Bourdieu: Reproduction of class inequalities

Question 1

1

Answer 1

Bourdieu also believes that the key roles of the education system in capitalist societies are to legitimise (justifying) class inequalities & reproduce the class structure. The dominant ruling class has the power to impose its own ideas on the education system, so what counts as educational knowledge is not the culture of society as a whole, but that of the dominant social class.

Question 2

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Answer 2

Those who come from better-off middle- & upper-class backgrounds have more access to the culture of the dominant class & this advantage is what Bourdieu calls cultural capital. Pupils from lower social classes do not in general possess cultural capital, so the educational failure of the majority of these pupils is inevitable.

The dominant ideology is that success & failure in the education system is meritocratic, based on an individual’s talents & hard work, & those who succeed are seen to deserve their higher places in the class structure. In this way, Bourdieu argues that we are fooled into accepting the reproduction of class inequality.