Pierre Bourdieu

10      Pierre Bourdieu: field marshal of modern sociology[1]

Pierre Bourdieu was born in Denguin, a small village in the South of France. The date was 1 April 1930. He grew up in a strong anti-intellectualist atmosphere. His father was a postman. It is extremely rare that someone from such a humble background reaches the top of the academic world, but he did. He became an internationally renowned professor. His career was a big exception to his  beloved theory of social reproduction. Thanks to his intellectual qualities, he was selected for the highly prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Admission to that renowned Grand School guarantees a great future. Pierre Bourdieu has authored and co-authored about thirty books. This chapter pays attention to a small part of his oeuvre.

10.1   Academic career

The ens creates a kind of state nobility with almost the same hereditary power as the traditional nobility.[2] The very demanding, broad and classical curriculum selects students on their cognitive precocity. Such a highly selective institute has its advantages: it offers bright lower class students a unique opportunity for upward mobility. At the time, however, the atmosphere at the ens was very Stalinist and authoritarian. Together with other students Bourdieu attempted to break down this dogmatic ideological climate. They failed.[3] Bourdieu majored in philosophy. He chose not to write a philosophical dissertation and left the ens to become a philosophy teacher of at a provincial grammar school. Nonetheless, this was the prelude to an outstanding academic career that reached its zenith with his appointment as professor at the famous Collège de France. To win this position he had to compete with two famous colleagues: Raymond Boudon and Alain Touraine. This highly desirable chair gave him complete freedom to teach whatever subject he liked. The incumbent of this position is not burdened with the usual duties of university professors. The Collège de France has no regular students and does not teach regular courses. His lectures are open to anyone who takes an interest. He can form research groups and start a research centre of their own. In other words, the College de France is an academic heaven for the greatest scholars of France.

In 1979, Bourdieu published La Distinction. Again, he returned to main his topic of research and theoretic exploration: social stratification and the role of culture in reproducing it. He always was strongly motivated to reveal the mechanisms that tenaciously uphold the hard and software of inequality. As soon as this book was translated into English, he became one of world’s most famous social scientists. His earlier work covers a diversity of interests such as kinship relations, economic change, social inequality, sociology of education, epistemology, methodology, literature, and the worlds of art and science. And what is more, he won his spurs in all these specialist fields, treating old issues and themes in an original and creative way. His influence is not restricted to sociology, but stretches much further afield into philosophy, ethnology, cultural studies and the study of art and literature. His work, like that of all great scholars, is widely discussed, criticized, scrutinized, and analysed.

Pierre Bourdieu is a great master of both social theory and empirical research, which is a rare combination. He displays a broad knowledge of social theories, methodology and philosophy, makes use of advanced statistical techniques, but does not shy away from presenting simple frequency tables when they fit the occasion. In each domain he seeks his own theoretical approach and develops his own methods or combination of methods. He does not abstain from mundane empirical work, nor does he fear highly abstract theoretical endeavours. And last, but not least; he wants to put his theories, concepts and methods into the service of social practice.[4]

If the French saying ‘le style est l’homme’ is true, then Bourdieu must have a complex character. He expresses his ideas in a highly complicated style. To avoid all thinkable misunderstandings he produces long sentences full of informative comment clauses, to describe and explain the very complexity of social phenomena; a complexity that is produced by the fact that many processes occur simultaneously and influence each other. Later, he expressed his doubts about the success of writing with so many sidelines, nuances, and qualifications, but by then it was too late to change his style.[5] Fortunately, there are a number of good introductions to his work and his thoughts are also lucidly expressed in numerous interviews. These interviews, which were always carefully edited by Bourdieu before publication, are less complicated and rather clear.[6]

10.1.1 Academic productivity and career

In 1956, Bourdieu was enlisted in the French army. He was sent to Algeria, where France was fighting a late colonial. HIs experiences in the colonial army put their mark on his scientific approach. They drove him towards the social sciences. After military service, he remained in Algeria to teach at the University of Algiers. There he began to research the problems of Algerians and French colonists. Both categories lived in a similar dramatic situation.[7] This ethnographic fieldwork formed the raw material for his first book, Sociologie de l’Algérie (1958). Later, he qualified his first book as a simple descriptive report of an empirical study carried out by a beginner, but he added that he had learned a lot from this project.

In 1960, he became a research assistant with Raymond Aron and attended workshops of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. In 1961, he became a lecturer at the University of Lille. In 1964, as director of research at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, he gathered a group of young researchers. Bourdieu became a patron, always the driving force behind the numerous reports, articles and books he produced together with many co-authors. In the mean time a new book was issued about Algeria, Travail et travailleurs en Algérie (1963), which was quickly followed by yet another one, Le Déracinement (1966), co-authored with A. Sayad. This book described the uprooting of the rural population during its transition to the capitalistic era. In subsequent articles he wrote about the Algerian proletariat and marital patterns in Kabylia, but also about sexual relations and celibacy among French peasants.

The reproductive role of education was one of his favourite topics. Every sociologist of education is familiar with La Réproduction (1970), co-authored with Jean Claude Passeron.[8]

He studied and published three books on the world of art, its producers and consumers, such as Un art moyen, essai sur les usages sociaux de la photographie (1965) and L’Amour de l’art, les musées d’art et leur public (1966). They all have been translated into English. In Distinction (1979) Bourdieu stressed the importance of culture and life style for the reproduction of social inequality.

Another of his major topics is methodology and epistemology. In Le métier de sociologue (1968) Bourdieu discusses his struggles with the problem of how to investigate and understand social practices, without distorting social reality during the research process. His Outline of a Theory of Practice formed a stepping-stone towards Le Sens Pratique (1980).

Bourdieu wrote a very critical analysis of the field of academics: Homo Academicus (1984). In 1989, it  was followed by La Noblesse d’état. The State Nobility focused on the preparation of the elite of the nation in special academic institutes and schools of secondary education.[9] His next book was Réponses (1992). The book was co-authored by Loic Wacquant, a former student of Bourdieu and a great admirer, translator and disseminator of Bourdieu’s work.

Pierre Bourdieu had a strong drive to go against the grain. In the nineties he turned into a political radical. In those days, there was an emphatic shift towards the right; not just within certain political parties, but within the entire population. The mainstream social democratic political parties of England, France, Germany and The Netherlands moved from left to the centre, embracing a so-called third way. In all these countries, governments attempted to stop and even reduce the steady increase in expenditure for social security, pensions, health and education. Bourdieu ardently  opposed such ‘neo-liberal’ policies and supported small political parties and political movements ‘left from the left.’ He delivered speeches to workers on strike or other politicized audiences and published books and pamphlets where this trend was radically attacked.

In the second half of 2001 Bourdieu fell ill. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and died on the 21^st of January 2002, aged 71.

10.2   Scientific friends and foes

Bourdieu admired the work of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. He borrowed some of their important ideas and reconstructed others. With Marx he shared a strong interest in inequality, power and domination. But, like Weber, he invested a lot of his energy in the analysis of cultural factors, in particular class-related lifestyles. He was also influenced by the work of Durkheim and Mauss on classification.[10] He shared Durkheim’s and Peter Berger’s strong interest in socialization, because this process forms the foundation for what he called the habitus, i.e. the lifestyle and taste that everyone develops. Moreover, the work of Berger and Luckmann on the social construction of reality provided him with the necessary material for his attempt to bridge the theoretical gap between the individual subject and the social object. He calls attention to the process of objectification, where individuals, both consciously as subconsciously, are influenced by objective social conditions and constraints, to construct and reproduce social facts. In his view, the concept of habitus, i.e. the mental make up that one acquires during socialization, offers a very promising conceptual solution. (More about the habitus-concept in a later section.)

10.2.1 The attempt to end the objectivism-subjectivism debate

At first, Bourdieu was deeply impressed by the structuralism of Lévi-Strauss. But soon he distanced himself from this approach, because structuralists tend to analyze the social world purely as a system of objective relationships. They degrade human beings to pure bearers of the social structure.[11] Structuralists try to grasp objective relations, which, as Marx said, are independent of the human mind and will.[12] Bourdieu reintroduced the social agent as a socialized individual. He knew that individual actions are determined by society, but rejected the idea that this was the whole story. There is some space left for individual choices.

Like Elias, Bourdieu was eager to bridge the great distance between objectivism and subjectivism. Objectivism treats social facts as things, or as objects, as Durkheim would have it, and bars anything that is connected to individual consciousness. Subjectivism takes the opposite view and reduces everything to mental representations. Marx and Durkheim expressed the objectivist position most consistently. Bourdieu quoted Durkheim’s remark that “… social life must be explained not by the conception of those who participate in it, but by the deep causes which lie outside consciousness.” In this approach, scientific knowledge can be obtained by breaking away from the primary representations or ‘pre-notions’, as Durkheim termed them. This leads to a search for impersonal causes. But Bourdieu draws attention to the fact that even hard-core objectivists cannot fully ignore individual consciousness. Marx, for example, used concepts such as ideology or class-consciousness and Durkheim characterized man as a homo duplex, that is, as a social being with both a subjective and a collective conscience.

One of the most prominent subjectivists is Alfred Schutz. In his view, social reality has a specific meaning for each individual being. Humans pre-select and pre-interpret their world as the true reality of daily life.[13] Consequently, their premature and unscientific interpretations influence their social actions. Therefore, social scientists should base their analysis of social actions on these subjective mental constructions, acknowledging that these interpretations of ‘ordinary people’ are tentative and premature. The contrast between the subjectivist and the objectivist stance could not be greater. According to Durkheim and Marx, we can only gain sociological insights by cutting ourselves loose from the prevailing preconceptions and false ideologies of common people. On the other hand, subjectivists think that only common sense based knowledge of ordinary people will provide a valid and solid ground for useful sociological knowledge.[14] Bourdieu makes an audacious attempt to summarize this epistemological battle in a few sentences.

“On the one hand, the objective structures which the sociologist constructs in the objectivist moment, by setting aside the subjective representations of the agents, are the basis of subjective representations. They constitute the structural constraints, which influence interactions. But, on the other hand, these representations also have to be remembered if one wants to account above all for the daily individual and collective struggles, which aim at transforming or preserving these structures. This means that the two moments, objectivist and subjectivist, stand in a dialectical relation.”[15]

Bourdieu stated that men’s representations are closely connected with their social position. We hear echoes of Marx, who insisted that the content of our minds was determined by class conditions. The objectivistic approach offers a necessary but limited part of any sociological analysis. It must be complemented with the analysis of individual social interactions. These interactions can be observed by means of audio-visual recordings or standardized descriptive methods. However, social interactions cannot be understood without a clear picture of the positions of agents in social space, their positions in relation to one another. A mere analysis of interaction patterns can easily overlook the substratum of the subjects’ relations with the social structure. Only if we know someone’s position, can we understand why he or she is acting in a subservient, arrogant or superior way. Then we know how to interpret certain actions and remarks. The observation that someone ‘is rather flexible’ becomes more specific, for example, when we are aware that this person is a drill-sergeant. So, from a sociological standpoint, it is not satisfactory to reduce social structures to interaction processes, nor is it admissible to deduce interactions completely from the structural positions that people occupy in social space. We need instead to reinforce the positive aspects of both approaches. Firstly, the construction of social reality does not take place in a social vacuum, but is subject to social conditions. Secondly, we need to be aware of the fact that all our ideas have social origins. And thirdly, we should always bear in mind that the social construction of reality is no individual affair but a collective enterprise.

Rejecting the assumption of the fully deterministic social behaviour does not necessarily imply that one has fallen for the charms of the idea of the free will of the voluntarists. We must find a middle course between total determination and complete freedom. Structuralism reduces individuals to puppets on a string, as if they are completely subjected to social forces. If this were true, individual will or conscience do not matter. Consequently, people cannot be held responsible for their actions. Bourdieu sought for his solution in concepts such as habitus, sens pratique, strategy and feel for the game.

