Richard Nice Libri

The way in which the ruling ideas of a social system are related to structures of class, production and power, and how these are legitimated and perpetuated, is fundamental to the sociological project. In this second edition of this classic text, which includes a new introduction by Pierre Bourdieu, the authors develop an analysis of education (in its broadest sense, encompassing more than the process of formal education). They show how education carries an essentially arbitrary cultural scheme which is actually, though not in appearance, based on power. More widely, the reproduction of culture through education is shown to play a key part in the reproduction of the whole social system. The analysis is carried through not only in theoretica

Through Pierre Bourdieu's work in Kabylia (Algeria), he develops a theory on symbolic power.

In 'Distinction', Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates the social pretentions of the middle classes in the modern world. Focusing on the French bourgeoisie - its tastes and preferences - 'Distinction' is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.