httpsdoi.org10.11772332649219883290Sociology of Race

https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649219883290
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
1 –7
© American Sociological Association 2019
DOI: 10.1177/2332649219883290
sre.sagepub.com
Invited Article
In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Paulo
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Heather
Dalmage and Samantha Martinez will reflect on
their experiences with liberatory pedagogy in
Dalmage’s Introduction to Sociology course.
Heather Dalmage, a professor of sociology, attended
her first workshop on liberatory pedagogy with Ira
Shor almost twenty-five years ago as a student at
City University of New York’s Graduate Center, and
Samantha Martinez is a Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals student from Mexico and a
recent graduate of Roosevelt University with a BA
in sociology. Roosevelt University is a small, urban
liberal arts institution where 30 percent of its stu-
dents are first generation and 45 percent are students
of color. Roosevelt University is founded on a mis-
sion of social justice and providing opportunities for
students who, at that time, were barred from other
universities because of race, gender, and/or religion.
In this article, we explore the practice, promise, and
contradictions of introducing liberatory practice into

a higher education classroom. Freire introduced lib-
eratory education in response to the hierarchical
transfer of knowledge, “banking” concept of educa-
tion that has dominated educational institutions. The
banking approach to education demands that stu-
dents memorize and repeat top-down “official”
knowledge in order to achieve success. Educational
883290 SREXXX10.1177/2332649219883290Sociology of Race
and EthnicityDalmage and Martinez
research-article2019
1Department of Sociology, Roosevelt University,
Chicago, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Heather M. Dalmage, Department of Sociology,
Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL
60605, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Location, Location, Location:
Liberatory Pedagogy in a
University Classroom
Heather M. Dalmage1 and Samantha A. Martinez1
Abstract
In this article, we explore the practice, promise, and
contradictions of introducing liberatory practice
into a higher education classroom. Freire introduced liberatory
education in response to the hierarchical
transfer of knowledge, “banking” concept of education that has
dominated educational institutions. The
banking approach to education demands that students memorize
and repeat top-down “official” knowledge
in order to achieve success. Liberatory pedagogy holds great

hope, but developing a space for liberatory
dialogue within the university classroom remains messy and rife
with contradictions. Professors interested
in liberatory pedagogy must make explicit the contradictions
and challenge the multiple ways schools
shape students, politically and culturally. We reflect on three
different points in the semester as moments
of explicit focus on the contradictions of creating liberatory
spaces and dialogue within higher education.
Location matters in every moment: our social locations shape
our experiences, and the location of the
classroom within higher education and the shifting locations in
the liberatory process include managing
the contradictions and possibilities of human liberation. We
offer educators wishing to develop liberatory
practices some ways of reflecting on and shaping a liberatory
space within higher education classrooms
through the lens of a professor and student engaged in the
process of liberatory dialogue.
Keywords
liberatory pedagogy, social locations, sociological imagination,
cultural capital, dialogue, Introduction to
Sociology
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2 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)
institutions are structured bureaucratically to pro-
mote the agenda of those in power. The structure of
the classroom, with desks facing the instructor and
priority made standardized testing prep, inhibits stu-

dents’ ability to think critically, use their imagina-
tions, and create knowledge through dialogue with
one another. Because the banking approach to edu-
cation is grounded in settler-colonial and neoliberal
hierarchies, the use of liberatory or critical pedago-
gies grounded in a dialogue in which students and
the professor are learning together is “a challenge to
existing domination” (Shor and Freire 1987:99).
Within classrooms, mechanisms such as grades,
requirements, rubrics, and classroom arrange ments
limit the possibility for liberation. Thus, while lib-
eratory pedagogy holds great hope, developing a
space for liberatory dialogue within the university
classroom remains messy and rife with contradic-
tions. Professors interested in liberatory pedagogy
must make explicit the contradictions as they “cri-
tique, expose, and challenge the manner in which
schools impact upon the political and cultural life of
students” (Darder 2011:205). We argue that the
higher education classroom, with myriad limitations
and contradictions, can be intentionally used to cre-
ate liberatory spaces built and sustained through dia-
logue. It is not until we engage in dialogue that we
“seal the act of knowing, which is never individual”
(Shor and Freire 1987:4). A liberatory pedagogy
built on critical dialogue can help us think about the
world and ourselves differently. It challenges domi-
nant beliefs and practices, ignites critical conscious-
ness, and requires that the professor and students
“both have to be learners, both have to be cognitive
subjects, in spite of being different” (Shor and Freire
1987:33). Likewise, the dialogue presented here
between Heather and Samantha provides a lens into
the dialogic process as we critically analyze the con-
tradictions embedded in the pursuit of liberation
within the context of the neoliberal higher education

classroom. In this article, we reflect on three differ-
ent points in the semester as moments of explicit
focus on the contradictions of creating liberatory
spaces and dialogue within higher education.
Location matters in every moment: our social loca-
tions shape our experiences, and the location of the
classroom within higher education and the shifting
locations in the liberatory process include managi ng
the contradictions and possibilities of human libera-
tion. We offer educators wishing to develop libera-
tory practices some ways of reflecting on and
shaping a liberatory space within higher education
classrooms through the lens of a professor and stu-
dent engaged in the process of liberatory dialogue.
In short, we address the content and then model the
practice. In the first section, “First Day, an Invitation:
Building a Liberatory Space,” we explore the pro-
cess of building a space in which trust, empathy, and
tools needed to engage in dialogue are developed. In
the second section, “Middle of the Semester:
Understanding Silence and Finding a Voice,” we
consider how to address silence and experience find-
ing voice in a liberatory space. And in the third sec-
tion, “End of Semester: Cultural Capital as Rules
and Resistance,” we address how to help students
manage contradictions of living with one foot in the
mainstream (able to survive and thrive) and one foot
in liberatory spaces (able to resist and thrive); this
includes thinking about their future jobs, connection
to communities, and responsibility to humanity.
FIRST DAy, An InvITATIOn:
BUILDIng A LIBERATORy SPACE
In the Introduction to Sociology course, liberatory
pedagogy is introduced to students who may be new

to higher education and new to sociology and learn-
ing about a liberatory pedagogy for the first time.
The approach, goals, and ways that students receive
the invitation are complex. In this section, Heather
and Samantha elaborate how each reflects on the
experience in order to make explicit the goals, chal-
lenges, and contradictions of the process.
Heather: On the first day of class I have four
prominent goals toward creating a liberatory
space in the classroom: First, I want students
to speak and listen to one another directly:
Who are you? What brings you to this class-
room? What brings you to college? Second,
I want to begin to build a sense of trust by
explicitly naming our relationship to one
another. I talk about what brings me to the
classroom and the power dynamics present
in the space, held up through grades and
institutional practices, as I experience them.
I make explicit and challenge the hierarchi-
cal arrangements by asking students: Why
are you all sitting, looking forward, allowing
me to talk at you? Why don’t you all take
over this space, make it yours? I challenge
them to think about why they might be will-
ing to follow (to varying degrees) what I
have laid out in front of them. I ask why they
are ‘accepting’ the syllabus without ques-
tioning the substance. Third, I express my
wish to create a space within the classroom
that allows for us to learn from one another.
Dalmage and Martinez 3

I explain that despite myriad challenges
(including some classrooms that have
anchored tables and chairs) my hope is that
we are able to create a liberatory space
through our dialogue together, grounded in
the readings, our lived experiences, and
respect for one another. Fourth, I want stu-
dents to begin thinking about our social
locations. I talk about what I signify as I
enter the classroom: the neoliberal univer-
sity, the gatekeeper of the credentials, aca-
demic or elite language, and my body—read
as white—signifies a history of unearned
power and privilege. I am keenly aware of
the boundaries that I need to cross in order to
connect with students and engage in a liber-
atory process. I hope that my approach is in
part role modeling the layers we bring to our
dialogue with one another.
Samantha: On my first day, I was thankful to be
in college, a lifelong dream for me, even as I
continued to experience an internal con-
flict—my sense of confidence was in con-
flict with the self-doubt I always feel when I
enter classrooms dominated by white stu-
dents and educators. My experiences with
white educators and banking education
approaches have not been inviting, inclu-
sive, or liberating. I was surprised that you
began the semester questioning the structure
of the classroom and the education system.
It made me reflect on how classrooms have
not been places for comfortableness or
where my voice was respected. I was not

used to learning from and with my class-
mates, instead I had been taught to view my
peers as my competitors for college admis-
sion and scholarships. Moreover, as a first-
generation, undocumented, student of color,
I had learned how to excel within the public
education system; success was measured by
obedience, good grades, and the ability to
take multiple choice exams. So, when you
introduced the idea of creating a liberatory
space and questioned our roles in the class-
room and purpose of education, I felt over-
whelmed. I knew how to succeed by the
standards set up in the educational system,
now you were asking us to move without a
map toward success. You were basically
asking us to trust you and be a part of a
learning method we had not engaged in
before. I thought about the sacrifices my
parents made for me, and knew I could not
fail, so on that first day, I resisted your invi-
tation. As an immigrant, female student of
color, I needed time to process what it meant
to be educated, liberated, and successful and
the fear I felt even thinking about veering
from my path.
Heather: I think about the experiences students
bring to the classroom and how my invita-
tion is heard. I watch students closely; I use
humor and make comments that show I wel-
come and want to know more about the stu-
dents’ experiences and ideas. Generally, on
that first day, students are rather silent—yet
we know that silence is not quiet. Listening

