Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lecture 10 Bourdieu
Lecture 10 Bourdieu
Lecture 10 Bourdieu
Notices
Hand in your essays either directly to
Helen in person, or else put them in my
locked box in the Sociology corridor
opposite room 320.
Ian Sutherland is organising a revision
session for the first term he will supply
details of time and place.
This term
Hidden injuries of class, social psychology of
inequality work does things to people
End of class, social construction rather than social
ascription, post-modern plastic identity
Bourdieu
Intellectual problems Bourdieu sets out to solve.
Structure and agency, how to incorporate social
institutions without presenting people as cultural
dupes rule following robots.
Role of class in modern France and in particular
education and culture
Key concepts of habitus and cultural capital.
[social capital]
Habitus
Jeff Browitt, (2004) Pierre Bourdieu: Homo Sociologicus in eds. Jeff Browitt
and Brian Nelson Practicing Theory: Pierre Bourdieu and the field of cultural
reproduction. University of Delaware Press pp. 1-12
10
11
12
Alex Dumas, Suzanne Laberge, Silvia M, Straka (2005) Older women's relations to
bodily appearance: the embodiment of social and biological conditions of existence,
13
Ageing and Society 25(6):883-902
These studies suggested that womens tastes and practices vary markedly
according to their positions in the social structure. Bourdieu (1984: 202)
stated that for women: the interest the different classes have in selfpresentation, the attention they devote to it, their awareness of the profits it
gives and the investment of time, effort, sacrifice and care which they
actually put into it are proportionate to the chances of material or symbolic
profit they can reasonably expect from it. Bourdieu illustrated this point by
describing how women of different social classes varied in their valuations of
the body, beauty and body care. His research showed that working-class
women were less inclined to value and invest in bodily appearance than
women from the upper class, who placed a greater value on beauty and
expended greater efforts to enhance it. Upper-class women attributed moral
value to a well-groomed appearance, which created distance between them
and women whose appearance they perceived as neglectful. (Dumas et al
2004:884)
Dumas, Laberge, and Straka tested out these ideas by examining through
in depth qualitative interviews with older women from different class
backgrounds how class and age intersect in the ways they treat their bodies.
14
Cultural capital
17
18
Operationalisation
Operationalisation turning a theoretical concept into a measurable
variable.
Sullivan measures parents class and cultural activities by pupils reports
or parents occupations and activities
I surveyed pupils on a broad range of possible component of cultural
capital.
1. Activities
Reading: type and amount of books read, library use, newspapers read.
Television: types of programmes watcher.
Music: type of music listened to, playing an instrument.
Participation in public or formal culture: art gallery, theatre and concert
attendance
2. Cultural Knowledge
Tested knowledge of famous cultural figures
3. Language
Active and passive vocabulary test scores (Sullivan 2001:899)
20
findings
(Sullivan 2000:910)
22