10.2.2 Ferocious attack at rational choice theory

Rational choice theory was Bourdieu’s archenemy. Structuralists tend to underestimate the role of individuals, rational choice theorists tend to overestimate it. They fail to acknowledge the rich complexity individuals. In their approach humans become one-dimensional beings who always will operate in rational waya. His main objections against rational action theory or RAT, as he preferred to call it, are:

• It locates the whole dynamics of social life in purely rational decision-making. It ignores the individual and collective histories which unconsciously generate the ongoing reality of social life;
• It substitutes the culturally defined and historically changing rationalities and interests of real life with an arbitrary rationality, namely the rationality of the market, of positive science, logic and self-interest.
• It prevents a theoretical apprehension of the relationships between individuals and between individuals and their environment, which are the real objects of social science.

According to Bourdieu, it is easy to understand why, at first sight, RAT may appear to be empirically sound. The idea of individual finalism, which conceives of action as determined by conscious goal setting, is an attractive and  plausible illusion. Most people like to think that they are independent; that they are rational agents capable of making decisions autonomously. Richard Jenkins argues that Bourdieu’s attack is not entirely justified and not consistent.[16] Does not Bourdieu himself set goals and objectives, which he then pursuits? Why cannot this be true for common people, for his research subjects too? If one starts to debate the question whether or not people always behave in a rational way and pursue their own self-interest, then we create two opposing camps that never will be reconciled. The question is, really, what can be explained with the help of the model of a purely rational man and what by other motives for social action? It does not take much observation to see that most people will behave in a rational way most of the time. They will not hesitate to take the shortest and safest way back home. They will try to buy the best consumer goods for the lowest price. If they encounter some problems, they will search for solutions that will require minimal costs and physical energy. But it is also true that people often do things that seem to go against their own interest, such as helping a stranger in need, or buying something rather expensive, because it is thought to boosts one’s status. It is clear that we cannot satisfy our sociological curiosity with only one paradigm. Rational choice theory can only answer a certain type of questions. But this is true for any paradigm. Bourdieu, the polemist, was right with his critique of the polarized versions of structuralism and rational choice theory. But this critique should not lead to a complete abandonment of these approaches. On the contrary, from a dialectical stance, such a critical attitude should lead to a search for kind of synthesis where social structure and individual behaviour both get due attention. In the following sections we will see whether Bourdieu has been successful in creating such a synthesis.

10.3   Habitus

In 1971, Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron published the theory of the habitus, a term borrowed from Thomas of Aquino.[17] They had been looking for a concept that could aptly describe the connections between socio-economic conditions and lifestyle. Socialization theories claim that we continuously learn from and are influenced by our social and cultural environment. Thus, we appropriate a large number of skills and perspectives, learn to know our position in the social system and acquire our social identity. During our youth, we absorb all the assumptions of the dominant culture and internalize the norms and values of our social group, class or caste. Social conditions of our childhood get deeply ingrained in our minds. This process creates a mental structure of views and opinions that will be taken for granted. In this way objective structures and internalized subjective structures converge, rendering an illusion of immediate understanding of our life-world, a comfortable illusion we dare not give up. Bourdieu calls this mental structure the habitus. It is a rather consistent set of perspectives that encompasses observations, evaluations, and pre-dispositions to act in certain ways. The basics for these mental schemes are acquired within the family, and later on, also schoolteachers, classmates, peers, our best friends take up the socialization process. Because this process might sound a bit too one-sided, we should recognize that we partly choose our own socializing agents, in particular our friends. Later on also our colleagues will play a role and add something to the development of our habitus. With some colleagues, we only interact when strictly necessary, with others we develop more intensive and friendly relations. This kind of voluntarism falls within the range of our own discretion. In most cases this will not arouse negative reactions or other actions of social control. Anyhow, this internalized habitus generates meaningful perceptions, intentions, and a disposition to action in certain ways, fitting the social context from which they emerged.

In Distinction Bourdieu presents the emergence and the proceedings of the habitus in a rather simple model, after explaining first, far less simply, that the habitus is not only a system that produces social actions, but also a system of classification for evaluating these social practices. With the help of these capabilities the habitus helps us constituting and reproducing the social world.[18] In his typical style, characterized by his habit of using several variations of the same word, Bourdieu states that the habitus not only is a structuring structure, but also a structured structure. At an abstract level this is rather evident. Every structure is structured and only structured processes can change the structure of something else. What Bourdieu wants to make clear is that the principles of producing and classifying practices and evaluations, embedded in any habitus, in turn are themselves the product of internalizing the objective, class based social structure. Because the habitus is developed within a world full of concrete class differences, it gets adapted to it. We have learnt to recognize and acknowledge these class differences in our society or our ‘social space,’ a term preferred by Bourdieu to emphasize that all positions are relational. We have learned, often unconsciously, to classify and judge everything according to the standards of our own social group or class. Thus we create and reproduce the same practices, products, lifestyles, and tastes that belong to our own social origins. Doing so, we underline, support, and reproduce the existing social order with all its social differences and cultural distinctions.

Figure 10.1 Social conditions, habitus, and lifestyle

Social origin ⇨	Habitus ⇨	Lifestyle/taste
Social, and cultural conditions	The production system of social practices and preferences (taste)	Social practices and products

Despite its new terminology there is a strong similarity with the process of internalization described by other renowned sociologists and psychologists. But the focus of Bourdieu is broader. Theorists such as Durkheim, Parsons and Berger put a very strong emphasis on the formation of moral behaviour. In their view, our conscience acts as a guardsman of social behaviour, to the effect that all individuals stay in line with the expectations of the social group, at least to a sufficient degree. Bourdieu does not belittle this control function in any way, but he likes to focus on the inculcation of dispositions for certain behavioural patterns. The habitus ensures that people can make the right choices without any effort, whenever they are interacting with other people. This can also boil down to self-control and self-censorship. In particular, Bourdieu wants to make clear that our personal lifestyle will not deviate much from the lifestyle we have observed and experienced during childhood, a lifestyle that seems to be apt for our kind of people. Where the classical theory of internalization deals with the question why people abstain from certain actions, Bourdieu draws attention to the question why people are dispositioned to choose, or seem to prefer, particular actions. Where other classical theorists pay much attention to norms and values, Bourdieu focuses on lifestyle and taste.

Bourdieu recognizes the social determination of our behaviour, but leaves room for the concept of voluntary behaviour. He rejects the notion of the hyper-socialized and fully determined social agent. With his concept of a habitus he wants to escape the vision of a totally regulated social existence. The habitus directs our behaviour, efficiently and efficaciously, to certain objectives, even though we are unaware of this. What people say or do not say, do or leave undone, seldom is determined by conscious calculation. The extreme urgency of large parts of our social behaviour excludes a careful consideration of all the pros and cons. Mostly, the circumstances urge us to react in a split second. Because of the necessity to react immediately – for also a hesitation can be interpreted to carry meaning, often quite a significant one – people have to possess a kind of second nature for apt reactions. In our contacts with other people we are often confronted with unexpected actions or reactions. What will we do when someone attacks us? Will we venture a counter-attack, cry for help or run away as fast as we can? But also in less dangerous situations we have to react quickly and convincingly. How to respond to a difficult and rather awkward, but relevant question during a job-interview? Even our hesitation to answer immediately will be interpreted in a certain way. Will we speak the whole truth, even though it might reduce our chances of getting this job? Or will we conceal our lack of experience with specific tasks and exaggerate our skills? Can we bluff ourselves out of this predicament? In situations like this our behaviour strongly depends on our habitus.

But the habitus cannot guide everything. It is impossible to foresee everything and be prepared at all times. People have to improvise. Improvisations and solutions for new and unexpected problems. However, we still have to make decisions that fall within the range of what is acceptable. These conditions are predetermined in a long historical process. They constitute hard social facts that cannot easily be altered by single individuals. Social and cultural conditions, however, are mostly taken for granted. There is little desire for change, because these conditions are ingrained in the habitus in great detail. So, when we plan our reaction to an unexpected situation, we unconsciously take all these restrictive conditions into consideration. Hence, our mind will not even allow solutions that are only theoretically possible.

We do not act at random, but rather predictably. We act as we do, because we have been socialized to do so. On the other hand, the habitus does not mean we operate as a robot. There is some room for individual manoeuvring.

The habitus implies that we have the capacity to react in a flexible but fitting way to all kinds of situations. With this notion, Bourdieu wants to transcend irritating theoretical oppositions such as deterministic – voluntaristic, causal explanation – teleological explanation, unconscious actions – conscious actions. Perceived as social life incorporated, the habitus concept should be able to transcend the absurd opposition between individual and society, or, politically, between zero and total individual freedom.[19] These are two complementary and inseparable parts of one system. By developing his habitus the individual becomes an accessory to the continuation of social life. This complicity assumes conscious as well as an unconscious participation in social affairs. It manifests itself in what Bourdieu calls ‘feel for the game’ or ‘practical sense’.[20]

All humans have their own individual biography, so they all have acquired a habitus that is a variant of the modal habitus of their social group, class or category. Since members of a social group share a great many of social conditions, they also share a large part of their habitus. This facilitates living, working and playing together without an ever-present overseer. All participants know what is expected from them, when to start, how to play, and when to stop. Besides, the habitus turns necessities into virtue.[21] Most individuals learn to adjust their subjective expectations to objective opportunities. Thus, the social order is firmly established in everyone’s habitus. Hence further supervision is not needed. In general, public display of power is unnecessary. Social order is produced and reproduced in our mindsets. That is one of the main functions of the habitus.

It may appear that the notion of ‘order’ implies a strict application of rules. This view is too simple. The social world is far too complex to survive just by following and reaffirming a rigid set of rules. Social order is dynamic and organic. This order cannot be explained by a concept of behaviour that is completely directed by fixed rules. To survive in a complex social system, people need to develop a sense of practice and a feel for strategic actions.

10.3.1 Strategy, sense of the game, sense of practice

Bourdieu has introduced several new sociological concepts. One of the most innovative is le sens pratique (practical sense or feel for the game). His concept ‘feel for the game’ has little in common with mathematical forms of game theory, or with Goffman’s metaphor of society as a theatre or play. Undoubtedly, people play games with each other. Often they use a whole array of different strategies to manipulate each other. These observations urged Bourdieu to shift his perspective to the vocabulary of social strategies or practical sense. This terminology renders a different perspective on social actions. It marked his definitive departure from structuralism.

In his first ethnographic studies he described how culturally given dispositions, interests, and means of production interact with individual skills and idiosyncrasies, with economic, social, and cultural constraints, and with the social effects of historical events. However, in Kabylia, Algeria, he realized that conjugal transactions should not be perceived as the simple continuation of an already existing genealogical line and specific matrimonial rules, but rather as the result of a complex strategy. Nonetheless,  these negotiations repeatedly led to the manifestation of certain traditional patterns.

Bourdieu developed a growing distaste of the term rule, because it always remains very unclear what structuralists mean when they use this word. Is it a juridical or quasi-judicial principle, more or less consciously produced and dominated by social agents, or is it a set of objectively observable regularities imposed on all those who join a game?[22] Theorists should make a clear distinction between a law-like rule and an empirical regularity. Social life is regulated. It is a place where certain actions take place on a regular basis, where most actions follow well-known patterns. For instance, in many multi-ethnic and multi-faith countries, there are hardly any marriages between partners from different ethnic or religious groups. Also, in many countries, rich people tend to marry the rich and the poor marry with the poor. Specific historical and social processes steer marriage candidates towards potential partners with similar social backgrounds or levels of education.

