Habitus, