DISTINCTIONS OF TASTE BY PIERRE BOURDIEU

Abstract

The article brings a brief biography of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, then presents an overview of the epistemological method developed by him during practically half a century of scientific activity. With this contextualization, three concepts coined by Bourdieu and essential for understanding his thought are highlighted: field, habitus and symbolic capital. It goes, then, specifically into the work The Distinction, in which Bourdieu reveals the hidden social mechanisms in the creation of distinctions of taste between the different segments of society, removing the apparent essential nobility of the individuals that compose the higher classes to demonstrate how social institutions, with emphasis on the role of the family and the school, they are the true promoters of the conditions that allow those not bound by material limitations (principle of necessity) to progressively establish differentiated aesthetic dispositions, capable of marking and reinforcing class distinctions.