance of cultural versatility. Lamont (1992), for example, concludes that compared
to the French context informing Bourdieu’s initial analysis, cultural boundaries (i.e. hier-
archies of cultural tastes) in the United States tend to be ‘more blurred and less stable’ (p.
178). Furthermore, she observes that in the United States, ‘upper-middle class men have
particularly broad cultural repertoires and often appreciate diversity’ (Lamont, 1992:
182). In complex modern societies, people may engage in a wide range of activities in
multiple spheres, and hence, ‘boundaries vary across contexts and across groups (not
only classes)’ (Lamont, 1992: 183).
Similarly, Erickson (1996) contends that, increasingly, it is facility with multiple cul-
tural genres – or possession of a diverse cultural repertoire – that provides social advan-
tage. In this view, highbrow culture is just one ‘genre’ of culture, and is, in fact, of
diminished consequence in many sectors of society (fields) including, for example, the
business sector where profit-oriented business culture prevails (Erickson, 1996). Which
cultural repertoire is most valuable varies across fields (professions, workplaces, busi-
ness sectors, etc.), and thus ‘cultural advantage (or cultural capital)’ derives not from
‘high-status taste but highly varied tastes combined with a keen sense of the rules of
relevance of which kind of culture to use in which situation’ (Erickson, 2008: 347). Such
cultural versatility (or ‘cultural omnivorism’) offers social advantages including
enhanced opportunities for employment and promotion in many occupations (Emmison,
2003; Garnett et al., 2008; Van Eijck, 2000).
Habitus revisited
Let us now turn to a more detailed consideration of the nature and influence of habitus.
Habitus is a set of acquired dispositions, the internalized interpretive framework, rooted in
family upbringing and conditioned by one’s position in the social structure, through which
one perceives the social world and one’s prospects within it. Bourdieu termed it ‘socialized
subjectivity’ or subjectivity conditioned by structural circumstances, such that segments of
society that share similar conditions of existence will share similar habitus.3 As Swartz (1997)
observes, ‘ . . . habitus generates perceptions, aspirations, and practices that correspond to the
structuring properties of earlier socialization’ (p. 103). Furthermore, ‘[t]he dispositions of
habitus represent master patterns of behavioural style that cut across cognitive, normative,
and corporal dimensions of human action. They find expression in human language, nonver-
bal communication, tastes, values, perceptions, and modes of reasoning’ (p. 108).
Habitus is both a ‘structured structure’ and a ‘structuring structure’. As the circum-
stances of one’s social origins – and associated life chances – tend to influence one’s
perceptual and behavioral dispositions, so too do one’s consequent actions (practices)
tend to contribute to the perpetuation or reinforcement of like circumstances and life
chances. One’s practices or actions in a particular field are the interactive consequences
of one’s habitus and capital within the dynamics of that field.
Critics charge that habitus is an overly deterministic construct that leaves little room
for individual agency, innovation, and change. Socioeconomically disadvantaged indi-
viduals are socialized into dispositions that destine them to think and act in ways that
recreate the conditions of their own disadvantage: structures produce dispositions, which
produce practices, which reproduce structures. Embedded in this critique are three
related concerns: that the dispositions of habitus are set early in life and largely unaltered
by subsequent experiences; that habitus operates largely ‘behind the back’ of the indi-
vidual, leaving little room for conscious, rational behavior; and that, as a consequence of
its immutable and pre-reflective nature, habitus leaves little purchase for individuality,
innovation, and social mobility.
In response to the first criticism, although stability of perceptual and behavioral pat-
terns of the habitus may be the default setting, and novel situations are first encountered
in terms of past experiences, habitus is in fact adaptive and incrementally modifiable in
the face of variant circumstances. That is, the dispositions of habitus are enduring but not
unchanging:
. . . habitus, as the product of social conditionings, and thus of history . . . is endlessly

