Social space, social class and Bourdieu: Health inequalities in British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

This article adopts Pierre Bourdieu's cultural–structuralist approach to conceptualizing and identifying social classes in social space and seeks to identify health effects of class in one Canadian province. Utilizing data from an original questionnaire survey of randomly selected adults from 25 communities in British Columbia, social (class) groupings defined by cultural tastes and dispositions, lifestyle practices, social background, educational capital, economic capital, social capital and occupational categories are presented in visual mappings of social space constructed by use of exploratory multiple correspondence analysis techniques. Indicators of physical and mental health are then situated within this social space, enabling speculations pertaining to health effects of social class in British Columbia.