to your discomfort, Samantha, helps me to
understand the complexities of silence for
many students. Unfortunately, classrooms
tend to be structured (physically and peda-
gogically) to keep students silent. Like you,
students know how to succeed in the tradi-
tional educational system—they bank
knowledge, memorize words and ideas to
regurgitate on demand. While knowing how
to work within the system may provide a
sense of comfort and perhaps, a sense of
control, the process of education in that sys-
tem also reproduces hegemonic power rela-
tions that make human liberation antithetical
to classroom learning (Freire 1970, 1992,
1998; Shor and Freire 1987). Given the lack
of social support in our society, and the
absolute necessity for students to find a way
to support themselves in the future, the fear
of “veering” from the official meritocratic
system is understandable. I am not surprised
that my invitation is met with skepticism,
resistance, and silence. I reassure students
that I want them to achieve their dreams and
I want them to understand why they are
dreaming what they are dreaming!
Samantha: I remember the first time I spoke in
class. We had a student, a Trump supporter,
and he said something about immigrants that
I felt was offensive and wrong. His words
felt like an attack and I needed to respond. I
did so and the class went silent. I was not
sure if I had crossed a line and was now
going to be attacked by more students—I felt
exposed. You looked at me and I think you

read my sense of vulnerability. You then said
to the entire class: “Okay, before we keep
discussing this, I want to remind everyone
that we are coming from different social
locations and we have to respect and really
listen to each other’s experiences.” By
reminding our class that our social locations
shape our experiences and outlook of the
world, as well as the importance for all of us
to be respectful of one another, I felt that my
voice was legitimated in the discussion.
More importantly, I felt comfortable verbal-
izing my opinions and thoughts without fear-
ing judgment, because you reminded us that
we were all here to learn and build on our
understanding of ourselves in the world.
Rather than feeling alienated, the classroom
became a more comfortable space in which I
could be vulnerable and connect with my
classmates through dialogue. Still, I noticed
some of my classmates remained silent.
MIDDLE OF THE SEMESTER:
UnDERSTAnDIng SILEnCE
AnD FInDIng A vOICE
Faculty can sometimes experience anxiety when
they face students who remain silent, refusing to
engage in dialogue. Some faculty default to their
PowerPoints, convinced that students will not talk.
In this section, we address silence as it is enacted
and plays out in the liberatory classroom. Central

to our discussion is understanding the underlying
reasons for silence even when students are invited
and encouraged to lead from their experiences and
analyses of the readings.
Heather: At some point in every semester, I stop
the momentum and query students about
silence. What is the silence about? Fear,
uncertainty, discomfort? It is hard to imag-
ine students do not care. Listening to the
brave students willing to tell us about their
silence is enlightening. Of course, some stu-
dents stay silent about why they are silent.
Other students offer explanations including
that they are just now becoming aware of the
inequality, the social arrangements that
reproduce inequality and the overwhelming
injustices in the world. They talk about an
inability to process the content and emo-
tion—they need time. Some students feel
intimidated because of their lack of aware-
ness, while other students fear exposing
themselves as racist or sexist. Many students
talk about the years of socialization in the
educational system that taught them that
good students listen, they do not speak or
ask questions. As the professor, I have
become comfortable with silence and the
complexities of that silence. I often sit
silently with the students, sometimes asking
a question, sometimes just waiting. Often, I
ask students to turn to the person next to
them to discuss a particular point. The one to
one dialogue can be less threatening and can
give students a chance to think critically

before engaging with a larger group. I am
conscious that some students need encour-
agement to speak, while other students need
to learn to make space for other voices in
dialogue—they need to learn to listen. This
is all part of learning to engage in liberatory
dialogue and ask questions. We do not all
have the same experiences and knowledge
but we can engage in dialogue toward under-
standing ourselves, others, and society.
Samantha: As a DACA student, I carry a perva-
sive sense of fear—speaking out means
bringing attention to myself which can jeop-
ardize my safety. Likewise, I felt nervous
every time I had to participate in classroom
discussions because I had learned that the
voices of students of color, like me, were not
“fit” for academic settings. However, as we
created an inclusive space for dialogue in
which we did not have to adhere to dominant
institutional practices of banking education,
some of my fear in our classroom space was
lessened. While the physical structure of our
classroom was not ideal, we were able to
find ways to sit facing each other. It was
humanizing to see everyone and I developed
a sense of connection with my classmates,
so I felt I could be vulnerable.
Heather: I remember the joy and excitement I
felt to hear how you analyzed the world,
Samantha! It was not just your insight that
brought a sense of joy, but the act of speak-
ing reflected you were grappling with your
fear and had some level of trust in me, the

process and your classmates. It showed me
that you and many of your peers were mak-
ing this space yours.
Samantha: Yes, that took time. I remember that
we began each class by checking in about
how we were doing and then you would ask:
“I have questions for discussion, but I would
like for you all to talk about what you found
interesting, important and problematic in the
readings.” If the class remained silent you
would ask: “Does anyone want to begin?” If
silence remained, you would posit questions
to prompt discussion. By the middle of the
semester the prompting was less necessary
because we were more comfortable with
each other and the process. And we became
more aware of how our social locations
informed how we were thinking about social
problems. The discussions were exciting for
me because I was learning, sharing, and cre-
ating knowledge with my peers. I knew I
had to be prepared to engage in the dialogue,
so I read before class and began writing
notes in my book margins. I remember read-
ing Shor and Freire (1987) for class and
finally felt like I had the words to articulate
my experiences. I felt validated and better
able to understand the purpose of knowing
my social location in the context of talking
about theory. I could finally see the possibil-

ity for transformation.
Heather: As a professor, it is interesting to see
what happens when students take control of
the dialogue and their own education. While
that is happening, I am also transforming and
learning anew each semester to trust the pro-
cess through which we are creating knowl-
edge. Because, as you said, it takes time, I am
nervous because we have just sixteen weeks
and lots of content. I am managing my wish to
move quickly through the material and my
understanding that liberatory pedagogy some-
times requires a leap of faith. I also remind
myself that silence is not a natural state; as
Freire argued, “Dialogue belongs to the nature
of human beings, as beings of communica-
tion” (Shor and Freire 1987:3). Additionally, I
have learned that some students are more will-
ing to engage in dialogue (at varied levels) as
long as I am able to provide a rubric for written
work—the path toward a good grade. How
much I wish we could abolish grades, even as
I realize we would not have our classroom
space if not for the grade—the axis upon
which power, credentials, and legitimacy of
the status quo rests (see Freire 1998, Sixth
Letter)! This is just one of the many contradic-
tions that we must manage as we create libera-
tory spaces.
Samantha: Although our liberatory dialogues
took place within a college classroom, we
were transforming the space and ourselves,
but, I agree—students need to have a clear
path to achieve success (that’s why we are in

college!). They want liberation, they need to
survive. Rubrics give me the path to fulfill
the expectations for making it within the tra-
ditional system. And, the dialogic process
felt liberating, but I felt overwhelmed in
many of my other classes because the bank-
ing system of education was still being used
(Freire 1970). I had changed, the institution
and pathways to success—of course—had
not and it was frustrating! Now in these
classes, I felt I had to silence my newly found
voice in order to get a good grade! Moreover,
it became clear to me that liberatory peda-
gogy practiced in higher education class-
rooms will not ignite social
transformation—or even change higher edu-
cation—I had to involve myself in actions
and movements in my community.
Heather: Yes! The struggle toward liberation
within dominant institutions forces us to
manage being conscious of the alienation
produced in the system, even as we partici-
pate in that system. We have to manage our
anger at the injustice, the ongoing oppres-
sive educational system, while trying to
achieve our credentials. I understand as a
professor, I have “made it”—I have achieved
success and a level of stability. I am deeply
aware that many of our students are working
to pull themselves and their families into
more stable positions. I have a responsibility
to make sure that students have cultural cap-
ital and the tools they need to move toward
their dreams, even as we must critically ana-

lyze the role of cultural capital in reproduc-
ing inequality (Bourdieu 1984; Isserles and
Dalmage 2000).
EnD OF SEMESTER: CULTURAL
CAPITAL AS RULES AnD
RESISTAnCE
Freire has noted that “dialogue is a moment where
humans meet to reflect on their reality as they make
and remake it” (Shor and Freire 1987:98). In the
process of “remaking” students face moments of
questioning their previous assumptions, goals, and
relationships. They still have the real need to “make
it” in a late capital world structured around auster-
ity, insecurity, and a lack of public social welfare.
As liberating educators, we are obligated to help
students manage the contradictions inherent in
challenging the world while they try to “make it.”
Heather: Near the end of the semester more stu-
dents come to my office. Some students are
interested in their grades, many more want
to talk about the excitement they feel for
having a critical and sociological lens and
then talk with me about the sense of crisis
they feel as a result. Their new ways of
understanding themselves in the world, they
think, will not be accepted by their family
and communities. They fear losing and dis-
appointing their friends and family and fear
being isolated. We talk about the complexi-

