Sociology of Sport Journal,1995,12, 147-157

O 1995 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

Contributions of the Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu

to the Sociology of Sport

Jean-Paul Clbment
Universit6 de Strasbourg 11

This article deals with works in sport sociology based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of
habitus and field. The work of Defrance introduced this theory in social history. Subse-
quently, Pociello and his team demonstrated the relations existing between the space of
sports and that of social positions as well as the role of symbolic struggles involving
various groups of sports participants in the dynamics of the sports system. The power of
symbolism associated with sporting practices is closely bound to the social relevance of
the physical dimension in sports. Also discussed is the equivalency between struggles for
the definition of the legitimate body and social political struggles. The theoretical and
methodological coherence of the works discussed here is suficient to label them a ''school"
within sociology of sport.
Cet article porte sur les travaux en sociologie du sport s'inspirant de la thtorie de
E'habitus et du champ de Pierre Bourdieu. Les ouvrages de Defiance ont inaugure' cette
perspective en histoire sociale. Pociello et son e'quipe ont par la suite dtmontrt les
relations existant entre I'espace des sports et l'espace des positions sociales, ainsi que
le r6le des luttes symboliques opposant dzfftrents groupes de pratiquants dans la dyna-
mique du syst2me sportif. Le pouvoir de symbolisation des pratiques sportives est associe'
a la pertinence sociale de la dimension corporelle du sport. Est aussi discutke I'6quivalence
existant entre les luttes pour de'finir le corps Itgitime et les luttes socio-politiques. La
cohtrence thtorique et mtthodologique des travaux discutts ici les constitue en kcole
identifiable dans le champ de la sociologie du sport.

The publication of Sports et socie'te' in 1981, an anthology edited by Pociello,

is a concrete example of the impact of Pierre Bourdieu's approach on French
sociology of sport. Since then, a number of publications have extended these
analyses either abroad, such as those of Laberge in Canada,.or in France, such
as those regrouped in two issues of Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales
in 1989. Meanwhile, articles inspired by Bourdieu's approach have appeared in
journals within the fields of physical education and sports studies,' and a number
of research reports have been produced within French universities. These publica-
tions ask of sport the same questions that Bourdieu developed in his writings,

Jean-Paul ClCment is with the UFR STAPS, UniversitC de Strasbourg 11, 22 rue
Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
 particularly those concerning the literary and artistic field and its social structura-
tion. The special nature of the works on sport resides in the relevance of the
bodily dimension of sport. Two concepts are essential within this perspective:
Bourdieu's concept of one's relation to the body, and the concept used by
Boltanski in his analysis of medical consumption-the "social uses of the body"
(Boltanski, 1974).

The Field of Sports Practices and Its Social Structuration

The penetration of Bourdieu's questions in the analysis of sports first takes
place through historical sociology. The writings of Defrance in particular, with
an inaugural article published in Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales
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(Defrance, 1976), attempt to elucidate the formative phases of the "field" of

physical activity first in the case of gymnastics and subsequently in that of sports.
Defrance (1987) also shows how this field constructed its own functional logic
and issues, starting at the end of the 18th until the beginning of the 19th century.
In order to understand how this construction developed during the 19th century,
his method considers the social uses of exercise techniques, their status in different
cultural spheres, and the attitude of their promoters in the structure of social and
political relations. These steps are necessary to go beyond simple and explicit
oppositions between the noble manners of the aristocracy and the entertaining
practices of the fairground. It is then possible to understand why a number of
pioneers belonging to the aristocracy (e.g., Madam de Genlis, tutor of the Duke
of OrlCans' children) proposed gymnastic methods that were scandalous in their
milieu because they suggested a certain intensity of movement and, above all,
the possibility of generalizing a particular type of bodily education to the social
body as a whole (Saint-Martin, 1989). Here, the political and cultural opposition
on the part of OrlCanists2(who were allies of the liberal factions of the bourgeoisie)
to the legitimate aristocracy is expressed in the domain of physical exercise. This
analysis highlights the problematic constructed by Bourdieu in Outline of a
Theory of Practice (197211977) on the basis of the anthropology of Marcel Mauss
(1968) and Norbert Elias (1973, 1976): It shows that the methods of gymnastics
and, by extension, those of sports or other codified physical activities are cultural
products shaped by those who practice them. These products embody the funda-
mental particularities of the group to which they belong.
The notion of embodiment has a theoretical status and serves to affirm a
dual refutation: (a) that of the illusion of the independence of physical activities
and sports from social determinants, and (b) that of the possibility of a perfect
correspondence between the history of texts, speeches, and pedagogical or politi-
cal methods and doctrines, and the history of physical practices, their implementa-
tion, and their development. "The origin of the first types of gymnastics can be
traced back to the higher classes and assume among other things, the form of a
debate on ideas. That does not, however, imply the primacy of intellectual
developments resulting in practical achievements" (Defrance, 1987, pp. 14-15).
The legitimacy of gymnastics exercises perceived as educational devices
by an increasing number of social groups accelerates their dissemination and
their differentiation and the professionalization of teaching. At the same time,
with the emergence of sport in France at the end of the 19th century, conditions
 Contributions of Pierre Bourdieu 149