Yet, there is a third meaning to the word rule, in the model or principle constructed by scientists to explain social phenomena. If one blurs these distinctions one risks to confuse “the things of logic with the logic of things” as Marx once phrased it while criticizing Hegel. To avoid this, one has to include the real principle behind strategies, i.e. the practical sense or feel for the game, as sports players prefer to call it. The real principle behind it is the practical mastery of the logic of a game. This mastery of the immanent necessities of the game is enhanced by experience and training.[23]

When observing social processes Bourdieu saw similarities with sports games like football. He observed group of people participating in a socially regulated activity, but the outcome of the match did not depend on the mere obedience to the rules. Sometimes, often at crucial moments, players bend the rules in such a way that the referee does not see it, or not fully. Besides official rules, over time, each social game has acquired an inbuilt necessity. Because of existing rules of players cannot do whatever they like. They run the risk of receiving a yellow card or being send off. And by ignoring the inherent logic of the game teams run the risk of losing the match. Winning is priority number 1. Sometimes, defenders deliberately ignore the rules, make a faul, risking a yellow or red card, to prevent that their opponents will score the winning goal.  

One’s feel for the game has developed during children’s play and other social activities. The star player is, so to speak, the game incarnate. Very often he performs exactly what the game requires. This presupposes a permanent capacity for invention, for finding creative solutions in difficult situations. This capacity is indispensable for anyone who has to adapt to infinitely varied and never completely identical situations that emerge during the match.

“Nothing is simultaneously freer and more constrained than the action of the good player. He quite naturally materializes at just the place the ball is about to fall, as if the ball were in command of him – but by that very fact he is in command of the ball.” [24]

The activities in team sports may give the impression of automatic actions, as if players are robots. Though they have trained specific actions until they have become automatisms, they can execute blindly, without thinking, so that they can use these skills whenever the situation demands them. In a split second, they scan the positions of their teammates and their opponents, including the direction they are going and the route they probably will choose, their speed and the speed and direction of the ball. When players sell a dummy, it is in anticipation of the anticipations of the opponent.

            In a conversation, we can observe similar processes. The content and tone of a conversation is guided by the practical sense and feel for the interaction process, which includes empathy with the other. Sportsmen and women eager to win a game, catch the ball, or score a point, need to have a good feel for the game. In a similar way, in academics, business or politics,  people that want to make a deal, to get promoted, recruit a new colleague, acquire a new business partner or a political ally must have a good feel for the relevant games of society. They must be able to profit from every opportunity that comes their way. They must be creative and able to improvise.[25]

Concepts like habitus, feel for the game and strategy do not square with concepts such as a mechanical obedience to explicit, codified rules. Bourdieu developed these notions to break away from the idea of action without an agent that structuralism presupposes. His description of the double strategies employed in playing according to the rules, while intermittently neglecting these rules when they do not fit personal interests, offers a good example of his theoretical intentions. The most able players will give the impression that they live according to the rules, but are prepared to break a rule whenever achieving one’s goal demands it. Again, take football, aka soccer, for vivid illustrations. Rinus Michels, the successful late coach of Ajax, Barcelona, and the Dutch national team, used to tell his players that soccer is war. So, smart players will not hesitate to place a well-aimed kick against the shinbone or ankle of an opponent who threatens to score a goal. But they will make it look like an unintentional accident, an offence that could not be helped but happened in the heat of the moment. However, we can safely assume that these professional artists, these athletes who have trained their body to the limit, really acted consciously. The way they react to the referee after this act of foul play is telling enough. They show no concern for the pain of their opponent. There only fear is being sent off. Later, safely retired , some may admit that the foul was deliberate and committed because losing the match was no option. Such unwritten rules state that fouls are necessary as a last resort. Even the risk of temporary suspension or a fine is taken into the bargain. This example clarifies that sociologists must always make an effort to look beyond the official rules of the game. Structuralists tend to neglect this.    

10.3.2 Matrimonial strategies

From 1957 to 1964, Bourdieu did ethnographic research in Kabylia, Algeria, to study systems and rites of marriage in a pre-capitalist society. Bourdieu was intrigued by the clash between tradition and modernity fand its impact on matrimonial systems.[26] Matchmaking can appear to be subjected to strict rules. The most powerful restrictions emerge from customs related to succession, such as the necessity to maintain a farm large enough to be viable. But traditional rules are not always obeyed. Sometimes, they are bent to achieve personal goals. Therefore, social scientists must observe the practice of matchmaking, because the laws of tradition everyone speaks about are not reliable. Bourdieu learned that his concepts such as a feel for the game or practical sense can be applied quite well to traditional matrimonial strategies in Northern Africa as well as to the practices of peasants in the Béarn, the region in the South of France where he grew up. He contended that it was indeed necessary to use these concepts, lest we end up with fruitless theories. Practical sense guides people to ‘choose’ the best partner, in the given circumstances and under certain conditions. For instance, the eldest son in a well-to-do family has better prospects than his younger brothers.[27] The explicit rules of the game define the value of sons and daughters. In that sense, the prevailing norms and values, customs and traditions, determine the outline of the playing field. But within this field, everyone may choose the best strategy for success.

In Kabylia, matrimonial arrangements often are the outcome of power relationships between families. These relationships can be fully understood by appealing to the history of this group, in particular the social history of previous marriages. If the mother comes from outside, she will endeavour to reinforce her position by trying to find a match in her own lineage, which will be less problematic the more prestigious her lineage is. But the father may find it in his interest to find a match in his own lineage. The outcome of this conflict of interests between husband and wife is unpredictable, because it does not follow simple rules. Besides, there are many other factors that play a role, for instance strategies of fertility, educative strategies, or economic strategies. Clearly, there is much more to marriage than sexual attraction and biological reproduction. Above all, in traditional societies most families want to maintain or better their position and rank.  

The interesting question is whether these matrimonial traditions are applicable to modern, open and individualized societies. Bourdieu, who observed the transformation from a planned matrimonial market to a much freer market, noted that the importance of habitus is as great as ever. How else could we explain that birds of a feather always flock together? Moreover, there are all kinds of strategic customs to ensure that the supply of potential partners be restricted to the right kind. There are public dances, exclusive balls and other community gatherings to create some kind of protectionism for the matrimonial market. Within socially and culturally homogenous groups, such as student fraternities or sororities, or mixed sports clubs, a large number of love affairs and matrimonial matches are made. The creation of homogenous social categories largely excludes relationships with outsiders. But the best guarantee for a marriage between equals (homogamy), and maintaining status, is the spontaneous affinity that joins humans with a similar habitus.

The great families of the French aristocracy use matrimonial strategies that are altogether similar to those Bourdieu had observed among peasants from Béarn. In the most famous families of the French aristocracy, marriages are founded on strategic manoeuvres, intended to retain or improve social status. Even important economic decisions, such as business mergers, quite often are connected to certain relations between families that have been welded by ‘arranged’ marriages.[28] It is certain that these elite families do all that is in their power to keep their youngsters segregated from commoners, for instance, by sending them to prestigious private schools or to exclusive holiday camps or to encourage them to become members of expensive sports clubs. These strategies are, at the core, similar to the strategies of rural people in the South of France or in Kabylia.

Conjugal strategies cannot be dissected from other strategies, such as family planning, financial investments, or the education. They form a coherent set of strategies aimed at the preservation of social positions and status. Whatever the social and historical conditions, privileged groups will do all they can to keep their privileged position intact. The drive to improve status and the anxiety to lose it, the desire to improve one’s social position and capital, are the main motives behind all these strategies. That is why elite groups choose elite schools for their children. That’s why white parents send their children to white schools as soon as the number of pupils from minority groups rises above a certain tipping point.

10.4   Marx revisited and revised

10.4.1 Cultural capital and social battlefield[29]

To get a good understanding of our social world we must study capital in all its manifestations. Capital is not just money, or whatever can easily be changed for money. Bourdieu stressed that sociologists have to look further. Economic practices do not exhaust all social practices. Therefore, Bourdieu coined the term cultural capital. There are three forms:

• The corporeal form, that is the form of enduring dispositions, skills, and capacities;
• Objective forms such as paintings, books, software, et cetera;
• Institutionalized forms such as educational diplomas, certificates, and titles of nobility.

Corporeal cultural capital is a form of ownership developed as a part of the habitus: being is having. This strictly personal form of capital cannot change hands from one moment to another, as is the case with money. Yet in certain ways and forms it can be transferred. Specific forms of knowledge and particular skills can be taught. Thus it can be handed down to children, students, and protégés. To some degree this happens subconsciously, but in other cases this demands a lot of time and energy, for which one often has to forgo beloved leisure time activities.

Bourdieu did not accept differences in intellectual ability or motivation as a valid explanation for the ubiquitous class differences in school achievements. He claimed that educational success strongly depends on cultural capital, ‘inherited’ from parents. Children from the higher classes have developed a habitus that eases their educational career, thanks to the fact that they are raised in an environment of cultural capital and specific investments made by their parents. Middle class parents show great interest in the cognitive development of children, in particular the correct use of language.

Next to cultural capital there is also social capital: the whole set of present and potential resources that can be mined from one’s social network.

Bourdieu was a real conflict theorist. He saw conflicts wherever he looked. He discerned all kind of struggles for power, prestige, and money. His concept of society as a (battle-) field, or a whole consisting of all kinds of battlefield, occupies a central place in his theories. The structure of a social field (champ) is a state of power relations among the agents or institutions engaged in the struggle. It is also a state of distribution of the specific capital accumulated in the course of previous struggles and it orients subsequent strategies.

“The most different social fields, court society, the field of business firms or the academic field can function only if there are agents who invest in them, in the different senses of this term, who commit their resources to them and pursue their objectives, thus helping, even when hostile, to maintain the structure of the field or, in certain conditions, to transform it.” [30]

Despite the big differences that exist between fields, differences in stakes and interests, there are general laws of fields. The functioning of fields as different as politics, philosophy or religion follows invariant laws. That is why the project of a general theory is not completely unreasonable and why, even now, we can use what we learn about the functioning of each particular field to question and interpret other fields.[31] In each field we can observe conflicts between newcomers and the establishment, between upstarts and old stock. Whether sportsmen, artisans, scientists or politicians, as newcomers they all have to prove themselves in the form of a specific talent, knowledge or skill. To gain access to the top-levels of their field they must pass certain tests and earn the merit of being a worthy opponent or teammate. This does not stop the elite of a particular field, to defend their privileged position with all the means that can be mustered.

Each field is determined by specific stakes and interests, which are irreducible to the stakes and interests specific to other fields. Talents, knowledge and skills that are important in one field can be worthless in another one. The structure of a field is the state of the power relations between agents and institutions that are caught up in the struggle. One can also say that it is the distribution of relevant capital or capitals that is decisive. The structure of field directs the battle strategies for better positions. The powerful opt for conservative strategies that will not alter the structure of the field. Innovations and changes are risky. The newcomers and other less privileged categories tend to put their hopes on change, on new plans and methods, which might offer opportunities for improving their position. They have more to gain then to lose.

Concepts such as field, habitus, strategy and feel for the game are closely related. Each social field is connected with a specific habitus and a specific feel for the game, because it has its own stakes, rules and logic. Think of the fields of professional sports, policing, medicine, science, banking, and building. How the game can be played largely depends on one’s position in one’s field and vice versa. Bourdieu gave the example of the editor or a critic of a progressive paper writing polemic articles with, unawares perhaps, the expected reaction of a conservative reader in the back of her mind. Similar processes occur in political debates. The inner logic of a field can engender unintended actions and unintended consequences. A national newspaper might lose some of its loyal readers and a political party might lose its grassroots support. An avant-garde painter may encounter hostile reactions to the unexpected and unfamiliar works he created in order to distance himself from the former generation of artists. In that case, it is quite unlikely that he will sell many of his paintings. Nevertheless, it is possible that he has engendered a process that will change the taste for works of art.

