Open AccessCulture and class in Canada
Author(s) -
Gerry Veenstra
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
canadian journal of sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.357
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1710-1123
pISSN - 0318-6431
DOI - 10.29173/cjs4198
Subject(s) - highbrow , cultural capital , sociology , social class , habitus , depiction , taste , class (philosophy) , social space , social science , space (punctuation) , epistemology , psychology , linguistics , political science , law , philosophy , neuroscience
I apply Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of relationally-defined social spaces of capitals and classes that delimit highbrow and lowbrow cultural forms to Canadian society. I use categorical principal components analysis techniques and a nationally representative survey dataset from 1998 containing measures of economic capital, cultural capital and a wide range of cultural practices to construct a visual representation of Canadian social space which is directly inspired by the social space for 1960s France crafted by Bourdieu in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Bourdieu 1984). After identifying nascent class groupings and potentially highbrow and lowbrow cultural practices in my depiction of social space, I speculate on precisely how such cultural practices might factor into class dynamics in Canada, in particular examining the role played by “cultural omnivorism” in identifying and reinforcing class distinctions.