are present for the establishment of a genuine field of physical activities. For
such an analysis, the contribution of Bourdieu is obvious. The use of the field
theory makes it possible to distinguish the approach of Defrance from those
based on the historical epistemology of Foucault, for instance, by introducing
the concepts of strategy &d competition in order to understand the involvement
of agents.
Starting at the end of the 1970s, the habitus and field theory is used
systematically at the INSEP (the national institute for sport and physical education
located in Paris) by Pociello and his research team. The project is to show the
equivalences existing between the field of sports and the larger social field
(Pociello, 1981). These analyses differ significantly from those of certain sports
commentators. Indeed, the frequent reference in the sports media to relationships
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between sports (sport practices and sport spectacles) and the social classes is
certainly not intended to improve the body of sociological knowledge on sport.
On the contrary, it often results in the naturalizing of technical and social charac-
teristics of a sport (popular or chic, violent or not) and, in doing so, in the
naturalizing of social relations. This trend goes hand in hand with the importance
granted bythe world of sport to the individual and gratuitous aspect ofsport. It
partly explains the historical reservations of the media with regard to any sociolog-
ical analysis of sporting practices.
By replacing the concepts of need and motivation with those of disposition
and strategy,the habitus and field theory departs from the psychologizing analyses
of earlier sociological approaches such as those of Bouet (1968) or Dumazedier
(1962). It also differs, in France, from Marxist theses as well as the neo-Marxist
theses of an author such as Brohm (1976) by defining the concept of social class
from a cultural point of view. A social class is a group of agents (defined in
various ways) who share the same interests, social experiences, traditions, and
value system, and who tend to act as a class and define themselves in relation
to other groups of agents. Thus defined, the concept of class excludes neither
the diversity of members nor the existence of internal conflicts. In these circum-
stances, the definition of sport as an ideological state apparatus does not apply,
since sport cannot be regarded as a homogeneous and coherent entity. Considered
as social and cultural practices and located in the system of practices of which
they form a part, sports become practices like any others, the sacred aura sur-
rounding them being to some extent destroyed. Furthermore, their bodily dimen-
sion and the social uses of the body that they allow make them an ideal field
within which to understand the various class dispositions.
For Pociello and his team (1981), to construct the sports system or the
system of physical activities implies first of all the use of a comparative perspec-
tive. However, assuming that the definition of sport is at stake in the struggle
between sport implies abandoning restrictive definitions in favor of
a wider definition, constantly revised through debates and clashes of opinions.
To traditional competitive sports in Europe such as football, rugby, and track
and field, then, are added physical activities such as yoga, aikido, outdoor activi-
ties, and jogging. In fact, the social, cultural, and sports situation at the end of
the 1970s in France favors the application of a model that Bourdieu used in
Distinction (1 979/1984). After the mid- 1970s, together with the onset of the crisis
in Western societies, new practices imported from California (e.g., windsurfing,
surfing), creative dancing, and a number of practices imported from the East
 (yoga, aikido) develop on a very large scale in France. In the beginning, these
activities differ and run counter to traditional sports by emphasizing ecological,
noncompetitive, free, individual, and unregulated aspects, in short, by proposing
alternatives to traditional sports.
Initially, Pociello's work is based on the comparative analysis of four
types of "antinomic" practices and their audiences: rugby union and athletics
representing traditional, nationally regulated, and competitive practices; and hang
gliding and creative dancing representing new sports trends. The comparative
analysis then operates within two "historical" levels as well as within the four
practices in order to outline a structure based on a series of antinomic couples:
function/form, energetic dimension/informational dimension, regulated space/
free space, individual/collective. Pociello found that "force, energy, form (or
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grace) and reflexes have appeared . . . as bodily and cultural classification criteria
operating on the diversified choices of physical activities. In fact, these criteria
seem to account for the technical particularities of a number of sports . . . and
to characterize the cultural dispositions of the groups concerned" (translation,
1981, pp. 236-237).
More detailed surveys conducted with a similar perspective have focused
on a group of sports or a single sport. For instance, ClCment (1981, 1985) has
attempted to show how the very different types of relation to one's body associated
with the practice of three combat sports (e.g., wrestling, judo, and aikido) are
generally in harmony with the "relation to the world" and with the rules of the
social game of the different categories of participants. It is understandable that the
distance separating the combatants, the emphasis put on dodging and avoidance
techniques, the value put on aesthetics, and the linking of aesthetics to the
efficiency of a movement are aspects of aikido that match the relations to one's
body prevalent in the upper middle classes, while the wrestling and the permanent
hand-to-hand situation that aikido requires seem to attract the lower classes more.
From the same theoretical point of view, Falt (1981) has constructed the field
of the social uses of yachting, Blouin le Baron (1981) has similarly constructed
the field of the social uses of creative dancing, while Pociello (1983) has rediscov-
ered social differentiations even in the ways of playing rugby and entering into
relationships with other players.
The ensemble of these works highlights the similarities between sports, in
the widest sense of the term, and cultures or class subcultures, these similarities
being established on the basis of the sports' technical or regulatory characteristics
deemed to be socially relevant. The system of sporting practices proposed by
Pociello (198 1) as a hypothetical and provisional structure based on the socially
relevant opposition between "high-information" and "high-energy" practices
brings this first research phase to an end. Although the research program inspired
by Bourdieu requires these preliminary clarifications, it is not restricted to that.
In fact the aim is to analyze the dynamics of the system.

