Bourdieu's Analysis

Tracing a parallel with Marx, Bourdieu (1984/2010: 102) affirms that the volume and composition of capital gives form and value to the determination of the other properties on practice. Families, thus, diverge in their adopted practices to maintain or increase their set of assets and position on the class structure. On this sense and complementing the Marxist contribution, the social trajectory of an individual’s capital accumulation also represents an important stratification factor, as a person might not follow his class-expected path according to his/her relation to the social world. Nonetheless, Bourdieu agrees on Marx’s position on how rigid stratification is, although taking a broader interpretation by assuming that “major moves between

Bourdieu sees in this process a series of methods to depreciate children from middle and working class through methods that differentiates academic diplomas (the best ranked and most exclusive being granted for the upper class members), what the author calls a “scholastic mechanism of reproduction” (1984/2010: 151). The reproduction of these distinction strategies maintain and enhance social inequality and stratification. Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) analysis of education and class differentials, in which two factors are responsible for differentials, the primary effects, the correlation between class of origin and a child’s academic ability; and secondary effects, the factual choices made by children and their family

In that direction, Bourdieu (1984/2010:222) introduces some factors on the historical materialism’s understanding of the labor market: for the author, beyond the differences between the owners of means of productions and the labor suppliers, the analysis must contemplate how rare a post is, the advantages (material and symbolic) it rewards and the qualifications it demands in order to assess how long a job supplier can endure a strike or individual withdraw and how far a worker can refuse a job position based on the worker’s individual characteristics (age, family, qualifications and vulnerabilities). These characteristics from both sides are determinants on social and labor relations and are deeply influenced by capital composition, social trajectory and context. Social class, thus, is not only a result of relations of production, but by “the class habitus which is normally associated with that position” (Bourdieu, 1984/2010: 373). For this reason, occupation, age, exposure to culture, educational qualifications and capital composition have a direct effect on personal ambitions, taste, consumption (consequently, habitus) and this is reflected on a person’s perception of class belonging and his/her position on the social