ties of maintaining close bonds across all
kinds of differences and building new com-
munities. Some students feel stuck, they
have developed a sociological imagination
(Mills 1959), dream of liberation and expe-
rience depression as a result! They feel
trapped in their former dreams of success
that are at odds with their new understand-
ings of and desire for liberation. Not all stu-
dents have the time, energy, or courage to
come to my office alone—I bring this dia-
logue back to the classroom. We talk about
what it means to be “successful” and how to
manage myriad contradictions of making it
in an unjust world.
Samantha: In class, I was reminded that I am
not alone in this fight and not the only one
experiencing feelings of anguish and hopeless-
ness. I learned that all of us are bound to a
highly individualistic and capitalist society
that benefits from our pessimism, immobil-
ity, and alienation. I also learned that we are
social beings seeking connection, support,
and hope! I used our liberatory space in the
classroom to question and move away from
the American Dream built on an ideal of suc-
cess that revolved around capital, competi-
tion, and individualism. A number of my
peers and I were connected by both the sac-
rifices our families had made for us, and the
demands our families had that were
grounded in our being successful in higher
education. As a result, we talked about our
need to pursue success within a system
while critically challenging and transform-

ing it. For me, understanding the context and
having the tools to think critically about the
world gave me a sense of possibility, of
hope. Realizing that we can have power over
our lives encouraged me to help form a
youth-led grassroots organization in my
community, where I experience hope, a
sense of connection, and personal and social
transformation! Of course, my experience as
an immigrant affects how I see myself, my
dreams, and aspirations. I am working
toward a PhD. I want to learn and teach, and
engage in struggles of transformation, but I
also want to exist without fear of being
deported or punished. Although there may
be no one way out of this system in our lives,
we still have the power and responsibility to
question, to dialogue, to resist!
COnCLUSIOn
Creating a liberatory space within the Introduction
to Sociology course, situated in the physical class-
room housed within higher education, is rife with
contradictions. In this article we argue that explic-
itly addressing the contradictions is part of the pro-
cess of liberatory pedagogy. That is to say, through
critical dialogue we can begin to name and ques-
tion our own social locations and explore how our
social locations shape our understanding of higher
education and dreams of our future. The key to
developing liberatory spaces within dominant,
mainstream, and hierarchical institutions is in
being explicit about power relations, social loca-
tions, silence, and dreams for success. The contra-
dictions of seeking liberatory spaces in the context

of unjust social institutions, explicitly addressed,
give students tools to manage the ongoing contra-
dictions they will experience as they question their
locations, community, and dreams within a neolib-
eral, settler-colonial, racist, and sexist world. As
students understand the role of their own social
location, they are also learning to question the
world. Thus, while the location of the liberatory
space is a given, through critical dialogue with an
explicit focus on injustice and contradictions, we
are challenging existing domination. Our goal in
this article is to show through dialogue how a pro-
fessor and student reflect upon the goals, chal-
lenges, complexities, and contradictions as we
create a liberatory space within higher education.
REFEREnCES
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of
the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Darder, Antonia. 2011. A Dissident Voice: Essays on
Culture, Pedagogy, and Power. New York: Peter
Lang.
Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 20th
Anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.
Freire, Paulo. 1992. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving
Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Bloomsbury.

Freire, Paulo. 1998. Teachers as Cultural Workers:
Letters to Those Who Dare Teach. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Isserles, Robin, and Heather Dalmage. 2000. “Cultural
Capital as Rules and Resistance: Bringing It Home
in the Introductory Classroom.” Teaching Sociology
28(2):160-65.
Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. 1987. A Pedagogy for
Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education.
New York: Bergin & Garvey.
AUTHOR BIOgRAPHIES
Heather M. Dalmage, PhD, is professor of sociology
and director of the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice
and Transformation at Roosevelt University in Chicago.
She uses critical pedagogy in all of her courses.
Samantha A. Martinez, BA, is the family and youth out-
reach coordinator at the Gage Park Latinx Council in
Chicago, is a former Mansfield Scholar at Roosevelt
University.
CHAPTER 1
THE FORMS OF CAPITAL
Pierre Bourdieu

Richardson, J., Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociol
ogy of Education (1986),
Westport, CT: Greenwood, pp. 241–58
The social world is accumulated history, and if it is not
to be reduced to a discon-
tinuous series of instantaneous mechanical equilibria between a
gents who are treated
as interchangeable particles, one must reintroduce into it
the notion of capital and
with it, accumulation and all its effects. Capital is
accumulated labor (in its materi-
alized form or its “incorporated,” embodied form) which,
when appropriated on a
private, i.e., exclusive, basis by agents or groups of
agents, enables them to appro-
priate social energy in the form of reified or living
labor. It is a vis insita, a force
inscribed in objective or subjective structures, but it is also a
lex insita, the principle
underlying the immanent regularities of the social world. It is w
hat makes the games
of society—not least, the economic game—something other
than simple games of
chance offering at every moment the possibility of a
miracle. Roulette, which holds
out the opportunity of winning a lot of money in a short
space of time, and there-
fore of changing one’s social status quasi-instantaneously,
and in which the winning
of the previous spin of the wheel can be staked and lost
at every new spin, gives a
fairly accurate image of this imaginary universe of perfect
competition or perfect
equality of opportunity, a world without inertia, without

accumulation, without
heredity or acquired properties, in which every moment is
perfectly independent of
the previous one, every soldier has a marshal’s baton in
his knapsack, and every
prize can be attained, instantaneously, by everyone, so
that at each moment anyone
can become anything. Capital, which, in its objectified or embo
died forms, takes time
to accumulate and which, as a potential capacity to
produce profits and to repro-
duce itself in identical or expanded form, contains a tendency to
persist in its being,
is a force inscribed in the objectivity of things so that
everything is not equally
possible or impossible.1 And the structure of the
distribution of the different types
and subtypes of capital at a given moment in time
represents the immanent struc-
ture of the social world, i.e., the set of constraints,
inscribed in the very reality of
that world, which govern its functioning in a durable
way, determining the chances
of success for practices.
It is in fact impossible to account for the structure and
functioning of the social
world unless one reintroduces capital in all its forms and
not solely in the one form
recognized by economic theory. Economic theory has
allowed to be foisted upon it
a definition of the economy of practices which is the historical i
nvention of capitalism;
1111
2

3
4
5
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Originally published as “Okonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kap
ital, soziales Kapital,” in Soziale
Ungleichheiten (Soziale Welt, Sonderheft 2), edited by
Reinhard Kreckel. Goettingen: Otto
Schartz & Co., 1983, pp. 183–98. [. . .] Translated by
Richard Nice.
and by reducing the universe of exchanges to mercantile
exchange, which is objec-
tively and subjectively oriented toward the maximization of pro
fit, i.e., (economically)
self-
interested, it has implicitly defined the other forms of exchange
as noneconomic,
and therefore disinterested. In particular, it defines as
disinterested those forms of
exchange which ensure the transubstantiation whereby the
most material types
of capital—those which are economic in the restricted
sense—can present them-

selves in the immaterial form of cultural capital or social
capital and vice versa.
Interest, in the restricted sense it is given in economic
theory, cannot be produced
without producing its negative counterpart,
disinterestedness. The class of practices
whose explicit purpose is to maximize monetary profit
cannot be defined as such
without producing the purposeless finality of cultural or
artistic practices and their
products; the world of bourgeois man, with his double-
entry accounting, cannot be
invented without producing the pure, perfect universe of
the artist and the intellec-
tual and the gratuitous activities of art-for-
art’s sake and pure theory. In other words,
the constitution of a science of mercantile relationships
which, inasmuch as it
takes for granted the very foundations of the order it
claims to analyze—private
property, profit, wage labor, etc.—is not even a science
of the field of economic
production, has prevented the constitution of a general
science of the economy of
practices, which would treat mercantile exchange as a
particular case of exchange
in all its forms.
It is remarkable that the practices and assets thus
salvaged from the “icy water
of egotistical calculation” (and from science) are the
virtual monopoly of the domi-
nant class—as if economism had been able to reduce
everything to economics only
because the reduction on which that discipline is based
protects from sacrilegious

reduction everything which needs to be protected. If economics
deals only with prac-
tices that have narrowly economic interest as their
principle and only with goods
that are directly and immediately convertible into money
(which makes them quan-
tifiable), then the universe of bourgeois production and exchang
e becomes an exception
and can see itself and present itself as a realm of
disinterestedness. As everyone
knows, priceless things have their price, and the extreme
difficulty of converting
certain practices and certain objects into money is only
due to the fact that this
conversion is refused in the very intention that produces them,
which is nothing other
than the denial (Verneinung) of the economy. A general
science of the economy of
practices, capable of reappropriating the totality of the
practices which, although
objectively economic, are not and cannot be socially
recognized as economic, and
which can be performed only at the cost of a whole labor of diss
imulation or, more
precisely, euphemization, must endeavor to grasp capital and pr
ofit in all their forms
and to establish the laws whereby the different types of
capital (or power, which
amounts to the same thing) change into one another.2
Depending on the field in which it functions, and at the
cost of the more or less
expensive transformations which are the precondition for
its efficacy in the field in
question, capital can present itself in three fundamental
guises: as economic capital,

which is immediately and directly convertible into money
and may be institutional-
ized in the form of property rights; as cultural capital, which is
convertible, in certain
conditions, into economic capital and may be
institutionalized in the form of
educational qualifications; and as social capital, made up
of social obligations
(“connections”), which is convertible, in certain
conditions, into economic capital
and may be institutionalized in the form of a title of
nobility.3
16 Pierre Bourdieu
Cultural capital
Cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied
state, i.e., in the form of
long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body; in the
objectified state, in the form
of cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries,
instruments, machines, etc.), which
are the trace or realization of theories or critiques of
these theories, problematics,
etc.; and in the institutionalized state, a form of
objectification which must be set
apart because, as will be seen in the case of educational
qualifications, it confers
entirely original properties on the cultural capital which it is pre
sumed to guarantee.
The reader should not be misled by the somewhat peremptory ai
r which the effort