            According to Bourdieu, new consumer goods are introduced all the time, not because producers want to change their products, or consumers demand new and different products, but simply because of the inner logic of a market economy. Within the logic and automatisms of capitalism, businesses are always looking for new buyers and new products that could give them a decisive advantage on their competitors.[32]

10.4.2 Social Class revisited

Bourdieu’s theory of fields signifies a rupture with the class theory of Marx. But, since the reproduction of social inequality was his main concern, he couldn’t ignore the insights of Marx. On the contrary, he reconstructed, refined, and expanded some of the latter’s ideas. This was urgent because, since Marx died, the socio-economic situation in large parts of the world had changed dramatically. The social structure is much more diversified than a century ago. In the nineteenth century, in Europe, the proletariat of unskilled labourers was much more homogenous. All were poorly educated, had long working weeks, earned very little and lived in poverty. Time for leisure activities was sparse. There was no money to spend on luxury goods. As a consequence there was little variation in lifestyle. In the twentieth century this all changed. New types of jobs emerged followed by a matching system of education, pay rises and an improved social security system against the hazards of working life. Another important reason to expand and refine classic class theory is the need to take other structural factors into account. Economic factors no longer suffice. Gender, ethnicity and geographical stratification have become important too. Bourdieu maintained, furthermore, that cultural factors were of great significance.

In contrast to Marx’ simple model of a lower and a middle, slash upper class, Bourdieu painted a more complex picture of a society consisting of many layers and fields. Most of them are linked to particular professions and locations. Each social class must be subdivided into class fractions. Moreover, Bourdieu paid a lot of attention to the people who find themselves in ambiguous positions, as a result of upward or downward mobility. Another cause of increased complexity is the choice of a spouse from a lower or higher class. A working class man can move up the social ladder by marrying the daughter of a businessman. Eventually, he might even take over the business and become a businessman himself. But these are sporadic incidents. The larger impact comes from structural transformations of society. Think of the huge increase of women with paid work, whereas in the past most women stayed at home as housewives all their lives. This has boosted the income of many working class families. Having left poverty behind, they no longer did see themselves as members of the lower class. The whole concept of a proletariat faded away. These double income families can afford a more luxurious lifestyle, buy a car, go on holiday at least once every year. Relatively often they can enjoy lunch or dinner in restaurants or have some fast-food meals delivered at home. In the second half of the twentieth century, this transformation created a triple win situation. The workers became more affluent, the capitalists earned more money, because of the rise in production and consumption. Because of this significant boost for the economy, governments could expand the public sector, offering better welfare arrangements, public education, health care and so on. This smoothed social-political relations.

Bourdieu broadened our view on class and class relations. In his view, what constitutes a class is not only determined by the occupation, income, and educational level of its members, but also by secondary characteristics such as the sex-ratio, geographical distribution and a whole range of other characteristics that may function as latent prerequisites for class membership. One is not accepted without the required secondary characteristics. And if, miraculously, people ‘of the wrong type’ are admitted, they will often have special tasks. For instance, lawyers with an ethnic background will often get the cases that involve ethnic minorities, immigrants and political refugees.

Another important difference from Marx is the focus on the dynamics within each class and class fraction. The status of a class fraction as a whole can rise or fall. Innovations can lead to an up- or downgrading of occupational categories. The status of jobs tends to decline when the proportion of women rises, whereas the increase of the number of males in jobs that were formerly seen as typical women’s jobs will tend to boost its status. In the past, an excess in the number of unmarried men was a sign of a class’s degeneration. Bourdieu observed that farmer’s sons who were unable to buy or lease a flourishing farm, would postpone marriage, remain single for the rest of their life or choose a different occupation.[33]

The homogeneity of dispositions within an occupational category is partly a consequence of the rules that those occupations impose on their occupants. But it is also produced by the mechanism of selection that makes that those people who are attracted to these occupations already have been adjusted to the social requirements of these jobs. They have the feeling that they are born for this particular profession. In reality, they are prepared for their job within the modal educational trajectory of their social origin.

If some individuals still do not fit in at the beginning of their career, then they will learn to make adjustments in the following years. In general, humans adjust their aspirations to their objective chances. They learn to live with their objective conditions. They become what they are and learn to live with what they have.

Marxists attach too much value to theoretical analyses of classes. They confuse the things of theory with the logic or theory of things.[34] Bourdieu did not think it right to define a class as a theoretical category, fully based on objective economic conditions. He also rejected a definition purely based on subjective elements such as class-consciousness. He wanted to embrace both aspects simultaneously. Hence he defined classes as sets of agents who occupy similar positions and who, being placed in similar conditions and submitted to similar types of conditioning, have every chance of having similar dispositions and interests, and thus producing similar practices and adopting similar views.[35] Whether classes get involved in a revolutionary class struggle is not a question of historical determination, as Marx believed, but a question of historical probability or contingency. For instance, a sudden emergence of nationalism can shake up class affiliations. The real status of a potential working class remains dependent on a whole series of social and political conditions, or even the appearance of the right political leader at the right moment. In Bourdieu’s view, classes only exist when they are organized as a political party that has fully mandated its leaders to negotiate on behalf of the party and to demand certain actions from the party. The party and the class should be united, and act as one organizational unit. Instead of dismissing Marx’ core ideas completely as outdated concepts, Bourdieu refurbished them to make them relevant for the more complex societies of our day and age. His criticism of Marx’ theories did not lead to a definitive rupture. On the contrary, Bourdieu said that he was inclined to refer more often to the work of Marx after Marxism lost popularity among social scientists.

10.5   Inequality, education and symbolic violence

Bourdieu’s contribution to the sociology of education was the first aspect of his work that received wide recognition. Together with Jean Claude Passeron he published a series of books on this topic. All these books bear the mark of Bourdieu’s insights, concepts, and modus operandi.[36] In Les Héritiers (1964) Bourdieu showed that working class children lack the cultural capital that is required for a smooth educational career. He had thought that state schools were neutral institutions that offer opportunities to members of all classes to meet and to further get to know one another. During the preparations for La Reproduction (1970) he realized that schools are not neutral, but institutions of ‘symbolic violence’. In his view, they offered an ingenious solution to the problem of the intergenerational transfer of power and privileges.[37]

10.5.1 Symbolic violence

The concept of symbolic violence represents Bourdieu’s elaboration of Weber’s theories about authority and legitimization. He showed that the social justification of all kinds of mechanisms of power has no legitimate basis, but is merely based on the cover up of injustice and arbitrariness. Symbolic violence is the imposition of someone’s own system of meanings upon the members of other groups in such a way that this is perceived as ‘natural’ and legitimate. Most of the time the victims do not even realize what is hitting them. Authorities succeeding in imposing certain cultural elements upon the rest of the population, without revealing the real underlying power relations, increase their power. This constitutes an powerful form of suppression. It is insidious because the people who suffer from this type of violence are unaware of it. It is even worse. They think that inequality is okay and fair. Precisely the people who fail in education do not see that it is quite the reverse, that education has failed them. They are convinced that they have only themselves to blame. They were lazy and stupid, weren’t they? They did get low grades while others got high grades. These self-accusations show that formal education is well equipped to give the impression that everyone gets a fair chance. Qualified teachers teach everyone. Everyone has to study from the same kind of books and everybody receives the same treatment. Everyone will get a pass mark for a good answer and a fail for a wrong one. Everyone is subjected to exactly the same tests. So, lower class children and children from ethnic minorities do not see that middle class children from the dominant group did get a head start. They do not see that the content of education is not nicely tailored for their needs. But in fact, only the children socialized with middle class norms and values, from homes where the standard language is spoken, encounter at school the language, pronunciation, choice of words, and grammar rules they are accustomed to.[38]

The fact that educational systems succeed in helping a small group of people to acieve upward mobility, does not contradict the power of the reproductive mechanisms in society. On the contrary, these exceptions reinforce the myth of equal opportunities. They do not alter the overall pattern of social reproduction, but form a kind of legitimization for social inequality. Thus, in Bourdieu’s view, education insidiously contributes to the social stability in a society that pretends to be a real meritocracy.[39]

The dominant class has determined and still determines what knowledge should be taught. Thus, according to Bourdieu, the cultural elite takes care that their words and deeds are consolidated as the national standard, that the education system imposes the same standards in language, codes of conduct and other norms and values on all pupils and students, irrespective of their social, ethnic or sub cultural origin. Pedagogical actions include the suppression of ideas and opinions that do not tally with the hegemonic culture, as well as the indoctrination of pupils with the core elements of the prevailing culture. Teachers will do this with great conviction. They think that their actions are legitimate. But no pedagogical action is culturally neutral. Fortunately for them, the consumers of primary and secondary education are inclined to accept this.[40] Schools succeed in passing on the idea that the lifestyle and the taste of the upper class is the only valid lifestyle and taste. This view is supported by an ongoing tsunami of mainstream media and social media, and a relentless barrage of advertisements. Bourdieu found it very problematic that schools fail to create equal opportunities for all categories of children, irrespective of race, class or religion.

10.5.2 Self-exclusion by a negative reaction to limited opportunities

Thousands of studies from all over the world have shown already that socially deprived children have few opportunities of becoming upwardly mobile. Over and over again sociologists of education have proven that lower class children lag in cognitive development and educational achievements. They have a significantly higher tendency to dropout before getting a diploma, and, if they finish education with a diploma, in general their level of achievement and income will be below average. Not only educational scientists are aware of this fact, but also the population at large. That is one of the reasons why many children at risk give up on the idea of social mobility through school. Studies show that lower class children and children of minority groups tend to have a rather negative attitude towards education. For Bourdieu this is yet another manifestation of subjective adaptation to objective opportunities. There is a well-known study by Willis, often cited by Bourdieu, where the behaviour of a group of recalcitrant lower class pupils (the lads) is observed. These lads refused to conform to the school system. They tried to create havoc in class by harassing both teachers and well-behaving classmates, called “ear holes”, because they still listened to the teachers.[41] The lads attempted to imitate the sturdy, macho behaviour of their fathers, who worked in a factory or at a shipyard. Their fathers had never studied, hardly ever read nor did other intellectual things. Instead, they horsed around with their mates and tried to thwart the orders of their bosses. Anyhow, the obstructive behaviour of the lads resulted in the self-exclusion from education, and, at the end of the day, they were included in the ranks of the working class, just like their fathers.           

Similar processes of self-exclusion have been reported about ethnic minorities. Fordham describes the extreme pressure executed by peers with an anti-school attitude on classmates who are doing well at high school. Most black high school pupils in the ghettos of an American metropolis are convinced that higher education is not a black thing but a white thing.[42] Besides, they are certain that a diploma will get them nowhere, because of widespread racism among employers. Black boys in particular think that it is useless to put much effort in education. Most of their energy is channelled into proving their black male identity by dating girls. And the few who, stimulated by their parents and teachers, persist in studying hard are called ‘brainiacs’ or are accused of being homosexual. At that age these forms of harassment are not easy to resist. As a consequence, many will give in and join their peers, maybe forever forgoing the chance of a good education and a good career.

Fuller describes a group of black London girls, who try to solve this dilemma by performing an anti-school attitude during lessons, while simultaneously paying as much attention as they can. At home they work hard at their homework, although they flatly deny this should anyone ask. Their school career is not harmed while they remain friends with their less motivated peers.[43] This double strategy offers an excellent example of practical sense, as feel for the educational game. With another group of black youngsters in Amsterdam, this feel was lacking. Sansone observed a group of young Surinamese boys during a decade. The group counted many dropouts. They tried to survive with shady deals and other petty crimes.[44] This strategy was hopeless. Some were put in prison for several months or a few years. They forfeited their chances on a diploma and a good job. After a while, they had to be content with third-rate jobs in the secondary labour market or just went on with their life at the fringe. What we see is a contingency of unfavourable conditions. Education is not carefully attuned to their needs. The lack of school success leads to frustration, lower aspirations and, finally, dropping out without a diploma. They drift towards  the hedonistic subculture of their peers, promising immediate gratifications in the fields of music, dance, drugs and sex, paid for by the dodgy revenues of petty crimes.

