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“People Like Us” EssayDilemmas of DiversityWrite an essay no more than 1400 words, answering oneof the following questions.This essay is due by 11:59pmon Tuesday, 18May 2021.It must be submitted online throughthe Canvas website.
The purpose of this assignment is to make connections between Pierre Bourdieu’s theories and contemporary American society.
The most successful essays will integrate Bourdieu’sinsights into arich and detailed analysis of the topicyou have chosen. Be sure to use a bibliography and/or endnotes to cite your sources. You should try to make explicit references to the course texts.
See your syllabus for further hints and guidelines. Use the number of the question you are answering as the “submission title” of your paper when you upload it. For example, your submission title might read “topic3.”
1. Pierre Bourdieu claims that people use cultural and economic capital to create and defend the boundaries of social groups, and that they also use these forms of capital to move from one group to another. Choose a social group with which you have personal experienceand write a Bourdieuian analysis of it. Show how the group is defined by tastes and practicesshared within thegroup. Try to identify the group’s mechanisms of distinction, andprovide details about how people outside the group are kept outside. It would also be interesting to note attempts at social mobility. What kinds of people are most likely to try to enter this group? What strategies do they use? What other groups do members of yours try to enter? Overall, explaincarefullyhow your analysis illustrates or modifies Bourdieu’s ideas.
2. Bourdieu produces a powerful analysis of group formation and social mobility based on an analysis of cultural and economic capital. However, his analysis doesn’t consider differences of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference. If you were going to use Bourdieu’s ideas to understand problems of social mobility in Southern California, how would you modifyor adapt them? (Hint: be specific about the challenges that such an analysis would faceand your recommendations for meeting those challenges.)
3. Choose a character from “People Like Us.” Analyze the specific challenges of social mobility that this person faces, usingBourdieu’s insights aboutthe dynamics of group identity and distinction. Try to developa rich and insightful analysis of thisperson’s place in society. You should be sure to specify various forms of social group identity, habitus, cultural capital, and mechanisms of distinctionthat are at work there.
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