transformed, either in a direction that reinforces it, when embodied structures of expectation
encounter structures of objective chances in harmony with these expectations, or in a direction
that transforms it and, for instance, raises or lowers the level of expectations and aspirations.
(Bourdieu, 1990b: 116)
Although the structurally situated roots of habitus favor stability over change in the
long run, habitus is not static, not categorically immutable; its properties can evolve by
degree in response to changing experiences and circumstances. Primary socialization
experiences are indeed foundational, and although wholesale change is unlikely as new
experiences are ‘perceived through categories already constructed by prior experi-
ences’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 133), habitus continues to be molded by new
experiences.
The key issue here is the degree of habitus-field congruence: if the dispositions of
habitus align well with the conditions of a particular field (a ‘fish in water’), change is
unlikely or minimal; if the dispositions align less well, then some degree of disruption is
inevitable and success (or lack of it) within that field will be contingent, in part, upon the
extent of change or adjustment within the habitus. For example, the middle-class student
who exhibits the dispositions and competencies congruent with school standards and
expectations is likely to experience a level of academic success that acts to reinforce their
school-positive habitus and the probability of their continuing onto higher education,
whereas the working-class student with a less congruent habitus is, without sufficient
adjustment, liable to experience less academic success, increasingly negative attitudes
toward school, and lower levels of educational attainment. Alternately, working-class
students who experience sufficient early academic success may increasingly see school-
ing in a positive light and may come to regard the accumulation of cultural capital via
schooling as a means of social mobility, as a means to help overcome the impediments to
opportunity associated with their class position. Academic success and the rewards of
increased cultural capital positively alter the student’s aspirations and orientation toward
school (habitus), which in turn feeds back into their practices and performance. In this
manner, habitus may be transformed ‘ . . . by the effect of social trajectory leading to
conditions of living different from initial ones’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 116). Although diffi-
cult, habitus is even subject to conscious change through ‘socioanalysis’, a sort of ‘self-
work’ that involves processes of ‘awareness and of pedagogic effort’ (Bourdieu, 2002:
29; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 133). Also, similar to notions of cultural diversity as
an increasingly important source of cultural capital, some theorists even suggest that the
flexible, reflexive habitus is becoming more common in late modern societies as various
economic, cultural, and social shifts including changing patterns of work, community,
and relationships increasingly necessitate greater capacity for ongoing adaptation on the
part of the individual (Crossley, 2001; Sweetman, 2003).
Turning to the ‘behind the back’ charge, critics argue that Bourdieu overemphasizes
the unconscious, pre-reflexive aspects of habitus and underplays the reflective, mindful
dimensions. It is true that Bourdieu provides plenty of fuel for such criticisms, for exam-
ple, characterizing the operation of the habitus as ‘spontaneity without consciousness or
will’ (Bourdieu, 1990a: 56), entailing a ‘feel for the game’ or ‘practical sense’ that allows
‘intentionality without intention which functions as the principle of strategies devoid of
strategic design, without rational computation and without the rational positing of ends’
(Bourdieu, 1990b: 108). But such descriptions must be considered within the broader
context of Bourdieu’s work. Bourdieu was concerned to counteract what he considered
the cloistered, overly intellectualized conception of human action propagated by
academics – part of what he termed the ‘scholastic fallacy’ which is characterized by a
general failure to distinguish between the ‘theoretical viewpoint and the practical view-
point’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 54), resulting in the ‘serious epistemological mistake’ of
inserting:
. . . ‘a scholar inside the machine’, . . . picturing all social agents in the image of the scientist .
. . [by placing] . . . the models that the scientist must construct to account for practices into the
consciousness of agents, to do as if the constructions that the scientist must produce to
understand practices, to account for them, were the main determinants, the actual causes of
practices. (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 70, n10)
Thus, Bourdieu ‘twist[s] the stick in the opposite direction’, purposely amplifying the
contrariness of his propositions in the face of academic orthodoxy (Atkinson, 2010: 12).
But upon closer inspection, a more nuanced construct emerges, one sensitive to different
levels of awareness and deliberateness in our actions. The habitus operates primarily in
the background until the actor is faced with circumstances – a sufficient degree of
habitus-field disjuncture – that may bring conscious deliberative action to the fore. So,
although the pre-reflective, practical sense operation of habitus guides the majority of
our behavior,4 it ‘may be superseded under certain circumstances – certainly in situations
of crisis which disrupt the immediate adjustment of habitus to field – by other principles,
such as rational and conscious computation’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 108). Bourdieu rejects
the ‘pure model of rational action’ as an accurate portrayal of human behavior, because
actors ‘ . . . only very exceptionally possess the complete information, and the skill to
appreciate it, that rational action would presuppose’ (Bourdieu, 1990a: 62). For example,
a working-class student may make intentional decisions about their future path (univer-
sity, vocational training, work, etc.), but may do so with limited knowledge of some
options (e.g. relevant institutional processes, degree requirements, labor market pros-
pects) and with idiosyncratic or situated dispositions and priorities – not solely economic
as rational action theory assumes – that condition the ‘rationality’ of their decision-
making (relationships, sentiment, identity, etc.), not all of which the individual is equally
aware of or able to identify. Thus, even when engaging in intentional deliberative action,
the ‘calculations’ from which decisions derive are influenced by biographically condi-
tioned, deep-seated ‘propensities to think, feel and act’ (Wacquant, 2004: 316) in particu-
lar ways and informed by varying degrees of relevant knowledge and self-awareness. In
this sense, habitus is ‘the unchosen principle of all “choices”’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
1992: 137). That is, we can only think with the cognitive (cultural) tools at our disposal
and these tools or schemas – the habitus – are the sediments of previous, structurally situ-
ated, socialization experiences:5
[S]ocial agents will actively determine, on the basis of these socially and historically constituted
categories of perception and appreciation [i.e. habitus], the situation that determines them. One
can even say that social agents are determined only to the extent that they determine themselves.
But the categories of perception and appreciation which provide the principle of this (self-)
determination are themselves largely determined by the social and economic conditions of their
constitution. (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 136)
Similarly, thinking with and beyond Bourdieu, Atkinson (2010) draws on Schutz’s
(1964, 1972) notion of the ‘subjective stock of knowledge’, and its framing ‘attitudes’,
to suggest a conception of habitus that more explicitly recognizes the multilayered nature
of consciousness and knowledge. He argues that this depth dimension is implicit but
underdeveloped in Bourdieu’s work on habitus. He suggests that habitus can be seen as
underlying the full continuum of action, from more automatic, pre-reflective, mundane
action to more intentional, deliberative ‘rational’ action, but that intentionality is only
partly, or incompletely, informed by ‘rationality’ in the academic sense. Such that
. . . even so-called rational action: what is rehearsed, considered and weighed up, the ends
valued and means considered, and the final choice or decision, are not separate from the
interpretive schemes and dispositions of the situated habitus but based on them. (p. 14)
If we accept that the habitus is not immutable, but open to evolving incremental
change in the face of new experience, and that it operates not only at an unconscious,
pre-reflective level but also at a conscious, deliberative level, then we can also address
the third concern about individuality, innovation and change. As Atkinson (2010) notes,
Bourdieu was adamant that ‘ . . . habitus is not a mechanistic translation of objective
structures into action, but a generative and creative capacity for thought and action within
limits’ (p. 4).
This generative, creative capacity – which Bourdieu likens to a potentially expansive
underlying grammar – enables an actor to make a great variety of ‘moves’ adapted to a
great variety of situations ‘which no rule, however complex, can foresee’ (Bourdieu,
1990b: 9). This great diversity of ‘moves’ is, however, not limitless, but confined within
the parameters of the historically and socially conditioned schemes of perception and
action that we have to organize our experience with. Thus, the ‘ . . . conditioned and
unconditional freedom [the habitus] secures is as remote from a creation of unpredictable
novelty as it is from a simple mechanical reproduction of the initial conditions’ (Bourdieu,
1977: 95). Thus, our choices, our actions, are shaped but not programmed by our habitus;
we cannot fully escape nor are we caged by our history.
In terms of individuality, those experiencing similar conditions of existence within
society will develop broadly similar, but not identical, habitus:
The principle of differences between individual habitus lies in the singularity of their social
trajectories, to which there correspond series of chronologically ordered determinations that are
mutually irreducible to one another. The habitus which, at every moment, structures new
experiences in accordance with the structures produced by past experiences, which are modified
by the new experiences within the limits defined by their power of selection, brings about a
unique integration, dominated by the earliest experiences, of the experiences statistically
common to members of the same class. (Bourdieu, 1990a: 60)
Hence, ‘[j]ust as no two individual histories are identical so no two individual habi-
tuses are identical’ (Bourdieu, 1990c: 46).
Thus, it can be argued that the analytical potential of the habitus concept is not neces-
sarily denuded by exaggerated charges of structural determinism, that Bourdieu’s habitus
concept – bolstered by subsequent theorists’ refinements – can be made to account for
deliberative, innovative, and idiosyncratic thought and action. If habitus is open, in some
degree, to change in the face of new environments and experiences, if it is a generative
principle that enables a diverse range of actions, and if an individual’s habitus is not fully
coterminous with any single group, but rather a unique sedimentation of their situated
history, then habitus-mediated individual action can still be novel and innovative, and
social origins do not necessarily determine social destinations; social reproduction is not
inevitable. As Lizardo (2004) argues, although Bourdieu was guilty of sometimes
deploying habitus in a ‘deterministic and somewhat reductive’ manner, there is ‘nothing
