2 forums due 10/21: 100 words each

1st post: 

Agree with this post – ASK question
I believe Bourdieu’s provides the most accurate and balanced account of  social life.  His efforts of joining objectivist and subjectivist were  his belief in habitus.  Habitus is a mental filter that arranges a  person’s perceptions, experiences and practices  that the world takes them as taken-for-granted commonsense appearance.   It is through habitus that an individual can acquire sense of one’s  place in world or a point of view where they can understand their own  actions or those of others (Appelrouth & Edles,  2010).  

He  developed a theoretical model with hopes of disabling the theoretical  dualism, which he believed is responsible for producing on partial  knowledge  of social life.  His concept of habitus was a theoretical device that  helped answer the question “What accounts for the patterns of behavior  that leads us to experience social life as routine and predictable?”    His response is based on the notion that the  habitus assembles a person’s view of the social world at the same time  it is a product of social and historical conditions.  The habitus also  incorporates individualist and collectivist extents of social order  (Appelrouth & Edles, 2010).  Individuals make  and remake the social order as they take positions or advance  particular points of view, building their view on the world.  This means  as people grow and advance through life, things change, the way they  see themselves and the world around them.  At one point  in their life, one thing could be of importance to them, while later  something else could be more important and their view on themselves and  the world around them will change.  

Appelrouth, S. & Edles, L. D. (2010). Sociological Theory in the Contemporary  Era. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

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2nd post

Agree with this post – provide info and/or questions

The framework that I believe provides the most accurate and balanced  account of social life is that of Pierre Bourdieu with his main concept  of habitus, and adjoining concepts of economic capital and cultural  capital. The habitus is “a mental filter that  structures an individual’s perceptions, experiences, and practices such  that the world takes on a taken-for-granted, commonsense appearance”  (Appelrouth & Edles, 2010, p. 448). Through this mental filter, a  person is able to formulate their point of view of  their social world and in particular social spaces. With this  development of their point of view they are able to interpret and give  meaning to the thoughts and actions of themselves and of others.   According to Bourdieu, a person’s point of view is not only  determined by their socialization, but also their economic capital,  material resources that a person may control or possess, and their  cultural capital, nonmaterial goods that can be transferred into  economic capital (Appelrouth & Edles, 2010, p. 449). This  is where inequality within society stems. The classes have differing  levels and accessibility to both cultural and economic capital. People  instinctively surround themselves with others like them, whether  intentional or not, and are therefore surrounded by  those who share in their level of cultural and economic capital. This  can be from the job they hold, the neighborhood they live in, the school  their children attend, their political ideologies, and to even their  choices of what to do during their free time.  Each of these, in culmination with their socialization, formulates  their habitus.  

Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding and concepts  of social life is directly reflective of the society we live in.   Habermas has somewhat a utopian idea of social life, in that the  lifeworld is capable of allowing people to agree upon  the fairness and authenticity of actions while remaining impartial and  true to their personal identity; though this cannot be accomplished due  to the ever increasing public sphere (Appelrouth & Edles, 2010). On  the other hand, Giddens’ theory of structuration  suggests that people have the agency to choose their social position,  influence, and understanding, which is contradictory to Bourdieu’s more  practical theory.