Distinction and Social Class in America and Europe: Pierre Bourdieu's Theory of Taste in Cross-Cultural Comparison

Vincenzo Mele, (University of Pisa, Italy) makes a cross-cultural comparison of the topic social class and distinction in the eu and usa, mainly discussing Pierre Bourdieu’s work. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of distinction seems to be less influential in the social stratification studies in the United States than in Europe. The cause lays probably in some basic differences between the European and the American social structure, with special regard to what Bourdieu himself called the “sym- bolic power” of taste and consumption. This chapter reviews some of the most important concepts of Pierre Bourdieu (like habitus, symbolic space, cultural/ economic capital) and tries to put them at work in an ethnographic research based on participant observation in a NJ neighborhood.