inherently faulty or intrinsically deterministic in the concept of habitus that precludes its
usage and application in non-deterministic ways’ (p. 392). It is, he argues, a conceptual
gateway to a cognitive sociology that links social and cognitive structures and draws
attention, as Cicourel (1993) notes, to ‘the social genesis of abstract mental structures of
schemes of perception, thought and action which are constitutive of habitus’ (p. 103). In
short, we can build on what is potentially useful about the habitus concept, revising and
elaborating without being limited by the need to be strictly faithful to his larger theoreti-
cal apparatus (Grenfell and Kelly, 1999).
Cognitive habitus
Nash (2002a) refers to the positive orientation toward schooling that Bourdieu describes
as the ‘educated habitus’. The ‘educated habitus’ includes more than just an instrumental
view of education, it includes the desire to be educated and to identify and be identified
as such. Many of the positive effects of the educated habitus on educational attainment
are associated with non-cognitive dispositions such as high aspirations, positive aca-
demic self-concept, and favorable perceptions of school and teachers (Nash, 2001). Nash
(2002a) cites ethnographic evidence that high-attaining secondary school students
exhibit a ‘distinctive concept of self-discipline’, one that emphasizes the value of atten-
tiveness, diligence, and self-control to academic performance (Nash, 2002a: 39–41). But
the concepts of education and of the educated person that inform the educated habitus are
not appreciated equally by students of all social backgrounds:
Many working-class students reject education regarded as superfluous to their perceived needs,
which are primarily informed by a concept of relevance tied to their projected occupation, but
it is not that they want to be ‘dumb’ – they simply have a different conception of what is worth
knowing than the school. (Nash, 2002a: 34)
Nash’s concept of the ‘educated habitus’ conforms fairly closely to Bourdieu’s basic
notion of the effect of class-variant dispositions on academic achievement, but Nash
veers from the conventional social reproduction reading of Bourdieu, to posit a ‘realist’
understanding of educational inequality that holds: there are certain non-arbitrary, edu-
cationally necessary analytical and problem-solving skills imparted in schools; and the
cognitive operations underlying these are rooted in the socialized ‘cognitive habitus’, the
development of which is affected by classed family environments (Nash, 2003, 2005b).
Nash (2005a) uses the term ‘cognitive habitus’ to refer to ‘a set of mental dispositions
to process symbolic information, that is to acquire the tools of communication, and spe-
cifically those of literate communication, and to be able to use these mental operators
effectively in appropriate conditions’ (p. 15). Or more specifically, the cognitive disposi-
tions comprising ‘the skills dedicated to classifying, remembering, concept formation,
problem-solving, and so on’ (Nash, 2005b: 604) that are ‘exercised in mathematics and
other language-based, symbolic information processing’ (Nash, 2003: 172). These dispo-
sitions result from specialized ‘socialisation practices directed at the development of
specific forms of thinking’ (Nash, 2003: 174) and do not develop evenly across all family
environments. These fundamental intellectual capabilities and capacities are contingent
on the organization of the neural system, underlie academic performance, and are impli-
cated in the production of social inequality in educational attainment. The concept is not
meant to draw a sharp distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of habi-
tus, but rather to highlight that cognitive dispositions are part of ‘that structure of dispo-
sitions, acquired in specific cultural settings, by virtue of which individuals are able to
adopt the established practices of their social group with the accomplished ease of those
who know the rules of the game’ (Nash, 2005b: 603).
Nash argues (2001, 2003, 2005b) that both Bernstein’s theory of cognitive socializa-
tion and Vygotsky’s account of cognitive development are, each in their own way, con-
cerned with the development of the cognitive habitus. Bernstein’s emphasis on class-related
differences in codes of speech and thought (‘elaborated’ and ‘restricted’ semiotic codes
characterized, respectively, by ‘universal, general, and abstract’ concepts and ‘local, par-
ticular, and concrete’ concepts) and Vygotsky’s account of cognitive development, which
emphasizes that development of ‘higher mental functions’ occurs in specific social and
linguistic processes and environments, are each in their manner investigating the
development of the cognitive habitus, and the basic question, ‘in what ways are children
able to think as a result of the socialization they receive?’ (Nash, 2001: 199). The shared
implication of their work, Nash argues, is
that children who experience literate forms of socialization in early childhood are able to
demonstrate, in Vygotsky’s terms, ‘higher mental function’ and, in Bernstein’s terms, an
‘elaborated semiotic code’, and as a result make better progress at school than those who do
not. (p. 200)
To point out – in the tradition of Bernstein and Vygotsky – the classed dimension of
cognitive development and its relationship to disparities in educational achievement
does not equate with ‘an attempt to resurrect classical deficit theory’, nor is it premised
on the notion ‘that the existing distribution of educational access is either inevitable or
desirable’ (Nash, 2003: 186). Nash (2001, 2003) argues that the tendency in sociology of
education to deny that differences in ‘intelligence’ are of any consequence to explaining
class differences in educational achievement is akin to putting our heads in the sand, and
to externalize – to ‘black box’ – this factor in our models as an ‘ability’6 control variable
is to deny an important social reality. Scores on tests of cognitive ‘ability’ (various
IQ-type tests), or prior achievement, often account for the largest proportion of variance
in academic attainment. One does not have to accept IQ theory to appreciate that indi-
vidual differences in developed cognitive skills are implicated in the production of dis-
parities in educational success:
If the neural structures that do our thinking . . . develop differentially, with more or less
permanent effect, as a result of the environments in which children are raised, that will be
‘theory’ enough to give assessments of developed cognitive skill a role in the explanation of
social variation in access to education. In other words, it is likely that some differences in test
performance and schoolwork are due to differences in relevant brain properties. (Nash, 2001:
192–193)
Importantly, the concept of ‘cognitive habitus’ suggests that we can explain some
further portion of this variation without reference to innate, or genetic, factors – and the
ethically fraught implications of such – but rather by understanding relevant disparities
in conditions of cognitive socialization, disparities that may be made amenable to sys-
tematic mitigation.
Many interpreters of Bourdieu hold unwaveringly to the relativist critique that the
school’s standards of knowledge, practice, and evaluation are arbitrary cultural
impositions – the product of a particular history of class power relations, with no inher-
ent claim to truth. As Nash (2002a) notes, acknowledging that forms of knowledge are
cultural products that can be framed historically does not, in and of itself, invalidate the
conceptual soundness or practical utility of those knowledge forms. For example, he
argues for the necessity of asserting ‘that the modern scientific and mathematical cur-
riculum is essentially correct in its representation of the world and therefore should be
recognized as non-arbitrary in that crucial respect’ (Nash, 2002a: 43). Formal schooling
imparts practically useful conceptual and analytical tools (cognitive operations) as well
as the behavioral dispositions necessary to the development of those tools
(e.g. self-discipline). Nash (2002a) argues from a scientific realist position that
Bourdieu’s emphasis on the use of symbolic power by dominant classes to impose an
arbitrary discourse and preserve their legitimacy misses the more straightforward pos-
sibility that dominant classes ‘ . . . are powerful in so far as they are equipped with
effective techniques of literary and scientific analysis with which the social and physi-
cal world can be understood and to that extent controlled’ (p. 46).
Nash is not denying the existence of class-based educational inequality or the impact
of structural asymmetries on the life chances of students from less privileged back-
grounds, but what he is contending is that there has been an overemphasis on the political
nature of knowledge and the arbitrariness of the school curriculum:
Do working-class students who fail at school lose only the exchange value of an arbitrary
knowledge, but retain their class dignity and the potential for resistance, or are they denied
knowledge with an inherent capacity to analyze the real nature of the world? (Nash, 2002a: 41)
Despite post-modernist and relativist theorizing to the contrary, there are well-
established socially beneficial bodies of knowledge such as mathematics and science that
cannot be simply dismissed as arbitrary, discredited simply as ideological tools of domi-
nant group legitimation. These forms of knowledge are increasingly necessary to indi-
vidual and societal adaptation and progress.7
The indisputable social fact that there are persistent disparities across social strata in
children’s success at acquiring and applying these fundamental knowledge forms cannot
be simply defined away as symptomatic of dominant class hegemony or ‘symbolic vio-
lence’. Furthermore, to insist on doing so does a grave disservice to these children and
the goals of reducing educational and social inequality. Nash sees the ideology – which
he terms ‘possibilism’ – that asserts that educational equality can be unilaterally effected
by appropriate school policy as misguided or at least naïve and unfair to both teachers
and students (Nash, 2003, 2005b). Not that teachers and policymakers should not make
every possible effort to reach all children and to educate them to their fullest potential,
but it must be acknowledged that if, as the child development literature indicates, some
critical developmental periods have passed before entrance to school, then there may be
a limit to what degree of learning disparity can be bridged by schooling alone. There is
growing evidence to suggest that important aspects of neural organization fundamental
to life-long learning are already well-developed by age 5, as are cognitive and socioemo-
tional abilities important to life-long learning (Keating and Hertzman, 1999; McCain and
Mustard, 1999; UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2002). Educational disadvantage
starts early and tends to grow incrementally (Cleveland et. al., 2006). Thus, to place the
burden of correction on the school for what are larger systemic issues in society –
requiring larger systemic solutions – is unrealistic and unfair. In this light, Nash takes
great care to distance the concept of cognitive habitus from the theoretical baggage of
‘deficit theories’ – particularly IQ, or general intelligence, theory. He argues that to deny
that classed socialization influences differential development of cognitive faculties asso-
ciated with disparities in academic performance is to deny an important social reality. An
important policy implication here is that the earlier that stimulating social and cognitive
environments can be universally provided to children, especially the disadvantaged, the
lesser the extent of educational inequality. In other words, universally available high-
quality early-childhood education is essential to mitigating later educational and socio-
economic inequality (Cleveland et al., 2006; Doherty, 2007; Esping-Andersen, 2004).
Cultural capital or habitus?

