Bordieu + Habitus

4 Pages 1086 Words

Explain Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and cultural capital and how you believe they might influence the art education of young people.

The Concept of Habitus
For Bourdieu, habitus refers to socially acquire, embodied systems of durable dispositions, tendencies and inclinations, which he calls ‘the embodied history of being in social life’. These are manifested into outlooks, opinions and mannerisms. We are not normally consciously aware of habitus but we may become aware of it through conscious reflection or finding our selves in an alien environment. Habitus is defined by Bourdieu as “the generative principle of responses more or less well adapted to the demands of a certain field, is the product of individual history, but also, through the formative experiences of earliest infancy, of the whole collective history of family and class….” (Bourdieu, 1990, 91)
Habitus is constructed through our acculturation into certain social groups such as social classes, a particular gender, our family, our peer group or even our nationality. There are different habituses associated with each of these groups and each individual’s habitus is a complex mix of these different habituses together with certain individual peculiarities.


Concept of cultural capital and the relationship between habitus and cultural capital
Cultural capital is something that we acquire via our habitus, and the kind of cultural capital we do acquire depends on the kind of habitus we have. Cultural capital includes three states: embodied in the individual, objectified in cultural products and institutionalized as academic qualifications. Cultural capital is bought into play when we find ourselves in strange situations or environments. If one’s habitus has allowed one to acquire the necessary cultural capital then one will be able to deal with the strange experience, and if not we can conclude that one’s habitus lacks the appropriate cultural capital....