Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Class Health Lifestyles Bourdieu PDF
Class Health Lifestyles Bourdieu PDF
Class Health Lifestyles Bourdieu PDF
577-604
Introduction
The explanation agents may provide of their own practice, conceals, even
from their own eyes, the true nature of their practical mastery, i.e. that it
is learned ignorance (docta ignorantia), a mode of practical knowledge
not comprising knowledge of its own principles. It follows that this
leamed ignorance can only give rise to the misleading discourse of a
speaker himself {sic) misguided, ignorant both of the objective truth
about his (jic)-practical mastery (which is that it is ignorant of its own
truth) and of the true principle of the knowledge his practical mastery
contains (1977: 19).
To invite people, therefore, in an interview context, to account for and
explain their (health-related) behaviour is, at best, problematic, and at
worst, misguided.
O Blackwell Publishers Ltd/Editorial Board 1995
Class, health and lifestyles 585
The body, class and lifestyles: health and the search for distinction
lifestyles and the chances of success in the symbolic struggles for social
distinction, but also class-related inequalities in health and illness. Hence,
it is to a fuller discussion of these issues, and the relevance of Bourdieu's
work for understanding the relationship between class, health and life-
styles that this paper now turns in closing.
Rrferences
Arber, S. (1994) Gender, hcaith and ageing: 1994 BSA Medical Socioiogy Group
Plenary, Medical Sociology News, 20, 14-22.
Bendelow, G. and Williams, S.J. (1994) Emotions and the body; raising the issues
for medical sociology. Medical Sociology, 19, 38-44.
Bendelow, G. and Williams, S.J. (1995) Transcending the dualisms? Towards a
sociology of pain. Sociology of Health and Illness, 17, 139-65.
Blaxter, M. (1983) The causes of disease: women talking. Social Science and
Medicine, 17, 59-69.
Blaxter, M. (1990) Health and Lifestyles. London: Routledge.
Blaxter, M. (1993) Why do victims blame themselves? In A. Radley (ed) Worlds
of Illness: Biographical and Cultural Perspectives of Health and Disease.
London: Routledge.
Blaxter, M. and Patterson, L. (1982) Mothers and Daughters: A Three
Generational Study of Health Attitudes and Behaviour. London: Heinemann
Educational Books.
Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1978) Sport and sociai class. Social Science Information, i7, 819-40.
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Calnan, M. (1987) Health and Illness: The Lay Perspective. London: Tavislock,
Calnan, M. (1989) Control over health and patterns of health-related behaviour,
Social Science and Medicine, 24, 435-55.
Calnan, M. (1990) Food and health. In S. Cunningham-Burley and N. McKcgney
(eds) Readings in Medical Sociology. London: Routledge.
Calnan, M. (1994) 'Lifestyle' and its social significance. In Albrecht, G.L. (ed), A
Reconsideration of Health Behaviour Change Models (Vol 4) in Advances in
Medical Sociology Series. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press Inc.
Calnan, M. and Rutter, D. (1986) Do heahh beliefs predict health behaviour?,
Social Science and Medicine, 22, 673-8.
Calnan, M. and Cant, S. (1990) The social organization of food consumption,
Intemational Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 4, 53-79.
Calnan, M. and Williams, S. (1991) StyJe of life and the salience of health.
Sociology of Health and Illness, 4, 506-29.
Cbarles, N. and Kerr, M. (1986) Servers and providers: the distribution of food
within the family. Sociology Review, 34, 115-57.
Cornwell, J. (1984) Hard Earned Lives: Accounts of Health and Illness from East
London. London: Tavistock.
Cox, B.D., Huppert, F.A., and Whichelow, M.J. (1993) The Health and Lifestyles
Survey: Seven Years On. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publications Co. Ltd.
Crawford, R. (1984) A cultural account of heahh - control, release and the social
body. In McKinlay, J.B. (ed). Issues in the Political Economy of Health.
London: Tavistock.
O Blackwcli Publishers Ltd/Ediiorial Board 1995
Class, health and lifestyles 603
Pill, R. and Stott, N. (1985) Choice or chance: further evidence on ideas of illness
and responsibility fc^ health. Social Science and Medicine, 20, 981-91.
Radley, A. and Green, R. (1987) Chronic illness and adjustment: a methodology
and conceptual framework, Sociology of Health and Illness, 9, 179-207.
Radley, A. (1989) Style, discourse and constraint in adjusting to chronic illness,
Sociology of Health and Illness, 11, 230-52.
Saltonstall, R. (1993) Healthy bodies, social bodies: men's and women's concepts
and practices of health in everyday life. Social Science and Medicine, 36, 7-14.
Scambler, G. (ed) (1987) Sociological Theory and Medical Sociology. London:
Tavistock.
Shilling, C. (1993) The Body and Social Theory. London: Sage.
Stainton-Rogers, W. (1991) Explaining Health and Illness: An Exploration of
Diversity. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Townsend, P., Davison, N. and Whitehead, M. (1988) Inequalities in Health.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Turner, B. (1984) The Body and Society. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Turner, B. (1992) Regulating Bodies: Essays in Medical Sociology. London:
Routledge.
Vaile, M., Calnan, M., Rutter, D. and Wall, B. (1993) Breast cancer screening
services in three areas: uptake and satisfaction. Journal of Public Health
Medicine.
Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992) Towards a social praxeology: the structure of Bourdieu's
sociology. In Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L.J.D. An Invitation to Reflexive
Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Wallston, K., Wallston. B. and De Veilra, R. (1978) Development of the Multi-
dimensional Health Locus of Control Scales, Health Education Monograph, 6,
160-173.
Warde, A. (1994) Consumption, identity-formation and uncertainty. Sociology,
28, 877^98.
Wearing, B., Wearing, S. and Kelly, K. (1994) Adolescent women, identity and
smoking: leisure experience as resistance. Sociology of Health and Illness, 16,
626-^3.
Wrong, D. 1980. The over-socialized concept of man in modem sociology. In
Bocock, R. et al. (eds) An Introduction to Sociology. London: Fontana.
Young, A. (1981) When rational men fall sick, Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry,
5, 317-35.