ABSTRACT
The final substantive chapter, using Luc Boltanski’s critique of Bourdieu as a foil, foregrounds the relationship between social spaces and symbolic domination. On the one hand it investigates people’s ‘sense of place’ within the spaces by examining the patterns of respondent self-placement, discovering that the tendency to rate oneself highly rises with capital volume but also varies systematically, if to a lesser extent, by capital composition, indicating the specific power of economic capital in structuring self-worth in capitalist societies. On the other hand it investigates people’s perceptions of what it takes to ‘get ahead’ as an indicator of the degree to which they internalise myths or ‘sociodocies’ legitimating the current system. It transpires that the vast majority of people believe hard work and ambition to be the key, and that the dominated in many nations are in fact more likely to deny the importance of parental cultural capital than anyone else. This contrasts with widespread condemnation of the rich paying for private education, suggesting that while those at the bottom may disapprove of a small and distant elite they are often blind to the more pervasive factors involved in social reproduction.
