L habitus chez pierre bourdieu biography

Key Takeaways

• Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus describes the set of skills and social resources that govern how people engage with the world.
• Habitus is largely unconscious, and is experienced as a “feel for the game”
• Different habitus exists for people from different environments, and each habitus comes with its own set of knowledge and skills.

  This can lead to a perpetuation of inequality.

What is Habitus?

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” explains how individuals self-regulate their own behavior to fit social expectations.

Think about how you go through your day: you do things like walk on the right side of the sidewalk or say “Bless you” when someone sneezes without really thinking much about it. 

This is habitus: an internal sense of how to behave.

Rather than a set of social rules that we feel we must adhere to, habitus is a set of skills and social resources that allow us to integrate with our particular communities.

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