So, on one hand, Lareau and Weininger argue that embodied cultural capital entails both
cognitive and non-cognitive aspects, while, on the other hand, Nash attributes cognitive
and non-cognitive dispositions to habitus. The question is, are these accounts contradic-
tory or can we reconcile them? Sociology of education researchers appear, for the most
part, to have followed one approach or the other: concentrate on cultural capital or on
habitus – to the detriment of the concepts’ joint explanatory potential. This disjuncture
seems particularly true of quantitative research in the area.
There is a substantial body of quantitative research focused on the effects of cultural
capital on educational attainment (e.g. Aschaffenburg and Maas, 1997; De Graaf et al.,
2000; DiMaggio, 1982; DiMaggio and Mohr, 1985; DiMaggio and Unseem, 1978;
Farkas et al., 1990; Flere et al., 2010; Mohr and DiMaggio, 1995; Nobel and Davies,
2009; Sullivan, 2001), mostly implementing an operationalization of cultural capital in
the objectified state that focuses on highbrow culture. There is also a substantial body of
research on the influence of habitus on educational attainment, some quantitative (e.g.
Bodovski, 2010; Edgerton et al., 2013) but most qualitative (e.g. Horvat and Davis,
2011; Lehmann, 2004, 2007, 2009; Nash, 2002a; Reay, 1995, 1997; Reay et al., 2009;
Zevenbergen, 2005). Interestingly, though, there has been little quantitative research that
attempts to consider these constructs – both key components to Bourdieu’s framework
– in conjunction (e.g. Dumais, 2002; Gaddis, 2013; Nora, 2004). A few cultural capital–
focused quantitative studies include variables in their models that, from a Bourdieuian
stance, are indicators of habitus – for example, ambition (Barone, 2006), educational
expectations (Wildhagen, 2009), occupational expectations (Tramonte and Willms,
2010) – but are not conceptualized as such. Examples of research invoking these core
concepts together within a fuller Bourdieuian framework (also including variously: prac-
tice, field and other forms of capital) are generally more evident in the qualitative litera-
ture (e.g. Horvat, 2001; Lareau, 2011; Lareau and Horvat, 1999; Reay et al., 2005;
Walpole et al., 2005; Watson et al., 2009).
How do we relate embodied cultural capital and habitus? In order to understand their
interrelation, we must consider them in concert with practice (action) and field. A com-
mon approach to illustrating the interrelation of these concepts is to use the analogy of a
card game. The card game is the field of interaction, the cards dealt to each player con-
stitute their stock of cultural capital, and the approach they take to playing their cards
(practice) depends on their habitus. The value of certain cards and hands and the most
advantageous way to play them will vary according to the rules of the particular card
game as will any player’s relevant knowledge and skill. The value of your cards in con-
text of a particular game, will influence how you play them (do you fold, raise, etc.), at
the same time, your skills, knowledge, and preferences as a player will influence how
you appraise your cards and the possible options you have, and how you play your cards
can in turn affect their value (bid conservatively, bid aggressively, fold, bluff, etc.) and
your position in that game. Additionally, each of these must be understood relationally in
the dynamic context of other players’ positions and their respective hands, skills, knowl-
edge, and preferences. Certainly, this analogy is simplistic and begins to break down the
further you push it, but it illustrates the basic idea that the value of cultural capital is field
dependent and relational, as are habitus and practice. For the present purposes, the prob-
lem of interest concerns the cards in one’s hand as an analog for cultural capital, and
one’s card skills and playing preferences as an analog for the dispositions of habitus.
According to Bourdieu, and to Lareau and Weininger’s (2003) elaboration, cultural capi-
tal in its embodied form also entails skills and dispositions and thus would influence how
one plays the game – the supposed function of habitus. So, are embodied cultural capital
and habitus the same thing? If yes, then is there need for both in a theory of practice, or
should one be discarded, and if so which? Or can the two concepts be understood rela-
tionally as complementary and necessary conjuncts? In short, we will answer these ques-
tions: yes (essentially), neither should be discarded, and yes.
Part of the issue is that Bourdieu invokes the term ‘disposition’ at different points to
describe both habitus (e.g. Bourdieu, 1977) and embodied cultural capital (e.g. Bourdieu,
1997). On one hand, Bourdieu (1977) characterizes habitus ‘ . . . as a system of lasting,
transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment
as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the achieve-
ment of infinitely diversified tasks’ (pp. 82–83); on the other hand, he describes embod-
ied cultural capital as ‘long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body’ (Bourdieu, 1997:
47) and, furthermore, as ‘external wealth converted into an integral part of the person,
into a habitus’ (p. 48). Although general discourse in the sociology of education literature
often gives the impression of two parallel, but distinct, processes at work, the accumula-
tion of embodied cultural capital and the formation of habitus are in actuality two sides
of the same socialization process: the situated internalization of cultural schemas.
Habitus and embodied cultural capital are not separate things but rather ‘continuous with
each other, as “moments”’ of the same process (Moore, 2008: 105). What the ‘capital’
metaphor adds to the picture is to highlight that dispositions themselves are valuable
assets, or resources, that can realize returns for the actor in particular fields of social
action:
[T]he notion of ‘capital’ adds . . . an attention to the exchange value which specific dispositions
have within particular social fields. When an agent’s ability to ‘read’ great works of art or their
accent and demeanour suffice to impress others sufficiently that they ‘connect’ with those
others and secure a strategic advantage in the pursuit of their goals, for example, then those
specific dispositions function precisely as capital. (Crossley, 2001: 107)
So dispositions, to the extent that they are valued or preferred in a particular field, can
translate, whether consciously intended or not, into ‘profit’ or advantage. To take an
educational example, certain parent interactional dispositions manifest in contacts with
teachers may benefit their children’s school progress. There is evidence, for instance, to
suggest that particular ‘socioemotional styles’ of parental involvement – e.g. calm, posi-
tive, supportive, respectful – are defined by the school as helpful and legitimate and
hence more likely to positively effect their children’s educational trajectory (Lareau and
Horvat, 1999). Similarly, certain student dispositions – for example, attentive in class,
not disruptive, conscientious in completion of assignments – offer advantage in terms of
actual academic performance but also in terms of positive teacher perceptions (e.g.
Farkas, 1996; Farkas et al., 1990). In both these examples, certain valued or preferred
dispositions lead to actions that produce educational returns for actors. Particular dispo-
sitions enacted in a given field translate into advantages or profits within that field. Those
dispositions to think and act, the schematic structures of the habitus, function as capital
– cultural capital of the embodied variety.8 In this sense, to say someone has cultural
capital in a particular field is to say they have the dispositions to think and act (the cogni-
