Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) was a French sociologist and anthropologist whose concepts of habitus, capital, and field explain how social structures shape practices and reproduce inequality.

Habitus: A system of durable, embodied dispositions that shapes how people perceive, judge, and act. Bourdieu developed habitus to connect social conditions with patterned individual practices.
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste: Bourdieu’s study of how taste in France relates to social class and cultural distinction. This book applies his framework to consumption, aesthetic judgment, and class boundaries.
École normale supérieure: A selective French institution of higher education that trains scholars and public intellectuals. Bourdieu studied philosophy there before turning toward empirical social research.
Jean-Claude Passeron: A French sociologist who collaborated with Bourdieu on education and social reproduction. Their joint books established influential analyses of schooling and cultural transmission.
Social reproduction: The processes through which social relations and inequalities persist across generations. Bourdieu’s account explains how institutions transmit advantage without simply repeating explicit rules.
Cultural capital: Knowledge, skills, tastes, and credentials that can confer social advantage and recognition. Bourdieu showed how valued cultural resources help reproduce class advantage.
The Inheritors: A study by Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron of social inequality in French higher education. It shows how educational institutions reward cultural resources unequally distributed by class.
Algerian War: The 1954–1962 conflict between France and Algerian independence forces. Bourdieu’s early research in Algeria was shaped by the war and colonial transformation.
Loïc Wacquant: A sociologist whose work on urban marginality and boxing drew on Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Wacquant collaborated with Bourdieu and helped clarify the theory’s methodological commitments.
Reflexive sociology: A sociology that examines how researchers’ social positions shape their questions and knowledge. Bourdieu made scrutiny of the sociologist’s own position part of rigorous inquiry.

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