at axiomization may give to my argument.4 The notion of
cultural capital initially
presented itself to me, in the course of research, as a
theoretical hypothesis which
made it possible to explain the unequal scholastic achievement
of children originating
from the different social classes by relating academic success, i.
e., the specific profits
which children from the different classes and class fractions can
obtain in the academic
market, to the distribution of cultural capital between the classe
s and class fractions.
This starting point implies a break with the
presuppositions inherent both in the
commonsense view, which sees academic success or
failure as an effect of natural
aptitudes, and in human capital theories. Economists might
seem to deserve credit
for explicitly raising the question of the relationship
between the rates of profit on
educational investment and on economic investment (and
its evolution). But their
measurement of the yield from scholastic investment takes acco
unt only of monetary
investments and profits, or those directly convertible into
money, such as the costs
of schooling and the cash equivalent of time devoted to
study; they are unable to
explain the different proportions of their resources which differ
ent agents or different
social classes allocate to economic investment and cultural
investment because they
fail to take systematic account of the structure of the
differential chances of profit
which the various markets offer these agents or classes as
a function of the volume

and the composition of their assets (see esp. Becker
1964b). Furthermore, because
they neglect to relate scholastic investment strategies to the who
le set of educational
strategies and to the system of reproduction strategies,
they inevitably, by a neces-
sary paradox, let slip the best hidden and socially most
determinant educational
investment, namely, the domestic transmission of cultural
capital. Their studies of
the relationship between academic ability and academic
investment show that they
are unaware that ability or talent is itself the product of
an investment of time and
cultural capital (Becker 1964a, pp. 63–66). Not
surprisingly, when endeavoring to
evaluate the profits of scholastic investment, they can
only consider the profitability
of educational expenditure for society as a whole, the “social rat
e of return,” or the
“social gain of education as measured by its effects on national
productivity” (Becker
1964b, pp. 121, 155). This typically functionalist definition of t
he functions of educa-
tion ignores the contribution which the educational system make
s to the reproduction
of the social structure by sanctioning the hereditary
transmission of cultural capital.
From the very beginning, a definition of human capital, despite
its humanistic conno-
tations, does not move beyond economism and ignores,
inter alia, the fact that the
scholastic yield from educational action depends on the
cultural capital previously
invested by the family. Moreover, the economic and
social yield of the educational

qualification depends on the social capital, again
inherited, which can be used to
back it up.
The embodied state. Most of the properties of cultural
capital can be deduced
from the fact that, in its fundamental state, it is linked to the bo
dy and presupposes
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The forms of capital 17
embodiment. The accumulation of cultural capital in the
embodied state, i.e., in the
form of what is called culture, cultivation, Bildung,
presupposes a process of em-
bodiment, incorporation, which, insofar as it implies a
labor of inculcation and
assimilation, costs time, time which must be invested personally

by the investor. Like
the acquisition of a muscular physique or a suntan, it
cannot be done at second
hand (so that all effects of delegation are ruled out).
The work of acquisition is work on oneself (self-
improvement), an effort that
presupposes a personal cost (on paie de sa personne, as we say i
n French), an invest-
ment, above all of time, but also of that socially
constituted form of libido, libido
sciendi, with all the privation, renunciation, and sacrifice that it
may entail. It follows
that the least inexact of all the measurements of cultural capital
are those which take
as their standard the length of acquisition—
so long, of course, as this is not reduced
to length of schooling and allowance is made for early domestic
education by giving
it a positive value (a gain in time, a head start) or a
negative value (wasted time,
and doubly so because more time must be spent
correcting its effects), according to
its distance from the demands of the scholastic market.5
This embodied capital, external wealth converted into an
integral part of the
person, into a habitus, cannot be transmitted
instantaneously (unlike money, prop-
erty rights, or even titles of nobility) by gift or bequest,
purchase or exchange. It
follows that the use or exploitation of cultural capital
presents particular problems
for the holders of economic or political capital, whether
they be private patrons or,
at the other extreme, entrepreneurs employing executives

endowed with a specific
cultural competence (not to mention the new state
patrons). How can this capital,
so closely linked to the person, be bought without buying
the person and so losing
the very effect of legitimation which presupposes the
dissimulation of dependence?
How can this capital be concentrated—as some
undertakings demand—without
concentrating the possessors of the capital, which can
have all sorts of unwanted
consequences?
Cultural capital can be acquired, to a varying extent,
depending on the period,
the society, and the social class, in the absence of any
deliberate inculcation, and
therefore quite unconsciously. It always remains marked
by its earliest conditions of
acquisition which, through the more or less visible marks
they leave (such as the
pronunciations characteristic of a class or region), help to
determine its distinctive
value. It cannot be accumulated beyond the appropriating capaci
ties of an individual
agent; it declines and dies with its bearer (with his
biological capacity, his memory,
etc.). Because it is thus linked in numerous ways to the person i
n his biological singu-
larity and is subject to a hereditary transmission which is
always heavily disguised,
or even invisible, it defies the old, deep-rooted distinction
the Greek jurists made
between inherited properties (ta patroa) and acquired properties
(epikteta), i.e., those
which an individual adds to his heritage. It thus manages to com

bine the prestige of
innate property with the merits of acquisition. Because
the social conditions of its
transmission and acquisition are more disguised than those
of economic capital, it
is predisposed to function as symbolic capital, i.e., to be unreco
gnized as capital and
recognized as legitimate competence, as authority exerting
an effect of (mis)recogni-
tion, e.g., in the matrimonial market and in all the markets in w
hich economic capital
is not fully recognized, whether in matters of culture,
with the great art collections
or great cultural foundations, or in social welfare, with
the economy of generosity
and the gift. Furthermore, the specifically symbolic logic
of distinction additionally
secures material and symbolic profits for the possessors
of a large cultural capital:
any given cultural competence (e.g., being able to read in a worl
d of illiterates) derives
a scarcity value from its position in the distribution of
cultural capital and yields
18 Pierre Bourdieu
profits of distinction for its owner. In other words,
the share in profits which scarce
cultural capital secures in class-divided societies is based,
in the last analysis, on the
fact that all agents do not have the economic and
cultural means for prolonging
their children’s education beyond the minimum necessary for th
e reproduction of the

labor-power least valorized at a given moment.6
Thus the capital, in the sense of the means of appropriating
the product of accu-
mulated labor in the objectified state which is held by a given a
gent, depends for its
real efficacy on the form of the distribution of the means of
appropriating the accu-
mulated and objectively available resources; and the
relationship of appropriation
between an agent and the resources objectively available,
and hence the profits they
produce, is mediated by the relationship of (objective
and/or subjective) competition
between himself and the other possessors of capital
competing for the same goods,
in which scarcity—and through it social value—is
generated. The structure of the
field, i.e., the unequal distribution of capital, is the
source of the specific effects of
capital, i.e., the appropriation of profits and the power to
impose the laws of func-
tioning of the field most favorable to capital and its
reproduction.
But the most powerful principle of the symbolic efficacy
of cultural capital no
doubt lies in the logic of its transmission On the one
hand, the process of appro-
priating objectified cultural capital and the time necessary for it
to take place mainly
depend on the cultural capital embodied in the whole family—
through (among other
things) the generalized Arrow effect and all forms of
implicit transmission.7 On the
other hand, the initial accumulation of cultural capital, the prec

ondition for the fast,
easy accumulation of every kind of useful cultural capital, starts
at the outset, without
delay, without wasted time, only for the offspring of
families endowed with strong
cultural capital; in this case, the accumulation period
covers the whole period of
socialization. It follows that the transmission of cultural capital
is no doubt the best
hidden form of hereditary transmission of capital, and it
therefore receives propor-
tionately greater weight in the system of reproduction strategies
, as the direct, visible
forms of transmission tend to be more strongly censored
and controlled.
It can immediately be seen that the link between economic and c
ultural capital is
established through the mediation of the time needed for
acquisition. Differences in
the cultural capital possessed by the family imply differences fir
st in the age at which
the work of transmission and accumulation begins—
the limiting case being full use of
the time biologically available, with the maximum free time bei
ng harnessed to maxi-
mum cultural capital—
and then in the capacity, thus defined, to satisfy the specifically
cultural demands of a prolonged process of acquisition. Further
more, and in correla-
tion with this, the length of time for which a given individual ca
n prolong his acqui-
sition process depends on the length of time for which his famil
y can provide him with
the free time, i.e., time free from economic necessity, which is t
he precondition for the