tive skills and behavioral repertoire) in ways advantageous to their pursuit of desired
ends, and to their position or trajectory in that field.
So is it necessary or useful to retain both of these constructs or are they redundant?
Each concept, of course, has its doubters (e.g. Kingston, 2001; Sullivan, 2002). Such
critiques notwithstanding, though, the question here is, taken together, do they offer
something more than either does alone? Arguably of the two, cultural capital has received
the most attention from researchers, but operationalization of cultural capital has concen-
trated predominantly on its objectified state (Van de Werfhorst, 2010) – possession of
and/or exposure to cultural products (e.g. books, theater, art museums), with an emphasis
on the status signaling function of highbrow cultural consumption. Some researchers
have gone a step further by distinguishing ‘reading’ activity from ‘beaux arts’ status
signaling activity (Crook, 1997; De Graaf et al., 2000). Both Crook (1997) and De Graaf
et al. (2000) find that reading activity is related to school success, but that ‘beaux arts’
participation is not, and suggest that reading affects academic performance by fostering
the development of analytical and cognitive skills. Sullivan (2001) finds an additional
effect for television-viewing habits, suggesting that ‘[w]atching relatively sophisticated
television programmes is also associated with these skills’ (p. 905). Similarly, Barone
(2006) and Tramonte and Willms (2010) broke cultural capital into material or ‘static’
and communicative or ‘relational’ forms, with the former representing objectified cul-
tural capital (possession and consumption of cultural products) and the latter (cultural
discussions, communications, and elaborations of cultural experiences within the family)
representing embodied cultural capital. Both found that the communicative/relational
form of cultural capital had a larger effect on reading achievement than did the material/
static form. Such evidence, pointing toward the effects of reading-related activity and
cultural communication and discourse on cognitive development or ‘cognitive resources’
(Barone, 2006), begins to touch on the development of embodied cultural capital via
habitus, more specifically, the ‘classed’ effects of literate socialization practices on the
‘cognitive habitus’ as described by Nash (2003, 2005a, 2005b).
As noted above, research into educational inequality that invokes Bourdieu’s two
most prominent concepts has tended to focus on one or the other or to emphasize one
over the other. When attempt is made to incorporate both concepts, the formulation usu-
ally resembles that of the card game analogy, with cultural capital conceived as skills and
knowledge, or cultural resources, and habitus as the orientation to using those resources.
But this analogy fails to adequately capture the interpenetrating nature of the two con-
structs as ‘moments’ (Moore, 2008) of, or aspects of, the same culturally conditioned
system of cognitive schemas.
Reay (2004) hints at the coupled nature of habitus and cultural capital when she
describes habitus as underlying cultural capital, ‘generating its myriad manifestations’
(p. 436). If we focus just on the cultural capital aspect of dispositions, we highlight the
exchange or symbolic value of particular skills and knowledge in particular fields, how
actors are able or unable to generate returns, or realize advantages, from their cultural
capital in particular fields. We are viewing behavior through what is at base an economic
metaphor of assets, investments, profits, and quasi-markets, one that conceives behavior
in exchange or value-added terms (whether material or symbolic). Viewed in this way,
what is at stake in any given field, and across fields in social space, is the accumulation
of capital in its varied forms, and, although these forms are not fully commensurate, the
fundamental relation is capital begets capital. But dispositions do not become capital,
with more or less value, more or less advantageousness, until they are enacted in context
of particular fields. Yet, those dispositions exist beyond the field, as characteristics or
properties of the actor, as potentials for action, as potential capital to be realized (mobi-
lized) through ‘legitimate’ (valued) action in particular fields. Thus, capital is a field
concept that does not fully capture the interiority of dispositions as mental and behavio-
ral properties of the socialized, situated actor. To explain an actor’s success in a field in
terms of the ‘capital’ value of his set of dispositions, and the capacity this gives him to
act advantageously in pursuit of further capital(s) and desired ends, may indeed capture
key dynamics of how social action is structured, and stratified, in social space, but it is
an incomplete account that gives short-shrift to the ‘mechanism’ of dispositions, the
conditions and processes of their acquisition and operation.
Habitus, as a set of structurally and culturally conditioned cognitive structures gener-
ating characteristic tendencies of thought and behavior is integral to Bourdieu’s concep-
tualization of this ‘mechanism’. Understanding this mechanism also requires
understanding how dispositions of the habitus generate practices in fields which in turn
can affect those dispositions by (de)valuing them as cultural capital. Thus, in the dialec-
tic between field and habitus, cultural capital functions, in part, like a price signal that
modulates adjustment of the dispositions of the habitus within a particular field. Practices,
and the dispositions underlying them, that are valued (rewarded) in the field are rein-
forced or encouraged, those practices and dispositions that are valued less or not at all are
discouraged.9 Put another way, those dispositions that, via practices, can function as
capital in a field, are likely to endure and strengthen. Some actors enter a field with what
Bourdieu terms a ‘well-constituted habitus’, which means their dispositions align well
with the expectations and exigencies of that field. Thus, for example, some students enter
the school system with greater ‘readiness to learn’, or in terms of the present discussion,
they experience greater habitus-field congruence: they have the set of cognitive and
behavioral dispositions conducive to the scholastic performances recognized as aca-
demic achievement by the school. The greater the habitus-field incongruence an actor
experiences, the less cultural capital they have in that field, because their dispositions
(via the practices they generate) secure lower returns. In a sense, then, habitus completes
the feedback loop by incorporating field valuations of dispositions (cultural capital) into
‘legitimate’ lines of action (consciously and unconsciously) as best it can. Although the
cognitive structures of the habitus can, as argued previously, transform by degree in
response to misalignment with the field (via processes similar to Piaget’s notions of
accommodation and assimilation10), the greater the disjuncture, the greater the disadvan-
tage and the more difficult the adjustment. Individuals vary not only in the necessity to
adjust – where they are on the field-habitus congruence–incongruence continuum – but
also in the capacity to adjust. As Sweetman (2003) suggests, some habituses may be less
rigid, more adaptable, than others, and for individuals ‘ . . . who display a flexible or
reflexive habitus, processes of refashioning – whether emancipatory or otherwise – may
be second nature, rather than difficult to achieve’ (p. 537). Similarly, some researchers
have begun exploring differences in patterns and degrees of habitus adjustment among
students from marginalized or non-traditional educational backgrounds (e.g. Horvat and
Davis, 2011; Mills, 2008; Watson et al., 2009).
Structures, dispositions, and practices: Toward a realist