10.5.3 Bourdieu’s theory of reproduction

Reproduction theorists like Bourdieu and Passeron are right in many respects. But their view on the reproduction of inequality by education is biased. Even a quick scan of the outcomes of educational research shows that the school system not only reproduces intergenerational inequality, but also helps supporting meritocratic tendencies. Nowadays numerous pupils from lower class origin succeed in entering universities and colleges. After graduation, most of them succeed in acquiring a job that suits their level of education. Therefore, it is not right to belittle the emancipatory effects of compulsory education. Besides, in most western countries girls have caught up with the educational level of boys or even have surpassed them. In secondary schools they tend to achieve better. Their marks are higher, fewer have to repeat a class, and they are just as successful with their exams. The only thing that lingers from past traditions for both girls and boys is that the choice for higher education appears to be gendered. On the other hand, however, there still is a big gap in achievement between majority groups and most ethnic minorities. Though, outcomes of research show significant differences between various groups. In the United States some minority groups show the same level, or even higher achievements than the white majority. In particular this is true for pupils who originate from East-Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea. These groups are also able to secure high status and well paid jobs, thanks to a favourable mix of family values and strong achievement motivation.[45]

Despite these meritocratic tendencies, then, there are strong reproductive forces at work in education. And precisely these forces have called the attention of Bourdieu. In his view, the reproductive element of education is situated in its middle class culture. Its whole curriculum is catered for children from the middle classes of the national majority. The language of the school is the standardized language of the nation. Hence, children from lower class families, or children from linguistic minorities, are disadvantaged from day one. They have far greater trouble to understand the teachers and they lack the right frame of reference for many elements in the curriculum. Many words and concepts are quite alien, whereas children from more privileged groups can easily feel at home at school, because they recognize the language, sayings, norms and values, from home.

Bourdieu acknowledges that middle class parents are prepared to invest a lot in the education of their children, to prevent that, to their great shame and embarrassment, their children will fail at school. Their children must become members of the same privileged class and acquire similar well paid high status jobs. They will pay for extra tutoring when necessary, or send their children to expensive private schools. Lower class parents often lack the insight that stimulating their children’s cognitive development is very important for school success. Another proof of their limited cultural capital.

This last perspective has been labelled as a deficit model. Adherents of the difference model assume that all cultures are equally valuable. Therefore, state schools should not give any group a head start by attuning the content and methods of education to the language and culture of one specific group. Some critics have accused Bourdieu of actually endorsing the deficit model, but this critique is completely misdirected. In fact, he is the champion criticizer of this arbitrary and unjust practice to support and legitimize the culture of the dominant class or ethnic group. He always tries to reveal the complicity of education in reproducing inequality with the help of symbolic violence. Whenever he speaks of a lack of cultural capital, it is only in a ‘relational’ logic. For sure, he does not think that victims should blame themselves. On the contrary, over and over again, he explains that these “deficits” are the result of social constructions.  Elites have been successful in making their own language, subculture, taste and lifestyle the only valid standard for national education, giving their children a head start. More reasons for the failure of education to offer all children a level playing field can be found in Bourdieu’s famous study Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste.

10.6   Cultural distinction and social distance

Bourdieu started his career as a researcher in Algeria. He was fascinated by its manifold cultural variations. At first, he was content with the explanation that cultural differences functioned as markers for ethnic identities. Later, he got interested in the social function of differences in lifestyle.[46] He observed that the adaptation to capitalism imposed by the French colonizers differed greatly from the process of becoming capitalistic on one’s own account. To Algerians, this transformation only meant imitating the lifestyle of the colonizers by purchasing modern French furniture and French luxury goods. Even people who lived in tents or very simple houses bought modern furniture and luxury goods to increase their status. In Kabylia, Pierre Bourdieu realized that the struggle for recognition is an essential part of social existence. People make extensive use of their status, lifestyle, and taste to get recognition.[47]

10.6.1 The road to a modern classic

In Photography, a Middlebrow Art, published in French in 1965, Bourdieu shifted from the language of differences to the language of distinction.[48] He saw that photography was seen as a sort of semi-art, and not as proper art. Photography is squeezed between ‘real’ forms of art such as painting, classical music, and literature and creative expressions that are related to taste, such as home decoration, interior design, and fashion. In the socially constructed hierarchy, professional photography is ranked as a second rate art at most, just like jazz and filmmaking. Amateur snapshots do not represent art at all, but a social practice. It is too easy. Everyone can do it.

For this empirical study on the social meaning of photography, Bourdieu observed village people from Béarn, the region of his birth, workers from a car factory and members of a photography club in Lille. Alas, he did not interview professional photographers, whose work is published in important magazines. Nonetheless, even this limited study highlights class differences. Within each social category, class or group there is a socially constructed consensus about what could or should be photographed and what not. Photography is strongly associated with family life. In general, the social function of taking pictures is to solemnize and record special occasions social where the group reaffirms its unity: weddings, christenings, family holidays, but rarely funerals. There also was consensus about how people and events had to be pictured. It is a very predictable way of registering and formalizing the highlights of family existence. These pictorial records support and reinforce the solidarity of the family by reinstating the image that people have of themselves as members of a close social unit. The following quotation nicely shows how Bourdieu, in his typical style, frames ordinary practices that nobody else seems worthy for a sociological analysis.

“Because taking pictures of the family is a ritual of the domestic cult where the family is subject as well as object, and because it forms an expression of – and therefore a reinforcement – of the festive feeling that a family renders itself, the need for pictures and taking pictures (the internalization of its social function) grows stronger the better the family is integrated and experiences a moment of maximal integration.”[49]

Even snapshots and selfies of family events have a social function at macro level too. They register the social distinction between different social categories and between the rural-traditional and urban-modern poles. Within the traditional context in particular, photos of weddings and baptisms contribute to the registration and consolidation of the objectified social organization. Thus, the social structure is recorded visually. The captured style of clothing, hairstyle, and jewellery will be shared on the internet. Forever, they will show to which social class this particular family belonged.

Whereas manual labourers and farmers have a simple and direct relationship to taking pictures – they know precisely when and how something should be photographed, taped or filmed – this is much more complex for the petite bourgeoisie. They know of ‘art photos’ by famous photographers who make photos from unexpected angles. Professionals capture events in an artistic way, creatively employing the special effects of natural and artificial light and the shadows they cast. Their pictures also manifest an experienced eye for composition and alertness for interesting social dynamics or awesome situations. The petty bourgeois really like to be able to take such photos themselves, but they know they lack the required professional skills. Therefore, they use their camera without much self-assurance.[50]

If Bourdieu had also studied practices in the upper class, he would have seen that they too take pictures and make video recordings of weddings and parties. However, the elite will always hire a good professional. Furthermore, ambitious people will also make sure to make photos of other main events in the family history: graduations and meetings with vip’s. American politicians, managers and professionals indulge in creating an ‘I-love-me-wall’ showing all their diplomas of higher education and their meetings with vip’s. All these photographs objectify someone’s social status.

10.6.2 What is art?

In retrospective, L’Amour de l’art from 1966 turned out to be a pilot study for his master piece: La distinction. Bourdieu claims that the definition of art is a very arbitrary affair. For me, sticking a ripe banana to a wall with duct tape and declare it art is stretching the definition of art too far. Long before this “event” Bourdieu had knocked ‘high’ culture from its pedestal and presented it as a rather arbitrary hobby of the leisure class. The cultural and social elites have managed to legitimize their taste for art as the right taste. Eagerly, lower middle class people try to imitate the lifestyle and cultural tastes of the higher classes. The working classes seem to be wiser. They do not even try. Life has made them believe that high culture, culture with a capital C, is not meant for them. They shall never visit a museum or a concert hall if they can avoid it. They would not enjoy what is displayed or performed and would not like the people who frequent these cathedrals of fine art, nor the exalted way in which those art-lovers tend to talk about art. To legitimize their dislike, they will assert that any toddler could have painted those abstract pictures.

The demarcation lines between fine art and phony banana art, between creative artists and ingenious impostures are not only questioned by the lower classes. The frontline between legitimate art and the latest form of avant-garde has always been hotly debated. In the past the issue whether abstract paintings could be considered as real art has been hotly debated. The same is true for disfigured faces and bodies painted by Picasso. After a while the whole art world has accepted abstract paintings and the work of Picasso. It has been bought by top-museums and auctioned for exorbitant prices.

But let us ponder a little about another case. A few famous connoisseurs of art assert that two of the three famous sunflower paintings by Vincent van Gogh are forgeries. If true, this could mean that one of most expensive paintings in the world is not a Van Gogh, but the work of a highly talented copier.

These examples make clear that the borderline between art and non-art is arbitrary. The question is whether it follows that the classification of art is no more than an arbitrary matter decided by the cultural elite.

10.6.3 The natural gaze: unmasking a modern myth

There are individuals who pretend to have a natural gift for appreciating and evaluating art. To Bourdieu, this is a myth. According to Immanuel Kant, the aesthetic gaze springs from a lofty perspective that is free of personal interests. In Bourdieu’s view, there is no such thing as an interest free and pure gaze, but a disposition that is the fruit of a life of abundance and wealth. Without having to worry about naked survival, the elite created time for leisure activities, for the creation and appreciation of art. Within the confines of a comfortable and luxurious life, they could afford to distance themselves from the daily worries for survival and indulge in ‘useless matters’, such as art and music.[51]

To arrive at this point art itself had to emancipate – a struggle that took centuries. Firstly, it had to free itself from the yoke of the church and the king. During the long trajectory towards the movement of l’art pour l’art, art for art’s sake, artists gradually had stopped considering the wishes and decrees of church leaders, kings and their lackeys.  It is no surprise that this movement coincided with the freeing of science from religious doctrines. At the dawn of a new era artists no longer accepted any obligation that conflicted with the intrinsic demands of their artistic creation. Art became an autonomous field. The struggle for power, status and prestige was fought with the customary rules and methods within this field, but this also widened the gap with common people and the emergence of a highly selective group of pretentious connoisseurs, who believed to have a natural gift for appreciating the true aesthetic quality of paintings and sculptures.

In L’Amour de l’art Bourdieu denounced the hypothesis that one is born with or without the ability to appreciate art. He became convinced that this ability is nurtured by the right upbringing. A full and immediate understanding of a work of art is possible only in those cases where the code of the viewer coincides with the codes of the artist. Therefore, most people do not understand most works of art. People, who seem to interpret works of art intuitively, rely on a so-called gift that is nothing less than a habitus developed in childhood. They grew up in a social environment where art was readily available. Their parents listened to classical music, visited museums and talked a lot about art. That is why their ability to interpret art is no more than a show off of cultural capital acquired during socialization.

10.6.4 Contesting taste

Differences in taste always cause touchiness. This is a common experience of mankind, hence the famous dictum that we should not debate matters of taste: De gustibus non est disputandum. A useless advice. People always argue about good and bad taste. This is not an innocent matter.  Differences of taste may cause couples to separate. The most devastating remark one can make is that someone has no taste. La Rochefoucauld once observed that our pride will be hurt more by the assertion that we lack good taste than with the statement that our views are wrong.[52] Another reason for the ongoing battle about good or bad taste is that tastes separate social classes. One can immediately recognize cultivated people. They are tastefully dressed, and show good manners and good taste. That is why the English say that ‘Manners maketh men’, at least those Englishmen who think of themselves as being well mannered and so have earned the right to judge other people. With his sociological analysis of taste, Bourdieu touched an open nerve. Moreover, he has helped to reclaim the study of culture from the realm of conservatism, making it an acceptable terrain of study for all social scientists.

