ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a theoretical framework that conceptualises whether, how, and why young offenders and their parents are treated differently by practitioners according to their socioeconomic background. The chapter takes as its starting point Bourdieu’s work on habitus and field and contemporary interpretations of his theoretical concepts, before extending these notions using both Sayer’s work on moral understandings of class and Boltanski and Thévenot’s work on the sociology of lay normativity. By doing so, the chapter suggests that professionals and their clients of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds negotiate based on common norms of justice, but draw from different lifeworlds and accompanying experiences, so assessments of a person’s behaviour can be distorted by classed associations and might yield discriminatory results as a consequence.