account of educational inequality
The proceeding discussion has sought to demonstrate, in brief, that although the various
critiques of Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction have raised noteworthy concerns
(e.g. Goldthorpe, 2007; Tzanakis, 2011), some of his key concepts – cultural capital,
habitus, practice, and field – remain salvageable, and in fact, with minor renovations by
subsequent theorists, serve to provide the basis for a conceptual framework that still has
much to potentially contribute to untangling the Gordian knot of persistent educational
inequality.
Following from Bourdieu, this framework entails what Nash (2002b, 2002c, 2005c)
terms a ‘structure–disposition–practice explanatory scheme’ (p. 202). Such an account
seeks to integrate ‘the structural properties of emergent social entities, the dispositional
properties of individuals, and the actions performed by individuals within recognized
social practices’. Accordingly, Nash, drawing inspiration from Bourdieu’s work, posits a
‘family resource framework’ that seeks to move beyond Bourdieu’s idealist position to a
scientific realist perspective that is more amenable to empirical research. Nash (2002b:
284–285) sees the family resource framework as ‘an explanatory sketch, or a set of con-
nected hypotheses’ for guiding research and interpreting findings from both quantitative
and qualitative (especially ethnographic) methods. In brief, this framework supposes that
families are located in a socioeconomically stratified societal structure and differ in the
material and symbolic resources they are able to mobilize for the procurement of various
goods and in the accomplishment of various tasks including child-rearing. These struc-
tural properties of families differentially condition dispositions (cognitive and non-
cognitive) and enable or restrict the adoption of particular practices. Schooling plays a
role in this process of socioeconomic differentiation by sanctioning particular sets of
resource-contingent socialized skills, at least some of which are educationally necessary
(as opposed to arbitrary). Such family resources, the dispositions they engender, and the
practices they support, have a continuous distribution (as opposed to the ordered catego-
ries comprising most social-class typologies). In general, as common sense would sug-
gest, the most highly resourced actors have the best opportunities for securing desired
ends. Although Nash does not explicitly invoke ‘field’ or ‘cultural capital’ in his concep-
tualization, these concepts are not incompatible with it, and in our view add to the
explanatory potential of the framework.
An important methodological implication of adopting an SDP frame such as this is

