Habitus & Bourdieu (Advanced Concepts)

Habitus

A mental filter that structures an individual's perceptions, experiences, and practices such that the world takes on a taken-for-granted, commonsense appearance; internalized class location becomes a disposition to act.

Economic Capital (Bourdieu)

The economic resources possessed by an actor; money, property rights, and material assets.

Cultural Capital (Bourdieu)

The various kinds of legitimate knowledge possessed by an actor; educational credentials, table manners, tastes, and cultural competence.

Social Capital (Bourdieu)

The extent of valued social relations possessed by an actor; mutual obligations from social networks like kinship, friendship, and group membership.

Symbolic Capital

The amount of honor and prestige possessed by an actor; having authority to define reality and make the world through a "magical power" that disguises self-interest as natural inevitability.

Symbolic Violence

The "war of words" where opposing sides struggle to define what is just/unjust, good/bad, pure/corrupt, who belongs/does not; the consequence is who gets to dominate the social order.

Field (Bourdieu)

Relatively autonomous arenas (art, literature, science, religion, education, economics) within which actors and institutions mobilize capital to capture the stakes—the distribution of more capital.

Reproduction (Bourdieu)

The unintended consequence of habitus; internalizing structures that structure our behaviors maintains stratification as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Kohn's Core Finding

"The essence of higher-class position is the expectation that one's decisions and actions can be consequential; the essence of lower-class position is the belief that one is at the mercy of forces and people beyond one's control."