Of all tastes the taste for music is likely to be the most sensitive. The display of musical capital is quite different from flaunting one’s knowledge of other forms of art, for music is the most spiritual art, and so the love for music offers the best proof of a ‘spiritual’ personality. Music touches our body and soul. Music can arouse people; it can elevate emotions to a state of euphoria, or a state of sacred devotion. It can move people deeply, or cause them to sing and dance. It can remove tensions and bring people in a very quiet mood. Music is the most spiritual form of art, but also the most physical.[53] Though Bourdieu tended to emphasize the individual preference for particular styles of music, he was far more interested in the relationship between musical preferences and the social conditions that have made the development of these preferences possible. To him this always boiled down to a process of class-based socialization. During this process, young people learn to distinguish objects and customs that are associated with good or bad taste. Within this context they develop a personal taste that is only a minor variation on the modal taste of their social group. Nonetheless, this little deviation of the modal form is enough to give them the feeling of having a unique personal taste and identity. Each time when they discover something that perfectly fits their own taste; they discover and affirm their personality a little bit more.[54]

In Distinction, subtitled ‘a social critique of the judgment of taste’, Bourdieu shows that the taste for art is socially conditioned. The statistic relation between educational capital and social origin is matched by a similar relation between tastes for specific forms of art and social class. Different classes develop quite distinctive tastes for art and music, and quite distinctive attitudes towards museums and concert halls. Distinction is about the different reactions to works of art, paintings, sculptures, music, literature and poetry. People with a low level of education tend to have a strong affinity with realistic paintings are beautiful women, animals, and paintings of flowers or fruit that appear to be so real that you feel the urge to touch, caress or eat them. For them, the quality of the art is closely connected to the degree to which reality is copied.[55] In their eyes abstract paintings are not art at all, because they are convinced that everyone can do that. People with cultural capital have learned to appreciate abstract paintings. With figurative paintings, they tend to ignore the primary image – the realistic representation – and pay much more attention to characteristics of style, technique, and composition and to allusions to other works, myths or certain metaphors.[56] And in the case of abstract paintings they pretend to know what emotions this particular work of art is supposed to arouse. All this has nothing to do with an intuitive gift for appreciating art correctly, but with a capacity that has been developed during socialization.

It is even more striking that the taste for superior art is concomitant to the taste for clothes and even food. Members of the working class had to work under very difficult conditions. Hence, they needed durable clothing made of strong material. The work of the elite did not require any strong physical effort. They could afford to wear clothes of fragile and delicate material. Labourers lost a lot of calories during their hard day’s work and therefore they needed a lot of food. The elite did not need so many calories. They  could indulge in all kinds of refined little dishes that would please their palate. Peasants and miners, dockworkers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers, needed large quantities of staple food, several times a day, to fill their empty stomachs and refuel their muscles. Under these conditions the rich could develop a luxury taste, whereas the poor developed a taste of necessity.[57] This relation between labour conditions and the taste for food and clothing was handed down to the next generation, even when physical work had become less demanding, because machines took over much of the heavy lifting.

Styles of home decoration and tastes for food require the same method of analysis as the class-determined preferences for art. The elite have a strong preference for an appealing presentation of their dishes. They prefer to have a large and varied range of small titbits of food. They dislike large helpings of food, whereas the lower classes like to have their plates full of food in order to fill the stomach. So when food is concerned the lower classes still like stomach filling quantities and show less interest in quality, variety and attractive presentations.

10.6.5  The interplay between Cultural Distinction and Social Distance.

Cultural capital, life-style and taste play a significant role in the reproduction of inequality. With this perspective Bourdieu introduced a new explanatory dimension to the familiar set of causes of social inequality. Not only did he find that class fractions differ in lifestyle and taste, but he also showed how these distinctions help to maintain class differences. This is the central topic of Distinction. Bourdieu argued that it is in the interest of the bourgeoisie to conceal the fact that taste is acquired through socialization. Thus, their familiarity with legitimate cultural products is made into an instrument for maintaining social distinction, based on the crude divide between people with and without taste. The lack of ‘good taste’ becomes the pretext to exclude members of the lower classes from their own elitist circles and from the market of desirable jobs. Thus, cultural distinction and social distance are closely connected and remain closely connected, as cultural distinction effectuates social distance and vice versa. The dominant class is quite successful in creating the image that they provide the touchstone of good taste and a lifestyle of quality. Their taste and lifestyle acquire legitimacy, whereas the taste and lifestyle of the lower classes is generally seen as second rate. Life for the members of the elite is relatively easy; they only have to be who they are. For the rest of the world, life is harder. It does not suffice, when you aspire to move up in de social scale, to have the right (educational) qualifications; you need to be able to change your habitus, taste and lifestyle as well. You must start with a careful imitation of the manners of the higher classes or you hardly stand a chance of being accepted. But even serious attempts to change your taste and lifestyle will not guarantee a successful route to the higher echelons of society, for, on many occasions, a modest background betrays the ‘social climber’ or ‘upstart’. No matter what volume of cultural and educational capital has been amassed, the social trajectory always plays a significant or even a crucial role. Cultural capital acquired by education is static and conservative. Any confrontation with Avant Garde culture may cause bewilderment. Social climbers tend to adhere to forms of high culture that are beyond dispute, just to be safe. Since they have been brought up in a milieu that lacked cultural capital they will always fear to do or say something wrong, to reveal a lack of familiarity with high culture, showing their insensitivity for the most sublime in art. Only by staying within the safe limits of acquired taste, can they avoid a complete embarrassment before the born and bred elite.[58]

            Egalitarian, meritocratic societies boast about offering equal opportunities to all. Class differences seem to have evaporated. Yet, it often turns out that, other things being equal, social and cultural capital still are decisive factors in acquiring a good job and making a shining career. Also there, having the right social connections and the right habitus and lifestyle are of tremendous help in anyone’s career opportunities. These factors still help to reproduce, maintain, objectify and even legitimize the close connection between parental social class and the future of their offspring. This gives people the false idea that only members of a certain class have the right social capabilities and cultural level to suit the higher professions. This process entrenches the social distance between social classes.

From this perspective it is quite logical that the majority of people intend to copy the taste and lifestyle of the elite. Of course the elite prefers to keep the social distance as large as it is. When the lower classes appear to bridge the gap, the elite will think of strategies that can halt this process. To keep upstarts and parvenus at a distance they will develop new preferences in leisure activities, food, art and music. For instance, when many common people start to enjoy famous pieces of classical music, the elite, will play down the quality of that music and start looking for other composers, singers, musicians and conductors. Whenever a piece of art becomes popular, this is a clear sign for the elite to drop it from their ‘repertoire’ and to move on. This can be a move forward, into avant-garde art, or a move backward into ancient music, played with antique instruments in a style that is supposed to be really authentic. To them, the canon of classical music is now only acceptable, unless it is performed under special conditions: at a special location, led by an extremely famous conductor, or performed by an exceptionally talented soloist that has come p with an innovative interpretation.

            Bourdieu often stressed the difference between primary and secondary socialization, that is, between what has been acquired during your upbringing at an early age and what you have learned in a later period of life, regarding art and other forms of high culture. In the first case, cultural knowledge and affinity have become an integral and natural part of one’s habitus. The music lover who is brought up with classical music shall move around with much more ease and shall be prepared to accept new developments more easily, whereas someone who only later in life has learned to appreciate classical music will not be so flexible. This is one more way to identify differences between the old elite and the nouveau riche.

10.6.6 Theoretical framework of La distinction

In La distinction Bourdieu continues the theoretical drift of his earlier studies. Explicitly or implicitly all his core concepts come to the fore: social strategies, habitus, and subjective expectations adjusted to objective probabilities. Once again it is a theory about how social practices of people are determined by their social history and the status of their parents and ancestors. All individuals are confronted by the social conditions of class and inbred social conditions, learned opinions, perspectives, classifications, judgments, manners and customs contribute to the social reproduction of inequality.

First, Bourdieu contends that the definition of art is arbitrary and imposed by a cultural elite. This elite pretends to have a natural gift for understanding the fine arts. Thus they seem to imply that they belong to a higher category of people. Their “gift” for understanding and interpreting works of fine arts is nothing special. It simply is an acquired capacity, developed during childhood. This acquired gift correlates with other picked up dispositions, such as a preference for certain types of food, a specific style of clothing. These developed dispositions are the result of early socialization.

The elite succeeds in promoting their lifestyle, taste and manners as the hallmark of real style or ‘class’. Even the people who do not belong to the social and cultural elite are inclined to share this view. Bourdieu calls this form of subjugation “symbolic violence”. It supports the reproduction of the social distances and distinctions between classes and also between class fractions. Step by step Bourdieu’s reproduction theory runs as follows:

• Differences in objective social conditions lead to the social construction of different social classes and class fractions that divide and distinguish people according to their positions;
• Similar social conditions and social positions produce a class determined habitus;
• That habitus is a system of mental schemes that generates a system of perception and preferences and classifiable practices;
• These preferences and practices result in a lifestyle that materializes as a system of distinctive signs, that reproduces practices of classifications;
• The elite – a fraction of the ruling fraction – succeeds in imposing its lifestyle, taste and practice as the only legitimate one.
• Moreover, the elite succeed in safeguarding its privileged position by a strategic use of differences in cultural capital, taste and lifestyle.[59]

In summarized form it is even plainer that Bourdieu’s theory is very deterministic, like all reproduction theories. He observes that changes are taking place, but also notices that the overall structure society does not change at all. It may seem that the distance between two particular classes or class fractions have decreased or even disappeared. It may also be that some social categories exchange positions on the social ladder. And it may be that quite a number of individuals succeed in achieving some upward mobility – in some cases mobility can be quite spectacular – but all this does not change the essence or the blatant level of inequality in society.

10.7   Language matters

10.7.1 Bourdieu’s sociological analysis of language

There is more to language than its function as medium for exchanging messages.  Bourdieu focused on power of linguistic expressions.[60] He preferred to examine the role of different language practices that reproduce imbalances of power. By focusing on the social structure, he observed how the course of conversations depend on the acceptability and authority of the speaker. In other words, the attention of an audience depends on the power and authority of the speaker, on his or hers social status, position, experience, expertise and his or her rhetoric skills. With this type of analyses social science is brought in. As a result linguistics loses its purely linguistic character.

Bourdieu has introduced concepts such as the national and international language market and, as its necessary corollary, symbolic capital. He also spoke of linguistic habitus and the legitimacy and power of categories of language users. As we know, the nation-state was and still is a great destroyer of minority languages and local dialects. Most nation states acknowledge only one legitimate national language. That standard language is imposed on everyone by means of a system of compulsory education. The standardization of the national language is perfected by the introduction of an officially commended spelling and grammar, disseminated in institutions of primary, secondary and higher education. There is a form of linguistic coercion carried out by publishing houses, language professors and the editors of dictionaries. They provide the standards for evaluating anyone’s use of language. When taking an exam or having a job interview, a person runs the risk of being rejected for his limited skills in speaking and writing the standard language appropriately. In many cases, imperfections in the use of the standard language will provide a (silent) reason for refusing someone a high status job.

Within most nation-states, historical contingencies have arbitrarily elevated one local dialect to the status of the national standard. This promotion meant that all other dialects were relegated to a lower league. Besides, the group that speaks the standard language has succeeded in fostering the idea that their speech is more refined and civilized, whereas the other dialects are labelled as coarse, vulgar, cheap and shoddy, in other words, uncivilized. This social mechanism has given them a surplus symbolic capital. Their words have more value than those of people who hadn’t learned to speak the standard language at home. The differences in language and dialect both underscore and reproduce the difference between social categories, in particular between social classes. This analysis is a logical extension of the ideas that were presented in Distinction.

As soon as people notice that their own dialect is treated as an inferior language, they will attempt to shift to the dominant language and use it wherever it seems to offer better opportunities. However, no matter how much they try, most of them will never be able to make this shift perfectly. Some elements in their choice of words, grammar or pronunciation will reveal their ‘inferior’ background.