that, although the three components are interrelated, they are ‘actually and analytically
distinct’ (Nash, 2002c: 405). Nash (2002c) argues that it has been commonplace in con-
ventional quantitative analysis for this distinction to be overlooked and the respective
properties conflated in the construction of composite indices that combine structural
(resource), dispositional, and practice variables into a single indicator, while dismissing
their interrelations as ‘accidental’, as a technical problem of multicollinearity. An SDP
account should attempt to avoid such conflation by constructing indicators at each level
from variables at each level. For example, indicators of material wealth or possessions
(economic capital and objectified cultural capital) are representative of structural proper-
ties of families; indicators such as attitude toward school, academic self-concept, and
aspirations are representative of dispositional properties (habitus); and indicators such as
paying attention in class, timely completion of assignments, and disruptive behavior are
representative of practices. Any SDP explanatory scheme must also confront several
methodological issues related to the reductivist constraints of scientific positivism and
the limits of the conventional approach to ‘quantitative’ sociological research, which is
based on assessing correlations between indicator variables of social properties for the
purpose of specifying causal models of the processes and events of interest. Conventional
quantitative model building is prone to confusing indicator variables with the things or
processes it points to. Furthermore, indicators denoted as proxies for specific lived pro-
cesses lead to inadequate accounts of process mechanisms that underlie social reality
(Nash, 2002c, 2005c). Research of this sort leads to incomplete and unsatisfactory
explanatory narratives that often presume to ‘explain’ behavior in terms of statistically
determined ‘risk factors’ – an approach Nash dubs ‘at risk positivism’.
An SDP scheme, such as the family resources framework, recognizes the reciprocal
relations between social structure, dispositions, and practices, but demonstrating these
interconnections is critically problematic for quantitative methods. Nash (2002b: 280)
points out the difficulty of quantifying the double linkages between the three levels in
constructing an account of educational inequality or difference: we must show that prac-
tices (hours spent on homework, etc.), the dispositions generating those practices (aspi-
rations, etc.), and the sets of relations constituting social fields (structure) are interrelated
(p. 280). It is, he notes, one thing to demonstrate linkages between the first two, but
another thing entirely to incorporate the third level:
One might show that some students do not complete their work, at least as often and to the same
standard as others, one can point to the connection between that behavior and their dispositions
with respect to school, but to demonstrate that those dispositions are acquired within particular
kinds of class-cultural settings, and to a degree that varies from individual to individual in
recognition of personal differences, is not only difficult, but as it departs from the area of things
that can be given an ‘operational’ definition and counted, is particularly open to criticism within
an unreformed and ‘positivist’ conception of science. (p. 280)
Furthermore, he argues that if social scientists are not allowed to legitimately address
this third level, the level of structure, which is actually fundamental to sociological
explanation, then what we are left with are ‘tautological models that suppose patterns of
behavior to be accounted for in terms of the variables statistically associated with them,
so that those “at risk” demonstrate the extent to which they are “at risk”’. Instead, Nash
(2002b) posits a ‘realist’ framework for sociology of education which accepts that the
structural properties of emergent social entities are real; that the dispositions of social-
ized actors are real; that actors’ social actions are shaped by real practices which tend to
reproduce the social relations that give rise to emergent social structural properties
(fields); and that understanding the interrelations of these three levels is essential to con-
structing complete accounts of social events and processes. Such an approach accepts
(unlike critical realism) that quantification has an important part to play in social science
but holds that statistical models should not be treated as explanations in themselves,
rather ‘as sources of information more or less useful in the construction of complex
explanatory narratives. These explanations, moreover, will often require information
external to the statistical model that is likely to be generated by so-called qualitative
studies’ (Nash, 2005c: 200). Thus, he is advocating a mixed-methods approach – that he
terms ‘numbers and narratives’ – in which the goal is not the construction of multivariate
causal models but rather ‘multilevel explanatory narratives’, the adequacy of which
depends not only on variance explained or associated odds but also on identification of
underlying ‘generative mechanisms’.
Much has been made of the difficulties of operationalizing Bourdieu’s concepts (e.g.
Sanders and Robson, 2009), which he tended to treat as open, iterative ‘thinking tools’,
often, over time, invoking multiple changing or not entirely consistent definitions.11
Habitus, for example, has been dismissed by some as too nebulous to quantify (e.g.
Sullivan, 2002; Van de Werfhorst, 2010) and, therefore, of no real use for educational
researchers. In addition, the relational nature of his concepts presents a challenge to con-
ventional positivist methods; the habitus-field dialectic in particular remains largely
inscrutable to standard quantitative methods. For example, how would one operationalize
cultural capital and habitus as explicated earlier in our discussion? How can the same
indicators represent two concepts at the same time, or even more to the point, two moments
of essentially the same thing? How do you ‘measure’ field – an emergent structural
property – to bring it into the equation to assess how it affects dispositions through the
(de)valuation of cultural capital as manifested in practice? Perhaps in future, non-recur-
sive structural equation modeling or hierarchical linear modeling12 will have something to
contribute here, but even then, certain measurement issues remain.13 In this sense, the test-
ability of the Bourdieuian SDP model with standard quantitative methods is limited at
best, and viewed in this light, its relative dismissal by those concerned with ‘evidence-
based’ theory and social policy is quite understandable. Given the mounting pressures
toward fiscal austerity weighing on contemporary governments and public policymakers
in general, the demand for ‘hard data’ and numbers seems more likely to grow than relent.
As such, in addition to the existing qualitative evidence, the quantitative case for
Bourdieu’s theory, and the tools it may offer – if any – for mitigating educational inequal-
ity, will have to be made more unequivocal. It is here that the importance of clearly distin-
guishing between cultural capital and habitus becomes more critical, not merely as an
academic exercise in terminological distillation but as a process of developing clear, con-
cise, and complementary – rather than conflated – measures that allow us to better inves-
tigate the empirical validity and potential real-world utility of these concepts.
Of course, given the dynamic nature of Bourdieu’s theory, the quantitative case alone
will not suffice, and in the spirit of Einstein’s famous aphorism – ‘everything that can be
counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted’
– Nash cautions that modeling statistical associations between static indicators of social
and individual properties does not equate to full explanation. Measurement issues not-
withstanding, even the most completely specified regression models typically leave a
substantial proportion of the variance in the outcome of interest ‘unexplained’ – more to
the point, even the ‘variance explained’ is more properly thought of as ‘variance
accounted for’, as identifying associations among indicators may reveal important statis-
tical regularities that improve prediction, but this does not necessarily equate with expla-
nation. Quantitative analysis is necessary (Nash, 2005c) to ‘establish the extent of social
disparities and [to estimate] the relative weights that should be accorded to distinct pro-
cesses’, but identification of such statistical regularities is not in and of itself sufficient
to the task of making intelligible the underlying causal mechanisms (p. 201). This is
especially true in the open systems of non-experimental correlational research, where
any identified association or effect can only be partially ascertained in terms of a limited
set of influences.14 Analyses of such statistical regularities must complement, and be
complemented by, on the ground sorts of qualitative research such as the richly detailed
ethnographic studies carried out by, for example, Lareau and colleagues (Lareau, 2011;
Lareau and Cox, 2011; Lareau and Horvat, 1999; Lareau and Weininger, 2008). On one
hand, in-depth ethnographic analyses, case studies, and narrative accounts centered on
specific sites of practice, on individuals and groups in particular social contexts and pro-
cesses, are important to research within a SDP framework and key to uncovering mecha-
nisms inaccessible to standard statistical techniques; on the other hand, such approaches
always run the risk of sometimes not being able to ‘see the forest for the trees’. That is,
some crucial aspects of the problem may not be evident up close and are detectable only
at the systemic or structural level as aggregate or emergent statistical regularities or ‘pat-
terns of connection’ (Kemp and Holmwood, 2003). Furthermore, the preponderance of
data in many ethnographic studies of Bourdieu’s concepts comes from interviews – a
data source that is not without its own limitations. Such studies tend to use interview data
in one or more of the following ways: ‘treating the informants as witnesses, as self-
analysts, and as indirect sources of evidence about perspectives’ (Hammersley, 2003:
124), but often with too little regard for the potential problems attending such uses – for
example, the performative nature of interviews as social occasions subject to response
bias due to issues of impression management and suggestibility, and the potential insta-
bility of respondent constructions which researchers risk portraying as more fixed than
they actually are. The solution, of course, is not to abandon interview data but to keep in
mind its strengths and limitations and to augment it accordingly with other sources of