initial accumulation (time which can be evaluated as a handicap
to be made up).
The objectified
state. Cultural capital, in the objectified state, has a number of p
rop-
erties which are defined only in the relationship with cultural ca
pital in its embodied
form. The cultural capital objectified in material objects and me
dia, such as writings,
paintings, monuments, instruments, etc., is transmissible in
its materiality. A collec-
tion of paintings, for example, can be transmitted as well as eco
nomic capital (if not
better, because the capital transfer is more disguised). But
what is transmissible is
legal ownership and not (or not necessarily) what
constitutes the precondition for
specific appropriation, namely, the possession of the means or “
consuming” a painting
or using a machine, which, being nothing other than
embodied capital, are subject
to the same laws of transmission.8
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Thus cultural goods can be appropriated both materially—
which presupposes
economic capital—and symbolically—which presupposes
cultural capital. It follows
that the owner of the means of production must find a
way of appropriating either
the embodied capital which is the precondition of specific appro
priation or the services
of the holders of this capital. To possess the machines,
he only needs economic
capital; to appropriate them and use them in accordance
with their specific purpose
(defined by the cultural capital, of scientific or technical type, i
ncorporated in them),
he must have access to embodied cultural capital, either in perso
n or by proxy. This
is no doubt the basis of the ambiguous status of cadres
(executives and engineers).
If it is emphasized that they are not the possessors (in
the strictly economic sense)
of the means of production which they use, and that they
derive profit from their
own cultural capital only by selling the services and products w
hich it makes possible,
then they will be classified among the dominated groups;
if it is emphasized that
they draw their profits from the use of a particular form
of capital, then they will

be classified among the dominant groups. Everything
suggests that as the cultural
capital incorporated in the means of production increases
(and with it the period of
embodiment needed to acquire the means of appropriating it), so
the collective strength
of the holders of cultural capital would tend to increase—
if the holders of the domi-
nant type of capital (economic capital) were not able to
set the holders of cultural
capital in competition with one another. (They are,
moreover, inclined to competi-
tion by the very conditions in which they are selected
and trained, in particular by
the logic of scholastic and recruitment competitions.)
Cultural capital in its objectified state presents itself with all th
e appearances of an
autonomous, coherent universe which, although the product
of historical action,
has its own laws, transcending individual wills, and which, as th
e example of language
well illustrates, therefore remains irreducible to that which
each agent, or even
the aggregate of the agents, can appropriate (i.e., to the cultural
capital embodied in
each agent or even in the aggregate of the agents). However, it s
hould not be forgot-
ten that it exists as symbolically and materially active, effective
capital only insofar as
it is appropriated by agents and implemented and
invested as a weapon and a stake
in the struggles which go on in the fields of cultural production
(the artistic field, the
scientific field, etc.) and, beyond them, in the field of
the social classes—struggles in

which the agents wield strengths and obtain profits proportionat
e to their mastery of
this objectified capital, and therefore to the extent of their embo
died capital.9
The institutionalized state. The objectification of cultural
capital in the form of
academic qualifications is one way of neutralizing some
of the properties it derives
from the fact that, being embodied, it has the same
biological limits as its bearer.
This objectification is what makes the difference between
the capital of the auto-
didact, which may be called into question at any time, or
even the cultural capital
of the courtier, which can yield only ill-defined profits,
of fluctuating value, in the
market of high-society exchanges, and the cultural capital
academically sanctioned
by legally guaranteed qualifications, formally independent
of the person of their
bearer. With the academic qualification, a certificate of
cultural competence which
confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally
guaranteed value with respect
to culture, social alchemy produces a form of cultural
capital which has a relative
autonomy vis-à-vis its bearer and even vis-à-vis the
cultural capital he effectively
possesses at a given moment in time. It institutes cultural capita
l by collective magic,
just as, according to Merleau-Ponty, the living institute
their dead through the
ritual of mourning. One has only to think of the concours
(competitive recruitment
examination) which, out of the continuum of infinitesimal

differences between
20 Pierre Bourdieu
performances, produces sharp, absolute, lasting differences, suc
h as that which sepa-
rates the last successful candidate from the first
unsuccessful one, and institutes an
essential difference between the officially recognized,
guaranteed competence and
simple cultural capital, which is constantly required to
prove itself. In this case, one
sees clearly the performative magic of the power of
instituting, the power to show
forth and secure belief or, in a word, to impose
recognition.
By conferring institutional recognition on the cultural
capital possessed by any
given agent, the academic qualification also makes it
possible to compare qualifica-
tion holders and even to exchange them (by substituting one for
another in succession).
Furthermore, it makes it possible to establish conversion rates b
etween cultural capital
and economic capital by guaranteeing the monetary value of a gi
ven academic capital.10
This product of the conversion of economic capital into
cultural capital establishes
the value, in terms of cultural capital, of the holder of a
given qualification relative
to other qualification holders and, by the same token, the monet
ary value for which

it can be exchanged on the labor market (academic investment h
as no meaning unless
a minimum degree of reversibility of the conversion it
implies is objectively guaran-
teed). Because the material and symbolic profits which
the academic qualification
guarantees also depend on its scarcity, the investments made (in
time and effort) may
turn out to be less profitable than was anticipated when they we
re made (there having
been a de facto
change in the conversion rate between academic capital and eco
nomic
capital). The strategies for converting economic capital
into cultural capital,
which are among the short-term factors of the schooling
explosion and the inflation
of qualifications, are governed by changes in the structure
of the chances of profit
offered by the different types of capital.
Social capital
Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential
resources which are linked
to possession of a durable network of more or less
institutionalized relationships of
mutual acquaintance and recognition—or in other words,
to membership in a
group11—which provides each of its members with the
backing of the collectively-
owned capital, a “credential” which entitles them to
credit, in the various senses of
the word. These relationships may exist only in the practical sta
te, in material and/or
symbolic exchanges which help to maintain them. They

may also be socially insti-
tuted and guaranteed by the application of a common
name (the name of a family,
a class, or a tribe or of a school, a party, etc.) and by a whole se
t of instituting acts
designed simultaneously to form and inform those who
undergo them; in this case,
they are more or less really enacted and so maintained and reinf
orced, in exchanges.
Being based on indissolubly material and symbolic exchanges, t
he establishment and
maintenance of which presuppose reacknowledgment of
proximity, they are also
partially irreducible to objective relations of proximity in
physical (geographical)
space or even in economic and social space.12
The volume of the social capital possessed by a given
agent thus depends on the
size of the network of connections he can effectively
mobilize and on the volume of
the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in
his own right by each of
those to whom he is connected.13 This means that, although it i
s relatively irreducible
to the economic and cultural capital possessed by a given agent,
or even by the whole
set of agents to whom he is connected, social capital is
never completely indepen-
dent of it because the exchanges instituting mutual
acknowledgment presuppose the
reacknowledgment of a minimum of objective
homogeneity, and because it exerts a
multiplier effect on the capital he possesses in his own
right.

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The profits which accrue from membership in a group are
the basis of the soli-
darity which makes them possible.14 This does not mean
that they are consciously
pursued as such, even in the case of groups like select
clubs, which are deliberately
organized in order to concentrate social capital and so to
derive full benefit from
the multiplier effect implied in concentration and to
secure the profits of member-
ship—material profits, such as all the types of services
accruing from useful
relationships, and symbolic profits, such as those derived
from association with a
rare, prestigious group.

The existence of a network of connections is not a natural given
, or even a social
given, constituted once and for all by an initial act of institution
, represented, in the
case of the family group, by the genealogical definition
of kinship relations, which
is the characteristic of a social formation. It is the
product of an endless effort at
institution, of which institution rites—often wrongly
described as rites of passage—
mark the essential moments and which is necessary in order to p
roduce and reproduce
lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symboli
c profits (see Bourdieu
1982). In other words, the network of relationships is the
product of investment
strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciousl
y aimed at establishing
or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in th
e short or long term,
i.e., at transforming contingent relations, such as those of
neighborhood, the work-
place, or even kinship, into relationships that are at once
necessary and elective,
implying durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of
gratitude, respect, friend-
ship, etc.) or institutionally guaranteed (rights). This is done thr
ough the alchemy of
consecration, the symbolic constitution produced by social
institution (institution as
a relative—brother, sister, cousin, etc.—or as a knight, an
heir, an elder, etc.) and
endlessly reproduced in and through the exchange (of
gifts, words, women, etc.)
which it encourages and which presupposes and produces
mutual knowledge and

recognition. Exchange transforms the things exchanged into sig
ns of recognition and,
through the mutual recognition and the recognition of
group membership which it
implies, re-
produces the group. By the same token, it reaffirms the limits of
the group,
i.e., the limits beyond which the constitutive exchange—
trade, commensality, or
marriage—
cannot take place. Each member of the group is thus instituted a
s a custo-
dian of the limits of the group: because the definition of
the criteria of entry is at
stake in each new entry, he can modify the group by
modifying the limits of legiti-
mate exchange through some form of misalliance. It is
quite logical that, in most
societies, the preparation and conclusion of marriages
should be the business of the
whole group, and not of the agents directly concerned.
Through the introduction of
new members into a family, a clan, or a club, the whole
definition of the group,
i.e., its fines, its boundaries, and its identity, is put at stake,
exposed to redefinition,
alteration, adulteration. When, as in modern societies, families l
ose the monopoly of
the establishment of exchanges which can lead to lasting relatio
nships, whether socially
sanctioned (like marriage) or not, they may continue to
control these exchanges,
while remaining within the logic of laissez-faire, through
all the institutions which
are designed to favor legitimate exchanges and exclude illegitim
ate ones by producing