Alongside the national linguistic market there is also an international language market, where similar conflicts of power between rising and falling languages can be observed. Thousands of languages run the risk of becoming extinct whereas only a few will survive the third millennium. At the moment, English is in a winning mood. It is the global lingua franca within the spheres of science, internet, film and popular music. It regulates international air traffic and dominates the hard world of software. In contrast, we can witness the shrinking international status of French, which, for many ages, was dominant with the western elite, the field of diplomacy and that of haute couture. To make things worse, French language purists have noticed a shift towards Franglais decades ago.  

10.7.2 Linguistic habitus and competence

Not only have many languages found themselves in dire straits. The same is true for individual speakers, whose social position is connected to their language habitus and competence. Language competence covers the impressive capacity to produce correct sentences, but also the ability to use language in a socially correct way. It is a matter of the right words at the right place. What is said, or written, to whom, where and when? Such questions have defined the field of linguistic sociology. Bourdieu has broadened the scope for this field by using his concepts such as habitus, field, and strategy. In a gamut of social situations, our habitus tells us what we are expected to say, or not to say, Only in completely new and different social situations do we experience a feeling of being at a loss in a communicative sense.

            Once’s accent or one’s choice of words reveal the social, regional and ethnic origin of a speaker. Some social groups or classes of people speak more loudly and quickly than others. All such characteristics offer further information for classifying the speaker, and immediately affect the reaction of the speakers who are being addressed. So, between the lines, verbal communication always involves an exchange of more messages than the purely linguistic one.[61]

The speech of a speaker is linked to his position. If a general practitioner addresses his patients as if he were a dockworker, then the patient would immediately doubt his expertise and skills. Also the other way around, if a dockworker would talk to his colleagues as if he were an academic, using a posh and elevated language, he runs the risk of being harassed. For sociolinguists it is no radical innovation to speak of a communication habitus. But Bourdieu’s approach is different. For him linguistic competence is a form of practical sense. Competent speakers will anticipate the reception of their words. It depends on the habitus and competence of speakers whether they will foresee the consequences of their choice of words. They have to assess differences in power between themselves and the person they are speaking to. Speakers proceed on the basis of their subjective expectations of objective probabilities. At home or among friends they will be less strict in their use of grammar and vocabulary, compared to when they find themselves in formal settings or amongst members of the dominant group.[62]

Verbal competence also refers to the ability to nudge people to listen to what you have to say. One does not only speak to be understood, but also to be heard, obeyed, believed, and respected. Linguists seem to forget that the conditions for successful communication have to be created and recreated time and time again. It cannot be taken for granted that people will be prepared to listen to your conversation or to have a discussion with you. This willingness depends on the position of the speaker and the listener. The soldier has to listen to the orders of his sergeant or captain; a pupil has to listen his teacher, otherwise he will not learn a lot. In hierarchical relations, communication seems to be guaranteed. When this is not the case, the speaker has to find compensation in the power of persuasion. His or her competence to draw attention and to keep the listeners interested is crucial. Without authoritative power or special communicative skills, there is little effect in speech.

In the domain of communication, efficacy is more important than efficiency. To achieve a particular goal, one may withhold specific information, or transform it somewhat. In general, people will not hesitate to exaggerate matters or to play them down. In order to safeguard certain powerful positions or to impose their will upon others, people even tell lies. Telling lies is a very common thing. Sometimes politicians and leaders of important organizations will feel compelled to lie to conceal weaknesses in their policy or in their strategy. A boss of a Dutch broadcasting organization once said about a colleague that he also lied when it was not necessary.

Again, this supports Bourdieu’s view that humans use double strategies, in particular when they feel attacked or think that their position is under threat. In those cases, communicating reliable information is not the main thing. Then, language is just another medium of gaining or maintaining power.

10.7.3 The power of words

Differences in power presuppose differences in social position, which, in turn, presupposes a hierarchical classification.[63] Classification functions as a means to discover or emphasize differences between social positions and groups. They can be imposed, appropriated or rejected. Under favourable social conditions, it is possible to renounce formerly imposed classifications. Nowadays, the Koori of Australia turn down the label aboriginal, used by the colonizers. Likewise, Eskimos demand to be called Inuit now. Another interesting example is related to the word ‘black.’ The Black Power-movement of the fifties and sixties hated to be called Negroes. They began to call themselves blacks and urged other African Americans to be proud of being black. After centuries of slavery and discrimination, the word ‘negro’ had gotten a denigrating meaning. Black Power leaders launched the slogan: “Black is Beautiful.” Linguistically the shift from Negro to Black was not significant, because Negro meant black in languages like Spanish. Socially, the difference was highly significant, because the term Negro had become tainted with a very negative connotation because of the frequent and always pejorative use of derivates such as nigger.[64] In the sixties The Black Power Movement wanted that African Americans would regain a positive self-image. Too many of them had fallen victim to the symbolic violence of the idea that it was better to be light skinned than to be darker skinned. A hierarchy of colours had emerged, with the message that it was better to be honey-coloured than chocolate or other darker shades of brown.[65] A similar approach to different hues can be found in India. Vikram Seth’s book A suitable boy pays much attention to the efforts of parents to find a suitable boy to marry their daughter. These efforts not only involve finding a groom from the same caste and the same or a somewhat higher social status, but also with a light skin colour.[66]

The times keep changing. Afro-American, thought to be more politically correct, as it fitted the general tendency to use hyphenated terms to describe the various ethnic groups in the usa, soon replaced the term Black. Again, from a purely linguistic perspective, this appears to be much ado about nothing, but from a social and political perspective these matters are highly significant. A striking point is that these examples also show that minorities can exert linguistic power over the majority whenever politically correctness, equality, justice and a positive attitude towards cultural diversity have become major values of societies.

10.8   Critical theorizing as a habitus

Just like other social practices, social research is predominantly steered by internalized dispositions, instead of codified propositions. Research is not directed by the rules in methodological handbooks, but by a sense of practice. The habitus determines which research problem we choose, which type of explanations we search for, and what type of research instruments we use. It is even more important to observe that the habitus determines how scientific questions are expressed, problems are stated, and explanations are construed. During many phases of a research project, the academic habitus turns researchers into some kind of ‘automatic pilot’. Many important decisions are made unconsciously and steer our research into a particular direction. That process has been programmed in our brain during our training as a researcher.

Since carrying out research is founded upon a specific habitus and a well-developed feel for the game of doing science, Bourdieu urges us to be much more aware of our scientific acts. Therefore, he urges social scientists to reflect on their own practices. Theoretical work must become a special habitus. The researcher must be prepared to apply and test his or her own theoretical concepts on his personal functioning as a scholar. This reflexive attitude should always have priority. We should aim for a reflexive mode that continuously draws our attention to the risks of the many unconscious and semi-automatic elements of our practices. Every ‘spontaneous’ scientific discovery has to be complemented, controlled, and corrected by other techniques and mechanisms. This process of control starts with keeping a logbook during the whole research project that contains all methodological and theoretical decisions. Research then becomes more accessible for inspection and control. This is necessary because the habitus tends to evade inspection and control easily.

Of course this is not new, but Bourdieu demands to scrutinize many more aspects of doing research than what is common practice. New is also his emphasis on self-critique and self-control, where other philosophers of science seem to put much more faith in the purifying and cleansing effect of the critical forum of fellow-researchers. He is conscious of the restrictions that hamper every scientific study, and attempts to discover a form of truth that is closer to reality as it is, and not reality as it is theorized. Thus, he also tries to free himself from the restrictions that were created by his own socialization, a process that has conditioned him to see specific things and to overlook other aspects.

Reflexive sociologists realize that scholars invest much time and effort in their studies, and so have a large interest in the results of their work. This personal interest can conflict with the exigencies of a value free and neutral approach to science. The researcher has to discover something that is worth reporting, preferably something that will enhance his reputation, fame, and career. The history of science has revealed that many researchers have been tinkering with their data to ‘prove’ their own cherished theories. Reflexive social science differs from the sociology of sociology. Reflexive sociology is a critical analysis of one’s assumption, methods and interests, whereas the sociology of sociology examines other sociologists, their approaches and biases, their networks, productivity, and power. For that matter, Bourdieu engages in sociology of sociology too, when he points out that this discipline, just like all other sciences, is an arena full of competitors in an ongoing contest for positions, grants, fame and academic power. In this battle for fame and recognition, few will refrain from bending the rules of the game.

10.8.2 Social change as ultimate goal

Bourdieu did not only criticize the lack of reflexivity of the modus operandi of most social scientists, but he also thought that they were committed to the wrong scientific objectives. Instead of endlessly discussing theoretical concepts they should turn to social reality.[67] Bourdieu thought it more important to offer instruments for a practical strategy aimed at changing our perspective on society. Following Marx, he did not stop at describing and explaining social reality, but he wanted to change society in a radical way. Bourdieu wanted a critical science that brings society in an awkward position by revealing situations and processes that social authorities prefer to hide forever. For instance, a society that pretends to offer equal opportunities for all citizens is not at ease with sociologists showing that equal opportunities are a myth, because class differences still are reflected in educational and social careers. Bourdieu argued that sociologists must always carry out studies that bring to light what society wants to keep in the dark. As Bachelard so neatly put it “There is no science but that of the hidden.”[68]

This leads us to a fundamental issue. If sociology is driven by a pragmatic motive instead of a purely theoretical logic, then it is rather useless to study sociological texts in a purely theoretical way. The only valid way then is the one that leads to a specific practice, or to a transformation of a social practice. We have to appropriate the work of other social scientists in such a way that it can be applied to these practical goals. This is even necessary, because we do not understand reality until we know what a theory can do in practice. One has to reactivate the concepts, theories, and methods of others in a new productive action that is just as inventive and original as the initial scientific action.[69] It is the practice of a productive processing of theoretical concepts that turns social theory into a cumulative affair. Hence, we have to attain a practical mastery of sociological tools. We must incorporate them in our habitus. An active use of intellectual or theoretical tools of the best scholars demands some continuity as well as ruptures. Otherwise, no new knowledge can be generated. Otherwise, there is only imitation and epigonism. Bourdieu urges to think as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber to use their way of thought in order to criticize them. This is how social science can advance.[70] It stands to reason that one may apply the ideas of one scholar to criticize or to develop those of another. There is hardly any other way to make progress in social theory. We should not satisfy ourselves with attempts to understand the work of great sociologists, but we have to get such a high degree of familiarity with their ideas that we can think along with them to think against them, in order to arrive at new insights. Bourdieu exhorts us to make similarly use of his work for a critical evaluation of his oeuvre or for the furtherance of social science.

10.9   Critique and admiration

Many critics of Bourdieu lament the complexity of his texts. Bourdieu realized that his style of writing was Byzantine, for his long sentences are often interrupted with expressions such as ‘In other words’, ‘in short’, ‘more precisely’. But he never changed his style. He argued that social reality is very complex. In society many things happen simultaneously and influence each other. Take for instance the process of labelling. The labeller labels himself as someone who has a legitimate right to label people from other social categories, classes or ethnic groups. That is why Bourdieu writes in a single, relatively long sentence that social agents who classify other individuals or groups also classify themselves, thus producing and reproducing the existing system of classification and the social system of positions and statuses that is being classified by the system of classification. After a while, the reader gets used to sentences like these.   

