Can Taste Illumine Class? Cultural Knowledge Forms of Inequality

Abstract

In Distinction (1984), Pierre Bourdieu sought to identify social classes in 1960/70s France by assessing relationships between various forms of capital and cultural tastes and practices. In like manner, this article describes relationships between a variety of cultural tastes and capitals in modern-day Canada. Utilizing data from a questionnaire survey of adults in British Columbia, it assesses distinct and inter-related predictors of familiarity with (high-brow) culture and cultural omnivorism. In particular, the analysis explores contributions to zero-order and multivariate models made by (i) neo-Marxist distinctions based upon real economic ownership, various kinds of control in the workplace and degree of manual labour, (ii) economic capital and educational capital, the most efficient structuring principles of distinction in modern societies according to Bourdieu, and (iii) gender and ethnicity, two forms of power relatively under-explored in Bourdieu's empirical work that may also serve to structure cultural distinctions and intersect with class in Canada.