Structures and Their Dynamics

The risk incurred by the previously discussed approach lies in the naturaliza-
tion of the characteristics of a sport or a social group and thus the reification of
relationships between sports and social categories. We must not forget that a
 Contributions of Pierre Bourdieu 151

single sport can reveal different meanings according to the historical and social
conditions in which it was invented or practiced. Long-distance running does
not have the same meaning in France and Japan, or for runners unaffiliated
with a sport federation and competitive runners (Defrance, 1987). The technical
characteristics of a sport are sometimes fashioned and always interpreted by the
different groups of participants, and this makes analyses in terms of motor logic
or technical structure very hazardous. The notion of sports system implies taking
into account all these differentiated and evolving relationships with practices.
Thus, the distinctive value of a sport or a type of practice is established in relation
to other practices by a system of symbolic coding. Similarities found between
sports and social groups are developed between different fields and not between
points within each field.
A better knowledge of the dynamics of the sports field implies the develop-
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ment of a number of levels of analysis considered in the inaugural works. In line

with The Logic of Practice (Bourdieu, 1980/1990), surveys that are methodologi-
cally very close to ethnology, like those of Wacquant (1992) and Waser (1989),
as well as works such as those of Bruant (1992), reveal very precisely the dynamics
of habitus in the construction of practices and sometimes in the transformation of
the social uses and technical conceptions of practices. Wacquant's (1992) partici-
pant observation of life in a boxing club in a Chicago ghetto makes it possible
to show that

boxing is an individual sport, perhaps the prototype of the individual sport

insofar as it puts into play-and in danger-the sole body of the fighter,
whose proper learning is nevertheless quintessentiallycollective, in particu-
lar because it presupposes a belief in the game which . . . is born and lasts
only in and through the group that it defines through a circular process. In
other words, the dispositions that make up the accomplished pugilist are,
as all "techniques of the body," "the work of individual and collective
and practical reason" (Mauss, 1950). . . . to become a boxer is to appro-
priate through progressive impregnation a set of bodily and mental disposi-
tions that are so intimately interwoven that they erase the distinction
between the physical and the spiritual, between what pertains to athletic
"talent" and what belongs to moral capacities and will. (1992, p. 224,
emphasis in original)

