Fields and classes: Pierre Bourdieu's theory of modern society

Kieserling A. Felder und Klassen: Pierre Bourdieus Theorie der modernen Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift für Soziologie. 2008;37(1):3-24.Bourdieu describes modern society as differentiated into classes on the one hand and into fields on the other. This article discusses the status of these two forms of differentiation in Bourdieu's theory, and it argues that the logic of his own arguments forces Bourdieu to regard fields rather than classes as the primary units of social differentiation. A close reading of Bourdieu's theory thus cannot support the idea of modern society as primarily differentiated along class lines. The following elements of his theory are discussed to substantiate this claim: the concept of autonomous fields and why it is not applied to the educational system, the concept of class and its implications for the notions of a "ruling" and a "universa" class, and, finally, the corresponding theory of action