data (Hammersley, 2003).
Ideally, multisite longitudinal studies that involve ethnographic (observational as well
as interview) and quantitative analyses within a SDP framework may offer synergistic
insights into the interplay of micro- and macrostructures and processes underlying the
perpetuation of educational inequality. Quantitatively, this involves devising indicators
appropriate to each level and augmenting these models with qualitative analyses of site-
specific practices and processes. For instance, incorporating the duality of dispositions
would be more workable if qualitative analyses are used to fill in the gaps of the quantita-
tive analyses. We might devise indices of dispositions as habitus and be able to model
these as mediating variables between family structural properties, student practices, and
academic outcomes. But in order to adequately capture the role of cultural capital and a
more complete picture of the disposition–practice–field dynamic, we would need to incor-
porate ethnographic analyses and narrative accounts of these processes in specific sites
across time. For example, students’ scores on a quantitative index of pro-school habitus
could be compared across several time points, with qualitative analyses used to help inter-
pret corresponding patterns of change. We may compare relative change in students’ habi-
tus index scores across time points, or we may compare trajectories across students. We
may be able to incorporate grades or teacher evaluations as limited proxy indicators of
embodied cultural capital (institutionalized validation of embodied cultural capital), but
we would also need to incorporate ethnographic analyses of classroom processes and
valuations of dispositions and practices within the school/classroom setting (e.g. teacher
interaction and feedback) and how these correspond with observed changes in habitus
index scores and perhaps contribute to individual differences. We would also want to
incorporate quantitative indicators of family resources (capitals) as well as ethnographic
analyses of parental interactions (dispositions and practices) with teachers and the school
(field). Such combined quantitative and qualitative data collection should ideally involve
multiple schools as multiple site instantiations of practices or processes can help us ‘flesh
out’ underlying mechanisms, establishing, in concert with observed statistical regularities,
empirical patterns of connection that may suggest practical causes and solutions. Of
course, such an ambitious research undertaking would not be easy given the logistical and
funding challenges it would face, but it is this kind of research that will be required to
move us forward in our practical understanding of how educational inequality is produced
and how we might more successfully intervene to mitigate it.
Conclusion
The intention of this article has been to demonstrate that despite noteworthy critiques of
Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, elements of his approach remain viable; bol-
stered by subsequent theorists’ elaborations, they provide the basis for an ‘SDP’ concep-
tual framework that stands to contribute important insights into the mechanisms
underlying persistent educational inequality. Research on educational inequality utiliz-
ing Bourdieu’s framework seldom incorporates all four of his fundamental concepts.
Quantitative researchers have, until recently, focused primarily on cultural capital in the
objectified state, while most research on habitus has to date been qualitative in nature.
Some researchers have suggested that habitus is too nebulous a concept to quantify and
so adds little of substance to accounts of educational inequality. We argue against this
and suggest that the concept of habitus is vital to our understanding of how dispositions
(internalized cultural schemas) affect behavior and that embodied cultural capital and
habitus must be understood as aspects or ‘moments’ (Moore, 2008) of the same dispo-
sitional structure which interacts with the exigencies of particular social fields to shape
practice. Although the difficulties of operationalizing habitus, cultural capital, practice,
field, and their interrelationships are certainly problematic for standard quantitative
research methods, they do not necessitate either wholesale abandonment of the concep-
tual framework or selective preclusion of problematic aspects such as the duality of
dispositions or their dialectical relation to fields. Instead, it may prove profitable to
expand our conception of the dialogue between theory and evidence in the generation
of practically useful social explanation. We suggest, following Nash, that this purpose
could be well served by a realist reconsideration of the positivist requirements of social
causality and how we link theory, common sense knowledge, and ethnographic obser-
vation of specific social contexts, with statistical regularities to generate meaningful
and useful explanations that can suggest practical means of disrupting the processes and
mechanisms sustaining educational inequality.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
Notes
1. Swartz (1997) holds that Bourdieu saw cultural capital as a general power resource encom-
passing a number of capacities, the value of which varies across fields, ‘including such things
as verbal facility, general cultural awareness, aesthetic preferences, information about the
school system, and educational credentials’ (p. 75).
2. See Farkas (2003) for an interesting discussion of the debate regarding the relative importance
of ‘cognitive skills’ (e.g. vocabulary, reading comprehension, computation, problem-solving,
critical reasoning) and ‘non-cognitive traits and behaviors’ (e.g. industriousness, persever-
ance, discipline, attendance, participation, sociability, impulsiveness, self-confidence, locus
of control) in the stratification process.
3. Bourdieu was primarily concerned with differences across social classes, but it has been sug-
gested that his analysis can be usefully extended to gender and racial/ethnic differences as
well (e.g. Horvat, 2001; Mickelson, 2003; Reay, 2004).
4. Bourdieu (1990b) quotes Leibniz: ‘We are empirical [practical, habitual, unreflective] in three
quarters of our actions’ (p. 108).
5. One does not, indeed cannot, intend to circumvent the earth if they are under the impression
that it is flat.
6. Nash (2003) makes the point that ‘ability’ has come, if unacknowledged, to serve as a euphe-
mism for ‘intelligence’ which is dismissed as a ‘social construct’.
7. Kingston (2001: 95) makes a similar defense of the intrinsic importance of logic, reason, and
critical thinking skills to successful fulfillment of the demands of citizenship and productivity
in modern society. He also questions the attendant criticism of the culturally ‘biased’ behav-
ioral expectations in the formal school context, noting, for example, that relevant research
shows that ‘hard work pays off in more learning’ and surely cannot be minimized as merely an
arbitrary ‘teacher-pleasing “style”’. He further suggests that ‘in any imaginable educational
system, hard work would seem to be a necessary ingredient of genuine academic accom-
plishment. Can anyone sensibly imagine rewarding some other habit in its place?’ See also
Sullivan (2007).
8. See Stampnitzky (2006) for an interesting analysis of the historical transformation of particu-
lar individual characteristics into cultural capital in the field of elite university admissions.
9. It is important to note that fields are not static but relational and dynamic in nature and
contingent on the practices and dispositions of constituent actors who vary in the resources
(capitals) they can bring to bear within and upon that field, and field configurations endure/
change to the degree that they reflect the practices and dispositions of ascendant actors; it is
also possible that changing valuations of practices and dispositions may also affect actors’
positions within a field as well as their capacity (power) to influence the constitution of the
field.
10. Lizardo (2004) shows how Bourdieu’s habitus-field dialectic is rooted in Piaget’s fundamen-
tal cognitive developmental processes of accommodation and assimilation. New experiences
will first be made sense of, assimilated, in terms of existing cognitive schemas, but confronted
by sufficiently novel/foreign situations or experiences, extant structures are modified, accom-
modated, to better fit the environment.
11. Arguably, this is less of a problem for the more flexible inductive theory generation com-
monplace in qualitative studies, but more problematic for deductive theory testing with
quantitative multivariate methods, which may go some way toward explaining why more
comprehensive invocations of Bourdieu’s conceptual framework are more common in the
qualitative literature on educational inequality.
12. Non-recursive models allow for the specification of bidirectional or reciprocal relationships
between variables or constructs. Hierarchical (multilevel) linear modeling allows for the par-
titioning of variance and estimation of effects within and between different contextual levels
– for example, students nested within families, nested within schools, or neighborhoods, or
social classes – and may prove of some use in determining the relative influence of different
levels of social structure on practice (Cockerham and Hinote, 2009).
13. The critique of standard ‘measurement’ theory is beyond present purposes but in essence
charges that it produces a false sense of certainty and that its twin legitimating concepts,
validity and reliability, are actually quite arbitrary and untenable (see Berka, 1983).
14. The related problem of excluding possibly important variables from the model is referred to
in quantitative methodological terminology as ‘omitted variable bias’ or ‘misspecification
error’.
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Author biographies
Jason D. Edgerton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of
Manitoba. His research focuses primarily on the dimensions of social inequality.
Lance W. Roberts is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba and
a Senior Fellow at St. John’s College.

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530231

Cultural capital or habitus?

Jason D. Edgerton and Lance W. Roberts

In brief: Four key Bourdieuian concepts

‘connections’; and cultural capital or ‘cultural competences’, which can be embodied

Cultural capital: Status signal or tool kit?

. . . habitus, as the product of social conditionings, and thus of history . . . is endlessly

Cultural capital or habitus?

Structures, dispositions, and practices: Toward a realist

An important methodological implication of adopting an SDP frame such as this is

Lehmann W (2009) Class encounters: Working-class students at university. In: Levine-Rasky

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