The "pugilistic habitus" is thus developed through the meeting between

a "social condition" and a "system of dispositions" of young men from the
ghetto under the authority of a specific trainer (Wacquant, 1992). This relatively
closed universe of boxing, in which the expression of violence, because it is
sporting in nature, remains highly euphemized in relation to the endemic violence
of the ghetto, concerns a limited number of boxers. Nevertheless, professional
boxing can be regarded as an essential and relatively stable reference point in
the space of sports, one of the elements that symbolically structure relationships
between the participant and violence. The dynamics of the system seem to imply
a certain stability in the social significanceof some sports like boxing or wrestling
and, from another point of view, of certain martial arts or emblematical practices
so as to make it possible for all practices to acquire meaning.
 Tennis, which has become a mass sport in France, is clearly not in the
same category. In their respective surveys, Suaud (1989) and Waser (1989)
highlight the socially relevant oppositions between clubs in two French towns,
Nantes and Strasbourg, based on the internalization of socially differentiated
positions. In addition, Waser establishes very precisely the interdependence of
technical conceptions and game strategies with, on the one hand, players' social
positions and, on the other, the positions they occupy in the club (which are
often linked to their caliber). Tennis thus appears to be an area of highly diversified
practices that are included in equally different lifestyles.
In other works, the dynamics of the sports field is explored by looking at
changes in the positions of a number of sports in the field over a period of time,
and this in relation to social and cultural transformations. Suaud's study (1989)
on the dissemination of squash in Nantes shows that this sport, which was
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practically unknown in France before the beginning of the 1980s, spread more
because of its technical and regulatory characteristics (e.g., speed, anticipation,
reception of information, resistance, reflexes) than because of its apparent similar-
ity to tennis. Squash, which implies intensive confrontation without physical
contact or violence, is a sport for younger people (compared to tennis) but is
comparable to tennis with respect to the social-professional category and social
background of its participants. Differences are more evident with respect to the
participants' lifestyles. Squash attracts many more singles than tennis, players
who like competition, and players who are also attracted by whiz and fun sports:
According to Suaud, squash best symbolizes the situation of young people who
have to "fight" professionally and psychologically in an economically difficult
situation.
Differences in lifestyles and relations to the world between squash players
and aikido adepts at the end of the 1970s were very clear, despite the social
proximity of the two groups. At that time, the practice of aikido was more in
keeping with a multidimensional, countercultural attitude (Clement, 1983) that
was shown not only in the rejection of traditional sports but also in the rejection
of values and norms of the social and political system. Aikido thus conflicts with
the conceptions of judo or the violence of karate and offers a type of nonviolent
combative confrontation that fits the conceptions of young adults who are part
of the underclass but are culturally gifted (Clement, 1985).
These two examples of practices that are established and diffused in differ-
ent social situations and with different social and cultural meanings highlight the
historical dynamics of the restructuration of the sports field and the repositioning
it implies for all sports. They also show that relations between social groups and
sporting practices are neither total nor homogeneous.
Last, the mobility of sports participants going from one sport to another
is the subject of studies that take into account the effect of the context and the
force of the habitus. Through the study of individual careers and shifts in practices,
changes in the positions of sports within the field are partly explained, and it is
easier to understand the relations between the social and the individual that
contribute to the shaping of personalities.
Understanding why a sports participant goes from tennis to golf, or why
the son of a Spanish immigrant from the south of France starts like everyone
else to practice rugby, then discovers judo in high school, then moves to aikido
in his university days, makes it possible to grasp in terms of personal career the
 Contributions of Pierre Bourdieu 153

social and historical dynamics of the sports system and to consider the central
question of the symbolic nature of sporting practices.

The Symbolic Nature of Sports Practices

I consider here the importance attached by individuals to their sports prac-
tices, since these practices construct individuals' identities and affirm the fact
that they belong to a social group. I have already stressed that in the sports field,
and in relation to the dynamics of the social field, groups of participants strive
to make known their own conceptions about their game. They thus define a
"good" way of playing, which they endeavor to impose. This results in conflicts,
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in which stakes develop according to the social situation and the position of
sports in the field.
This is shown by Defrance (1985), for instance, in his study on the develop-
ment of new types of long-distance running in the 1970s in France, when competi-
tive track-and-field events are in decline. "Road running" is practiced on a very
large scale by individuals of the middle and upper classes often grouped in
independent associations that are very critical of the Track and Field Federation.
These participants symbolically present freestyle running as "the athletic world
turned upside down" (Defrance, 1985). As noted by Defrance, their dispositions
are quite different. For example, a participant observed,

You know, in the stadium and outside, there is no comparison. I say this
because I know something about the two aspects of competition. In track
and field running, it is almost always necessary to run with a knife between
your teeth, like an animal. There is nothing like that in a marathon where
you don't run against someone but with someone. (translation, Defrance,
1989, p. 88)