occasions (rallies, cruises, hunts, parties, receptions, etc.),
places (smart neighbor-
hoods, select schools, clubs, etc.), or practices (smart
sports, parlor games, cultural
ceremonies, etc.) which bring together, in a seemingly
fortuitous way, individuals as
homogeneous as possible in all the pertinent respects in
terms of the existence and
persistence of the group.
The reproduction of social capital presupposes an
unceasing effort of sociability,
a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is
endlessly affirmed and re-
affirmed. This work, which implies expenditure of time
and energy and so, directly
22 Pierre Bourdieu
or indirectly, of economic capital, is not profitable or
even conceivable unless one
invests in it a specific competence (knowledge of
genealogical relationships and of
real connections and skill at using them, etc.) and an acquired di
sposition to acquire
and maintain this competence, which are themselves
integral parts of this
capital.15 This is one of the factors which explain why
the profitability of this labor
of accumulating and maintaining social capital rises in
proportion to the size of the
capital. Because the social capital accruing from a
relationship is that much greater
to the extent that the person who is the object of it is

richly endowed with capital
(mainly social, but also cultural and even economic
capital), the possessors of an
inherited social capital, symbolized by a great name, are able to
transform all circum-
stantial relationships into lasting connections They are
sought after for their social
capital and, because they are well known, are worthy of being k
nown (“I know him
well”); they do not need to “make the acquaintance” of
all their “acquaintances”;
they are known to more people than they know, and their work o
f sociability, when
it is exerted, is highly productive.
Every group has its more or less institutionalized forms of deleg
ation which enable
it to concentrate the totality of the social capital, which
is the basis of the existence
of the group (a family or a nation, of course, but also
an association or a party),
in the hands of a single agent or a small group of agents and to
mandate this pleni-
potentiary, charged with plena potestas agendi et loquendi,16
to represent the group,
to speak and act in its name and so, with the aid of
this collectively owned capital,
to exercise a power incommensurate with the agent’s
personal contribution. Thus,
at the most elementary degree of institutionalization, the head o
f the family, the pater
familias, the eldest, most senior member, is tacitly recognized a
s the only person enti-
tled to speak on behalf of the family group in all official circum
stances. But whereas
in this case, diffuse delegation requires the great to step

forward and defend the
collective honor when the honor of the weakest members
is threatened. The institu-
tionalized delegation, which ensures the concentration of
social capital, also has the
effect of limiting the consequences of individual lapses by expli
citly delimiting respon-
sibilities and authorizing the recognized spokesmen to
shield the group as a whole
from discredit by expelling or excommunicating the
embarrassing individuals.
If the internal competition for the monopoly of legitimate
representation of the
group is not to threaten the conservation and
accumulation of the capital which is
the basis of the group, the members of the group must
regulate the conditions of
access to the right to declare oneself a member of the
group and, above all, to set
oneself up as a representative (delegate, plenipotentiary, spokes
man. etc.) of the whole
group, thereby committing the social capital of the whole group.
The title of nobility
is the form par excellence of the institutionalized social
capital which guarantees a
particular form of social relationship in a lasting way. One of th
e paradoxes of dele-
gation is that the mandated agent can exert on (and, up
to a point, against) the
group the power which the group enables him to concentrate. (T
his is perhaps espe-
cially true in the limiting cases in which the mandated agent cre
ates the group which
creates him but which only exists through him.) The
mechanisms of delegation and

representation (in both the theatrical and the legal senses)
which fall into place—
that much more strongly, no doubt, when the group is large and
its members weak—as
one of the conditions for the concentration of social
capital (among other reasons,
because it enables numerous, varied, scattered agents to act as o
ne man and to over-
come the limitations of space and time) also contain the
seeds of an embezzlement
or misappropriation of the capital which they assemble.
This embezzlement is latent in the fact that a group as a
whole can be repre-
sented, in the various meanings of the word, by a
subgroup, clearly delimited and
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perfectly visible to all, known to all, and recognized by
all, that of the nobiles, the
“people who are known,” the paradigm of whom is the
nobility, and who may
speak on behalf of the whole group, represent the whole group,
and exercise authority
in the name of the whole group. The noble is the group
personified. He bears
the name of the group to which he gives his name (the
metonymy which links the
noble to his group is clearly seen, when Shakespeare
calls Cleopatra “Egypt” or the
King of France “France,” just as Racine calls Pyrrhus
“Epirus”). It is by him,
his name, the difference it proclaims, that the members
of his group, the liegemen,
and also the land and castles, are known and recognized. Simila
rly, phenomena such
as the “personality cult” or the identification of parties, trade un
ions, or movements
with their leader are latent in the very logic of
representation. Everything combines
to cause the signifier to take the place of the signified,
the spokesmen that of the

group he is supposed to express, not least because his
distinction, his “outstanding-
ness,” his visibility constitute the essential part, if not
the essence, of this power,
which, being entirely set within the logic of knowledge
and acknowledgment, is
fundamentally a symbolic power; but also because the
representative, the sign, the
emblem, may be, and create, the whole reality of groups which r
eceive effective social
existence only in and through representation.17
Conversions
The different types of capital can be derived from
economic capital, but only at the
cost of a more or less great effort of transformation,
which is needed to produce
the type of power effective in the field in question. For
example, there are some
goods and services to which economic capital gives
immediate access, without
secondary costs; others can be obtained only by virtue of a socia
l capital of relation-
ships (or social obligations) which cannot act

instantaneously, at the appropriate
moment, unless they have been
established and maintained for a long time, as if for
their own sake, and therefore outside their period of use, i.e., at
the cost of an invest-
ment in sociability which is necessarily long-term because
the time lag is one of the
factors of the transmutation of a pure and simple debt
into that recognition of
nonspecific indebtedness which is called gratitude.18 In
contrast to the cynical but
also economical transparency of economic exchange, in
which equivalents change
hands in the same instant, the essential ambiguity of social exch
ange, which presup-
poses misrecognition, in other words, a form of faith and
of bad faith (in the sense
of self-deception), presupposes a much more subtle
economy of time.
So it has to be posited simultaneously that economic
capital is at the root of all
the other types of capital and that these transformed,
disguised forms of economic
capital, never entirely reducible to that definition, produce

their most specific effects
only to the extent that they conceal (not least from their
possessors) the fact that
economic capital is at their root, in other words—but
only in the last analysis—
at the root of their effects. The real logic of the
functioning of capital, the conver-
sions from one type to another, and the law of
conservation which governs them
cannot be understood unless two opposing but equally
partial views are superseded:
on the one hand, economisn, which, on the grounds that
every type of capital is
reducible in the last analysis to economic capital, ignores
what makes the specific
efficacy of the other types of capital, and on the other
hand, semiologism (nowa-
days represented by structuralism, symbolic interactionism,
or ethnomethodology),
which reduces social exchanges to phenomena of
communication and ignores the
brutal fact of universal reducibility to economics.19
24 Pierre Bourdieu

In accordance with a principle which is the equivalent of
the principle of the
conservation of energy, profits in one area are necessarily paid f
or by costs in another
(so that a concept like wastage has no meaning in a
general science of the economy
of practices). The universal equivalent, the measure of all
equivalences, is nothing
other than labor-time (in the widest sense); and the
conservation of social energy
through all its conversions is verified if, in each case,
one takes into account both
the labor-time accumulated in the form of capital and the labor-
time needed to trans-
form it from one type into another.
It has been seen, for example, that the transformation of
economic capital into
social capital presupposes a specific labor, i.e., an
apparently gratuitous expenditure
of time, attention, care, concern, which, as is seen in the
endeavor to personalize a
gift, has the effect of transfiguring the purely
monetary import of the exchange and,

by the same token, the very meaning of the exchange.
From a narrowly economic
standpoint, this effort is bound to be seen as pure
wastage, but in the terms of the
logic of social exchanges, it is a solid investment, the
profits of which will appear,
in the long run, in monetary or other form. Similarly, if the best
measure of cultural
capital is undoubtedly the amount of time devoted to
acquiring it, this is because
the transformation of economic capital into cultural capital
presupposes an expen-
diture of time that is made possible by possession of economic c
apital. More precisely,
it is because the cultural capital that is effectively transmitted w
ithin the family itself
depends not only on the quantity of cultural capital, itself
accumulated by spending
time, that the domestic group possess, but also on the
usable time (particularly in
the form of the mother’s free time) available to it (by
virtue of its economic capital,
which enables it to purchase the time of others) to
ensure the transmission of this

capital and to delay entry into the labor market through
prolonged schooling, a
credit which pays off, if at all, only in the very long
term.20
The convertibility of the different types of capital is the
basis of the strategies
aimed at ensuring the reproduction of capital (and the
position occupied in social
space) by means of the conversions least costly in terms
of conversion work and
of the losses inherent in the conversion itself (in a given
state of the social power
relations). The different types of capital can be distinguished ac
cording to their repro-
ducibility or, more precisely, according to how easily
they are transmitted, i.e., with
more or less loss and with more or less concealment; the rate of
loss and the degree
of concealment tend to vary in inverse ratio. Everything
which helps to disguise the
economic aspect also tends to increase the risk of loss
(particularly the intergenera-
tional transfers). Thus the (apparent) incommensurability
of the different types of

