In this second edition of this classic text the authors develop an analysis of education. They show how education carries an essentially arbitrary cultural scheme based on power. More widely, the reproduction of culture through education is shown to play a key part in the reproduction of the social system.

Illuminates the social pretentions of the middle classes in the modern world, focusing on the tastes and preferences of the French bourgeoisie. This book argues that the social world functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.