Symbolic struggles about a practice are based on a system of dual opposi-

tions: running for oneself/competing against others, pleasurelpain, peaceful spirit/
aggressive spirit. They reveal the more general way in which processes of disquali-
fication work against a rival form of sport that is often biomechanically similar.
Similarly, Loirand (1989) suggests that the increasing interest in parachuting
shown by those belonging to the small bourgeoisie modifies the conceptions
associated with that practice. Parachuting is of military origin and, up to the end
of the 1970s,mostly attracted members of the working classes. From the beginning
of the 1980s, a symbolic recoding took place, and at the same time changes were
brought about by technological innovations. This process led to the assimilation
of different types of parachuting with "gliding practices" or whiz sports (Loirand,
1989).
The impact of gender in the relationship to sport and in the acquisition of
a practice can also be considered from the point of view of the field and habitus
theory. This can be done by making a number of theoretical reformulations, as
suggested by Laberge (1994). 1can also mention here Dechavanne's (198 1) study,
which analyzes the symbolic recoding and the corresponding transformation
of practices accompanying women's appropriation of "voluntary gymnastics7'
classes (a noncompetitive discipline designed to keep the body fit and improve
 motor coordination, a form of education through physical movements along the
lines of the neo-Swedish gymnastics). The works of Davisse and Louveau (1991)
on women's sports are equally interesting in that respect.
To conclude on the question of sport symbolism, I will briefly present
some of the social-historical perspectives based on the habitus and field theory.
The power of symbolizationof sporting practices is associated with the similarities
existing between the space of struggles for the definition of legitimate uses of
the body and the space of social and political struggles. In order to understand
the introduction of Parisian judo in the 1930s, Clement has compared the visions
of class relations that spokespersons of the middle classes in France had at that
time, the state of social relations, the structure of the sports field, and the position
of sport in the educational system (see Clement, Defrance, & Pociello, 1994).
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Pociello (1987) studied the question of sports metaphors and their power of
symbolization, for example, through an analysis of the success of the "sport
adventure."
More recently, works on the social production of sports heros have sug-
gested the concept of the "universal hero" and have shown that the identification
of ordinary people (or an important number of them) with a sports hero is the
result of a considerable amount of work on the part of cultural intermediaries
(e.g., journalists, novelists, intellectuals, etc.), which often involves for the hero
some work to conform to the public's expectations (Leite Lopes & Maresca,
1989). At this level of analysis, Bourdieu's approach can be combined with
other theoretically.compatible approaches. Sports champions, who loom large in
modem heroism, have the capacity to embody and objectify the values of a
social group because they seem to appeal to "universal values." Therefore, an
understanding of this symbolic process implies the use of approaches in both social
history and constructivist anthropology (Cassirer, 1975; LCvi-Strauss, 1958). In
coinciding with other theoretical systems, the habitus and field theory reveals its
limits while demonstrating its fertility.

Conclusion
The sociology of sport as conceived by authors of the works mentioned
in this article is above all an application of Bourdieu's theory of the social. These
works, then, are located in the field of sociological productions while they differ
from the works based on other sociological issues. It is important to recall the
essential place occupied by qualitative approaches (alongside social statistics)
in the works based on Bourdieu's theory, and this, once again, questions the
contributions of ethno-methodology, Weber's comprehensive sociology, Ci-
courel's cognitive sociology, and Elias' historical epistemology.Indeed, processes
of socialization cannot be reduced to a deterministic accession of agents to a
type of practice, even if the choice is never free.
Habitus is at the basis of the production of practices that are relatively
unpredictable but limited in their diversity, and it is never expressed alone: It is
rather expressed in relation to a series of strategies that agents must choose within
a specific field. The investment of an individual in a group is above all an
inclination to act that is produced by the relationship between the field of a game
and a system of positions adapted to that game (Bourdieu, 1980/1990). The
 Contributions of Pierre Bourdieu 155

process of socialization is triggered by a meeting that is neither totally fortuitous

nor totally obligatory, between an agent and a place that existed before and
outside of the subject. Its active principle lies in the relationship that is established
between these two social "objects," which each had a separate meaning before,
meanings that will be renewed through the relationship. Meeting places, a team
or a club, are also places of symbolic struggles. This reminds us that the phenome-
nological paradigm is at the heart of the analysis and refers to the question of
understanding the relative autonomy of sport in relation to the social (not reduced
to class membership, but including all the characteristics of individuals, including
age and gender). I hope that by discussing the impact of Bourdieu's approach
on the sociology of sport I have contributed to the theoretical debate in what
turns out to be the most rigorous area of competition, that is, the sciences, even
if they be social.
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 Contributions of Pierre Bourdieu

Notes
'The expressions "physical education" and "sports studies" are used here, for
North American readers. In French universities, the typical acronyms are E.P.S. for
ducatio ion Physique et Sportive" (physical education and sport) and S.T.A.P.S. for
"Sciences et Techniques des ActivitCs Physiques et Sportives" (sciences and techniques
of physical activities and sports). Well-known French journals in the fields of physical
education and sports studies are ducat ion Physique et Sport, Revue des S.T.A.P.S., and
Travaux et Recherches en E.P.S.
'The OrlCanists were the supporters of the OrlCans family (a younger branch of
the Bourbons), which had laid claim to the throne of France.
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