capital introduces a high degree of uncertainty into all
transactions between holders
of different types. Similarly, the declared refusal of
calculation and of guarantees
which characterizes exchanges tending to produce a social
capital in the form of a
capital of obligations that are usable in the more or less
long term (exchanges
of gifts, services, visits, etc.) necessarily entails the risk
of ingratitude, the refusal of
that recognition of nonguaranteed debts which such
exchanges aim to produce.
Similarly, too, the high degree of concealment of the transmissi
on of cultural capital
has the disadvantage (in addition to its inherent risks of loss) th
at the academic qual-
ification which is its institutionalized form is neither
transmissible (like a title of
nobility) nor negotiable (like stocks and shares). More
precisely, cultural capital,
whose diffuse, continuous transmission within the family
escapes observation and
control (so that the educational system seems to award its
honors solely to natural

qualities) and which is increasingly tending to attain full
efficacy, at least on the
labor market, only when validated by the educational
system, i.e., converted into a
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capital of qualifications, is subject to a more disguised
but more risky transmission
than economic capital. As the educational qualification,
invested with the specific
force of the official, becomes the condition for legitimate acces
s to a growing number
of positions, particularly the dominant ones, the
educational system tends increas-
ingly to dispossess the domestic group of the monopoly of the tr

ansmission of power
and privileges—and, among other things, of the choice of
its legitimate heirs from
among children of different sex and birth rank.21 And
economic capital itself poses
quite different problems of transmission, depending on the
particular form it takes.
Thus, according to Grassby (1970), the liquidity of
commercial capital, which gives
immediate economic power and favors transmission, also
makes it more vulnerable
than landed property (or even real estate) and does not
favor the establishment of
long-lasting dynasties.
Because the question of the arbitrariness of appropriation
arises most sharply in
the process of transmission—
particularly at the time of succession, a critical moment
for all power—
every reproduction strategy is at the same time a legitimation st
rategy
aimed at consecrating both an exclusive appropriation and
its reproduction. When
the subversive critique which aims to weaken the
dominant class through the prin-
ciple of its perpetuation by bringing to light the
arbitrariness of the entitlements
transmitted and of their transmission (such as the critique
which the Enlightenment
philosophes directed, in the name of nature, against the
arbitrariness of birth) is
incorporated in institutionalized mechanisms (for example, laws
of inheritance) aimed
at controlling the official, direct transmission of power and priv
ileges, the holders of

capital have an ever greater interest in resorting to
reproduction strategies capable
of ensuring better-disguised transmission, but at the cost
of greater loss of capital,
by exploiting the convertibility of the types of capital.
Thus the more the official
transmission of capital is prevented or hindered, the more
the effects of the clan-
destine circulation of capital in the form of cultural
capital become determinant in
the reproduction of the social structure. As an instrument
of reproduction capable
of disguising its own function, the scope of the educational syst
em tends to increase,
and together with this increase is the unification of the
market in social qualifica-
tions which gives rights to occupy rare positions.
Notes
1 This inertia, entailed by the tendency of the structures
of capital to reproduce them-
selves in institutions or in dispositions adapted to the
structures of which they are
the product, is, of course, reinforced by a specifically
political action of concerted
conservation, i.e., of demobilization and depoliticization. The la
tter tends to keep the
dominated agents in the state of a practical group, united
only by the orchestration
of their dispositions and condemned to function as an aggregate
repeatedly performing
discrete, individual acts (such as consumer or electoral
choices).
2 This is true of all exchanges between members of

different fractions of the dominant
class, possessing different types of capital. These range
from sales of expertise, treat-
ment, or other services which take the form of gift
exchange and dignify themselves
with the most decorous names that can be found
(honoraria, emoluments, etc.) to
matrimonial exchanges, the prime example of a transaction
that can only take place
insofar as it is not perceived or defined as such by the contracti
ng parties. It is remark-
able that the apparent extensions of economic theory
beyond the limits constituting
the discipline have left intact the asylum of the sacred,
apart from a few sacrilegious
incursions. Gary S. Becker, for example, who was one of
the first to take explicit
account of the types of capital that are usually ignored, never co
nsiders anything other
than monetary costs and profits, forgetting the
nonmonetary investments (inter alia,
the affective ones) and the material and symbolic profits
that education provides in
a deferred, indirect way, such as the added value which
the dispositions produced or
26 Pierre Bourdieu
reinforced by schooling (bodily or verbal manners, tastes,
etc.) or the relationships
established with fellow students can yield in the
matrimonial market (Becker 1964a).
3 Symbolic capital, that is to say, capital—in whatever

form—insofar as it is repre-
sented, i.e., apprehended symbolically, in a relationship of
knowledge or, more
precisely, of misrecognition and recognition, presupposes
the intervention of the
habitus, as a socially constituted cognitive capacity.
4
When talking about concepts for their own sake, as I do here, ra
ther than using them
in research, one always runs the risk of being both
schematic and formal, i.e., theo-
retical in the most usual and most usually approved sense
of the word.
5 This proposition implies no recognition of the value of
scholastic verdicts; it merely
registers the relationship which exists in reality between a certa
in cultural capital and
the laws of the educational market. Dispositions that are
given a negative value in
the educational market may receive very high value in
other markets—not least, of
course, in the relationships internal to the class.
6
In a relatively undifferentiated society, in which access to the m
eans of appropriating
the cultural heritage is very equally distributed, embodied
culture does not function
as cultural capital, i.e., as a means of acquiring exclusive
advantages.
7 What I call the generalized Arrow effect, i.e., the fact
that all cultural goods—paint-
ings, monuments, machines, and any objects shaped by

man, particularly all those
which belong to the childhood environment—exert an
educative effect by their mere
existence, is no doubt one of the structural factors behind the “s
chooling explosion,”
in the sense that a growth in the quantity of cultural
capital accumulated in the
objectified state increases the educative effect
automatically exerted by the environ-
ment. If one adds to this the fact that embodied cultural capital i
s constantly increasing,
it can be seen that, in each generation, the educational
system can take more for
granted. The fact that the same educational investment is
increasingly productive is
one of the structural factors of the inflation of
qualifications (together with cyclical
factors linked to effects of capital conversion).
8 The cultural object, as a living social institution, is,
simultaneously, a socially insti-
tuted material object and a particular class of habitus, to
which it is addressed. The
material object—for example, a work of art in its
materiality—may be separated by
space (e.g., a Dogon statue) or by time (e.g., a Simone
Martini painting) from the
habitus for which it was intended. This leads to one of
the most fundamental biases
of art history. Understanding the effect (not to be
confused with the function) which
the work tended to produce—for example, the form of
belief it tended to induce—
and which is the true basis of the conscious or unconscious choi
ce of the means used
(technique, colors, etc.), and therefore of the form itself,

is possible only if one at
least raises the question of the habitus on which it
“operated.”
9 The dialectical relationship between objectified cultural
capital—of which the form
par excellence is writing—and embodied cultural capital
has generally been reduced
to an exalted description of the degradation of the spirit
by the letter, the living by
the inert, creation by routine, grace by heaviness.
10 This is particularly true in France, where in many
occupations (particularly the civil
service) there is a very strict relationship between
qualification, rank, and remunera-
tion (translator’s note).
11 Here, too, the notion of cultural capital did not spring
from pure theoretical work,
still less from an analogical extension of economic
concepts. It arose from the need
to identify the principle of social effects which, although
they can be seen clearly at
the level of singular agents—where statistical inquiry
inevitably operates—cannot be
reduced to the set of properties individually possessed by a give
n agent. These effects,
in which spontaneous sociology readily perceives the work
of “connections,” are
particularly visible in all cases in which different
individuals obtain very unequal
profits from virtually equivalent (economic or cultural) capital,
depending on the extent
to which they can mobilize by proxy the capital of a
group (a family, the alumni of

an elite school, a select club, the aristocracy, etc.) that
is more or less constituted as
such and more or less rich in capital.
12 Neighborhood relationships may, of course, receive an
elementary form of institu-
tionalization, as in the Bearn—or the Basque region—
where neighbors, lous besis
(a word which, in old texts, is applied to the legitimate inhabita
nts of the village, the
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rightful members of the assembly), are explicitly designated, in
accordance with fairly
codified rules, and are assigned functions which are
differentiated according to their
rank (there is a “first neighbor,” a “second neighbor,”

and so on), particularly for
the major social ceremonies (funerals, marriages, etc.).
But even in this case, the
relationships actually used by no means always coincide with th
e relationships socially
instituted.
13 Manners (bearing, pronunciation, etc.) may be included
in social capital insofar as,
through the mode of acquisition they point to, they
indicate initial membership of a
more or less prestigious group.
14
National liberation movements or nationalist ideologies cannot
be accounted for solely
by reference to strictly economic profits, i.e., anticipation
of the profits which may
be derived from redistribution of a proportion of wealth
to the advantage of the
nationals (nationalization) and the recovery of highly paid jobs
(see Breton 1964). To
these specifically economic anticipated profits, which
would only explain the nation-
alism of the privileged classes, must be added the very real and
very immediate profits
derived from membership (social capital) which are
proportionately greater for those
who are lower down the social hierarchy (“poor whites”)
or, more precisely, more
threatened by economic and social decline.
15
There is every reason to suppose that socializing, or, more gene
rally, relational, dispo-
sitions are very unequally distributed among the social