In science, one of the rules of the game is to show audacity and genius in taking up arms with the greatest scholars in your field. Certainly, Bourdieu did not lack audacity or genius. Therefore, he was soon recognized as a prominent player in the major league of social science. Richard Jenkins observed that Bourdieu dealt in four different ways with the grandmasters of social science:

• He rejected their work completely;
• He partly agreed with their work, but held some parts of their work against them. This was his approach to Marx, Durkheim and Weber. He advice all serious scientists: think along with your masters or opponents and use their very ideas to criticize them.
• He acknowledged the merits of someone’s work, but denied that it had any influence on his own ideas whatsoever.
• He belittled their work and suggested that he could summarize and evaluate it (negatively) with his eyes shut.[71]

All these methods require a combination of acknowledgement and distance, and each of these strategies implies a legitimate claim to scientific authority. Without any doubts about his own status, Bourdieu tore down every theoretical approach he did not like. He started with an head on attack on the greatest weaknesses in the work of his esteemed victim. This was his tactic when he mauled structuralism and rational choice theory. For sure, it did not harm Bourdieu’s prestige as a scholar. Moreover, we should acknowledge that Bourdieu’s academic habitus was formed in the most aggressive field of French academia.

1. In conclusion

Bourdieu sought to establish a balance between what he described and criticised as the theoretical acrobatics of modern French Philosophy and the theoretical poverty of quantified empirical studies that prevailed in the USA. His academic productivity reflects the habitus of a theoretician who is strongly rooted in down to earth empirical research as well as in high level philosophical analysis and abstraction. He focussed on one Grand Sociological Theory, the Theory of Reproduction, which he enriched with a number of insightful Bourdieu-concepts, including and expanding on those that were introduced by eminent precursors. Several of those typical Bourdieu-concepts have become widely accepted in social science and beyond. Nowadays, not only social scientists talk about cultural capital, social capital, and habitus but also a wider audience of intellectuals, semi-intellectuals and journalists use the terminology. We can find proof of this in weekly magazines and the cultural sections of national papers. Of all the theoretical notions coined or re-introduced by Bourdieu, I think that the concept of habitus, and feel for the game or practical sense and strategy are very important. With these concepts, he has shed a new light on the connection between social determination and individual self-determination. They clarify relations between collectively created social conditions and the range of personal options. The social setting seems to determine how far one can go, but the most competent individuals develop a feel for the game that tells them how far they can go “too far.” Equipped with concepts like practical sense and habitus we have gotten new insights in the daily production, reproduction and maintenance of the whole social construction. The great merit of concepts such as cultural capital and symbolic violence (concealed repression) is in drawing attention to the more or less hidden mechanisms that reproduce social reality, including structural patterns of injustices and inequalities. With his explicit attention for the close relationship between cultural capital, lifestyle and taste on the one hand, and structural inequality on the other, he has removed the stigma of conservatism from studying cultural phenomena.

            Reproduction of inequality was Bourdieu’s main topic. He has renovated and expanded this old theme by adding the role of cultural factors in keeping social disances alive. He showed how cultural capital, lifestyle and taste are used as sources of power for defending age-old or recently gained privileges. The need for status, respect and acknowledgment is so strong that the relatively better off passionately wish to hold on to their level of status, their privileged position or their amount of power. The less privileged groups are prepared to struggle for improving their lot too. Therefore, conflict is ubiquitous, and variants of class conflicts can be witnessed in every social domain. In modern societies the big clash between the working class and capitalists is now replaced by a multitude of small-scale social conflicts that manifest themselves within families and between families, within and between businesses,  firms and factories, within and  between labour unions and organizations of employers, between and within ethnic groups, within and between and urban and rural areas, between and within centres and peripheries – the list of conflicts can be expanded endlessly, offering material for journalists and talk shows each and every day. The overall result of all these minor battles will be a reproduction of social inequality. I fear that all the media coverage of these “minor” disputes will not change much. Highlighting all these “local” and “peripheral” clashes will eclipse bigger underlying battles.

When social space is depicted as a site full of arenas, one may wonder why societies are not falling apart all the time, why all these micro-struggles and local wars do not evolve in total destruction. One sombre answer given by Bourdieu is that most people learn to adjust their subjective expectations to objective social conditions. This reduces the temperature in the hottest conflicts. The people with the biggest reason to revolt have learned to accept their situation, including a future that leaves little hope of improvement. Most losers even lose the will to fight for a change. Somewhere along the line, they have fixed their mindset to the idea that everything is based on bad luck and that good fortunes will always befall the already privileged. Often they destroy their last option for improving their situation. As a consequence of all the hidden forms of repression (symbolic violence), underprivileged individuals and groups are inclined to give up the fight for a fair treatment. The net result is that new generations seem to genetically inherit their low status and to become accomplices in the reproduction of inequality.

I think that Bourdieu tended to underrate the positive forces, unleashed by the Enlightenment, democratization, the expansion of education, literacy, and the media of communication, that result in a general uplifting of societies and opening them to more meritocratic forms of reproduction. However, whatever our critical views on the work of Bourdieu, this chapter must have made clear that this grandmaster of modern sociology has enriched sociology in many ways. He deserves to be studied critically, so that we can take up his advice, and, when we find it necessary, use his work to use it against him, to use it for further theoretical developments. Following Bourdieu’s maxim we should not indulge ourselves in a purely theoretical analysis of his theories, or even worse, theoretically analyze the theoretical analyses if Bourdieu-specialists. No, we should rework his concepts, methods, and theories and that of other major sociologists to make it applicable to our own attempts at practicing social science, in order to make social science more practicable and advance its status in the very world it studies.

Notes

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[1] This is the last chapter of Grandmasters of Solid Sociology. Final draft 14 Aug 2026: Words 19271

[2] That the two sons of Bourdieu also have gained access at the ens seem to prove this point.

[3] Richard Jenkins (1992): Pierre Bourdieu (p. 14.). London/New York: Routledge. (Derrida was a member of Bourdieu’s committee for the defense of freedom. Emile Le Roy Ladurie was an opponent.)

[4] P. Bourdieu (1993): Concluding Remarks: For a Sociogenetic Understanding of Intellectual Works. In: C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma & M. Postone (Eds.): Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[5] Dick Pels (1989): Inleiding. Naar een reflexieve sociale wetenschap. In: Pierre Bourdieu. Opstellen over smaak, habitus en het veldbegrip (p.21). Amsterdam: Van Gennep.

[6] Pierre Bourdieu (1993): Sociology in Question. London: Sage; P. Bourdieu (1990): In Other Words. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[7] A. Honneth, H. Kocyba & B. Schwibs (1986): The Struggle for Symbolic Order: An Interview with Pierre Bourdieu, Theory, Culture and Society, 3.

[8] Pierre Bourdieu & J. C. Passeron (1977): Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage.

[9] Pierre Bourdieu (1996): State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Oxford: Polity Press.  

[10] R. Jenkins: o. c., p.19.

[11] Pierre Bourdieu (1993): Concluding Remarks, o. c.

[12] Pierre Bourdieu (1990): In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge/Oxford: Polity Press, p. 34.

[13] A. Schütz (1962): Collected Papers, vol. I.: The Problem of Social Reality (p. 59). The Hague. Nijhoff

[14] Pierre Bourdieu (1990): In Other Words, o. c., p. 124-125.

[15] Idem, p. 125-126.

[16] Jenkins: o. c. p. 73.

[17] Norbert Elias also used the term habitus.

[18] P. Bourdieu: Distinction. o. c., p. 170-171.

[19] P. Bourdieu: In other words. o. c.,  p. 31.

[20] P. Bourdieu (1989): The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press (Le sens pratique, Paris, 1980.)

[21] P. Bourdieu (1989). Vive la crise! In: Pierre Bourdieu, Opstellen over smaak, habitus en het veldbegrip. o. c.,  p. 64-66.

[22] Pierre Bourdieu: In other Words: o. c., p. 60-61.

[23] Idem

[24] Pierre Bourdieu: In Other Words: o. c. p. 63.

[25] Idem, p. 63. Though, Jenkins notes that Bourdieu does not pay much attention to the overwhelming amount of people who are not very competent.

[26] P. Bourdieu (1958) : Sociologie de l’Algérie (p.5). Paris: puf.

[27] From rules to strategies: interview with P. Lamaison, Terrains, 4 (March, 1985).

[28] Here, Bourdieu refers to a study he carried out with Monique de Saint Martin.

[29] P. Bourdieu (1986): The forms of Capital. In: John G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press.

[30] P. Bourdieu (1990): A lecture on the lecture. In: In Other Words (p. 192), o. c.

[31] P. Bourdieu (1993): Some properties of fields. In: Sociology in Question (pp. 72-73). London, Sage.

[32] Sociology in Question, o. c., p. 111.

[33] In most western European countries the agrarian sector is facing hard times, despite financial help from the ec. The prospects for the future are very bleak. Each year many farmers quit farming without finding a successor. As a consequence, many young farmers find it very hard to find a spouse. TV-programs like “farmer seeks wife” have become very popular.

[34] P. Bourdieu (1985): The social space and the genesis of groups. Social Science Information, 24(2), 195-220. Also in Pierre Bourdieu: Language & Symbolic Power (p. 231). Oxford: Polity Press.

[35] Idem, p. 198.

[36] R. Jenkins: o. c., p. 103-104.

[37] P. Bourdieu & J. C. Passeron (1977): Reproduction, In Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage. Orig. La Réproduction, Minuit, Paris, 1970.

[38] Idem

[39] Idem

[40] R. Jenkins: o. c. p. 105.

[41] P. Willis (1977): How working class kids get working class jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House.

[42] S. Fordham (1988): Racelessness as a Factor in Black Students’ School Success: Pragmatic Strategy or Pyrrhic Victory? Harvard Educational Review, 48(1), 54-84.

[43] M. Fuller (1981): Black girls in a London Comprehensive. In: A. James & R. Jeffcoate (Eds.), The School in a multicultural society. London: Harper & Row.

[44] L. Sansone (1992): Schitteren in de schaduw. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.

[45] Th. Sowell: Ethnic America, 1980.

[46] D. Robbins: o. c. p. 117.

[47] R. Jenkins: o. c., p. 129.

[48] P. Bourdieu, et al. (1990): Photography: A Middle-brow Art. Cambridge: Polity. (Un art moyen: Essai sur les usages de la photographie (1965).

[49] P. Bourdieu et al. (1965): Un art moyen: Essai sur les usages sociaux de la photographie. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Pp. 38-54.

[50] R. Jenkins: o. c., p.130-131.

[51] Distinction: o. c., p.5.

[52] P. Bourdieu (1993) Music lovers: origin and evolution of the species. In Sociology in Question, p. 104

[53] Sociology in Question, o. c., p. 105.

[54] P. Bourdieu (1993): The metamorphosis of tastes: In Sociology in Question, o.c., p. 109.

[55] P. Bourdieu: Distinction, pp. 34-37 en 527-528.

[56] Idem: pp. 9-18 &  pp. 18-82.

[57] Idem: p. 372

[58] Idem: pp. 65, p. 333-343

[59] Idem: p. 171. R. Jenkins: o. c., p. 142

[60] P. Bourdieu (1977): L’économie des échanges linguistiques, Langue française, 34; L. Wacquant (1989): Towards a reflexive sociology: a workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociological Review, 7, p. 47

[61] P. Bourdieu (1991): Language and Symbolic Power (p. 66). Cambridge: Polity.

[62] Idem, p. 108

[63] P. Bourdieu (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (p. 130). Oxford: Polity Press.

[64] Once again we see a revival of an old and formerly rejected term. Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean Rappers use the word nigger or niggah frequently in their texts. Still, I think presently it would not be wise for White people to follow this usage.

[65] This is also expressed in the following song.

            If you’re white, you’re all right.

            If you’re brown, stick around,

            If your black, stay back

[66] In Africa, many black women buy skin creams to make their skin lighter. Some of these creams turn out to be very dangerous, creating scar tissues that ruin their skin forever.

[67] P. Bourdieu (1979). Les trois états du capital culturel. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 30, pp. 3-6.

[68] P. Bourdieu (1993): A science that makes trouble. In: Sociology in Question. London: Sage Publications. p. 10

[69] P. Bourdieu, (1985a: 15-16).

[70] P. Bourdieu, 1987a, p. 63-64.

[71] R. Jenkins: o. c., p. 166