classes and, within a given
class, among fractions of different origin.
16 A “full power to act and speak” (translator).
17
It goes without saying that social capital is so totally governed
by the logic of know-
ledge and acknowledgment that it always functions as
symbolic capital.
18 It should be made clear, to dispel a likely
misunderstanding, that the investment in
question here is not necessarily conceived as a calculated
pursuit of gain, but that it
has every likelihood of being experienced in terms of the
logic of emotional invest-
ment, i.e., as an involvement which is both necessary and
disinterested. This has not
always been appreciated by historians, who (even when
they are as alert to symbolic
effects as E. P. Thompson) tend to conceive symbolic
practices—powdered wigs and
the whole paraphernalia of office—as explicit strategies of
domination, intended to
be seen (from below), and to interpret generous or
charitable conduct as “calculated
acts of class appeasement.” This naively Machiavellian
view forgets that the most
sincerely disinterested acts may be those best
corresponding to objective interest. A
number of fields, particularly those which most tend to
deny interest and every sort
of calculation, like the fields of cultural production, grant
full recognition, and with
it the consecration which guarantees success, only to those who

distinguish themselves
by the immediate conformity of their investments, a token
of sincerity and attach-
ment to the essential principles of the field. It would be
thoroughly erroneous to
describe the choices of the habitus which lead an artist,
writer, or researcher toward
his natural place (a subject, style, manner, etc.) in terms
of rational strategy and
cynical calculation. This is despite the fact that, for
example, shifts from one genre,
school, or speciality to another, quasi-
religious conversions that are performed “in all
sincerity,” can be understood as capital conversions, the
direction and moment of
which (on which their success often depends) are
determined by a “sense of invest-
ment” which is the less likely to be seen as such the
more skillful it is. Innocence is
the privilege of those who move in their field of activity
like fish in water.
19 To understand the attractiveness of this pair of
antagonistic positions which serve as
each other’s alibi; one would need to analyze the
unconscious profits and the profits
of unconsciousness which they procure for intellectuals. While s
ome find in economism
a means of exempting themselves by excluding the cultural capi
tal and all the specific
profits which place them on the side of the dominant, others can
abandon the detestable
terrain of the economic, where everything reminds them
that they can be evaluated,
in the last analysis, in economic terms, for that of the
symbolic. (The latter merely

reproduce, in the realm of the symbolic, the strategy whereby in
tellectuals and artists
endeavor to impose the recognition of their values, i.e.,
their value, by inverting the
law of the market in which what one has or what one earns com
pletely defines what
one is worth and what one is—
as is shown by the practice of banks which, with tech-
niques such as the personalization of credit, tend to subordinate
the granting of loans
28 Pierre Bourdieu
and the fixing of interest rates to an exhaustive inquiry
into the borrower’s present
and future resources.)
20 Among the advantages procured by capital in all its
types, the most precious is the
increased volume of useful time that is made possible
through the various methods
of appropriating other people’s time (in the form of
services). It may take the form
either of increased spare time, secured by reducing the
time consumed in activities
directly channeled toward producing the means of
reproducing the existence of the
domestic group, or of more intense use of the time so consumed,
by recourse to other
people’s labor or to devices and methods which are available on
ly to those who have
spent time learning how to use them and which (like
better transport or living close
to the place of work) make it possible to save time.

(This is in contrast to the cash
savings of the poor, which are paid for in time—do-it-
yourself, bargain hunting, etc.)
None of this is true of mere economic capital; it is possession of
cultural capital that
makes it possible to derive greater profit not only from
labor-time, by securing a
higher yield from the same time, but also from spare
time, and so to increase both
economic and cultural capital.
21 It goes without saying that the dominant fractions, who
tend to place ever greater
emphasis on educational investment, within an overall strategy
of asset diversification
and of investments aimed at combining security with high yield,
have all sorts of ways
of evading scholastic verdicts. The direct transmission of
economic capital remains
one of the principal means of reproduction, and the effect of soc
ial capital (“a helping
hand,” “string-
pulling,” the “old boy network”) tends to correct the effect of ac
ademic
sanctions. Educational qualifications never function
perfectly as currency. They are
never entirely separable from their holders: their value rises in
proportion to the value
of their bearer, especially in the least rigid areas of the
social structure.
References
Becker, Gary S. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Spe
cial Reference to Education.
New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1964a.

–––– Human Capital. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1964b.
Bourdieu, Pierre. “Les rites d’institution.” Actes de la
recherche en sciences sociales 43
(1982): 58–63.
Breton, A. “The Economics of Nationalism.” Journal of
Political Economy 72 (1962):
376–86.
Grassby, Richard. “English Merchant Capitalism in the
Late Seventeenth Century: The
Composition of Business Fortunes.” Past and Present 46
(1970): 87–107.
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The Sociological Imagination
Chapter One: The Promise
C. Wright Mills (1959)
Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series
of traps. They sense that within
their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and
in this feeling, they are often
quite correct. What ordinary people are directly aware of and
what they try to do are bounded by
the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their
powers are limited to the close-up
scenes of job, family, neighborhood; in other milieux, they
move vicariously and remain
spectators. And the more aware they become, however vaguely,
of ambitions and of threats
which transcend their immediate locales, the more trapped they
seem to feel.
Underlying this sense of being trapped are seemingly
impersonal changes in the very structure of
continent-wide societies. The facts of contemporary history are
also facts about the success and
the failure of individual men and women. When a society is
industrialized, a peasant becomes a
worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman.
When classes rise or fall, a person
is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes
up or down, a person takes new
heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance
salesperson becomes a rocket launcher; a
store clerk, a radar operator; a wife or husband lives alone; a
child grows up without a parent.
Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can
be understood without

understanding both.
Yet people do not usually define the troubles they endure in
terms of historical change and
institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do
not usually impute to the big ups
and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aw are of
the intricate connection between
the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history,
ordinary people do not usually
know what this connection means for the kinds of people they
are becoming and for the kinds of
history-making in which they might take part. They do not
possess the quality of mind essential
to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography
and history, of self and world.
They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as
to control the structural
transformations that usually lie behind them.
Surely it is no wonder. In what period have so many people
been so totally exposed at so fast a
pace to such earthquakes of change? That Americans have not
known such catastrophic changes
as have the men and women of other societies is due to
historical facts that are now quickly
becoming 'merely history.' The history that now affects every
individual is world history. Within
this scene and this period, in the course of a single generation,
one sixth of humankind is
transformed from all that is feudal and backward into all that is
modern, advanced, and fearful.
Political colonies are freed; new and less visible forms of
imperialism installed. Revolutions
occur; people feel the intimate grip of new kinds of authority.
Totalitarian societies rise, and are

smashed to bits - or succeed fabulously. After two centuries of
ascendancy, capitalism is shown
up as only one way to make society into an industrial apparatus.
After two centuries of hope,
even formal democracy is restricted to a quite small portion of
mankind. Everywhere in the
underdeveloped world, ancient ways of life are broken up and
vague expectations become urgent
demands. Everywhere in the overdeveloped world, the means of
authority and of violence
become total in scope and bureaucratic in form. Humanity itself
now lies before us, the super-
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nation at either pole concentrating its most coordinated and
massive efforts upon the preparation
of World War Three.
The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of people
to orient themselves in
accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even
when they do not panic, people often
sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and
that newer beginnings are
ambiguous to the point of moral stasis. Is it any wonder that
ordinary people feel they cannot
cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly
confronted? That they cannot
understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That
- in defense of selfhood - they
become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private
individuals? Is it any wonder that
they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap?
It is not only information that they need - in this Age of Fact,
information often dominates their
attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is
not only the skills of reason that
they need - although their struggles to acquire these often
exhaust their limited moral energy.
What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of
mind that will help them to use
information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid
summations of what is going on in
the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is
this quality, I am going to
contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics,
scientists and editors are coming to

expect of what may be called the sociological imagination.
The sociological imagination enables its possessor to
understand the larger historical scene in
terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of
a variety of individuals. It
enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter
of their daily experience, often
become falsely conscious of their social positions. Within that
welter, the framework of modern
society is sought, and within that framework the psychologies
of a variety of men and women are
formulated. By such means the personal uneasiness of
individuals is focused upon explicit
troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into
involvement with public issues.
The first fruit of this imagination - and the first lesson of the
social science that embodies it - is
the idea that the individual can understand her own experience
and gauge her own fate only by
locating herself within her period, that she can know her own
chances in life only by becoming
aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances. In many
ways it is a terrible lesson; in
many ways a magnificent one. We do not know the limits of
humans capacities for supreme
effort or willing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable
brutality or the sweetness of
reason. But in our time we have come to know that the limits of
'human nature' are frighteningly
broad. We have come to know that every individual lives, from
one generation to the next, in
some society; that he lives out a biography, and lives it out
within some historical sequence. By
the fact of this living, he contributes, however minutely, to the

shaping of this society and to the
course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its
historical push and shove.
The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and
biography and the relations between
the two within society. That is its task and its promise. To
recognize this task and this promise is
the mark of the classic social analyst. It is characteristic of
Herbert Spencer - turgid, polysyllabic,
comprehensive; of E. A. Ross - graceful, muckraking, upright;
of Auguste Comte and Emile
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Durkheim; of the intricate and subtle Karl Mannheim. It is the
quality of all that is intellectually
excellent in Karl Marx; it is the clue to Thorstein Veblen's
brilliant and ironic insight, to Joseph
Schumpeter's many-sided constructions of reality; it is the basis

httpsdoi.org10.11772332649219883290Sociology of Race

httpsdoi.org10.11772332649219883290Sociology of Race

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httpsdoi.org10.11772332649219883290Sociology of Race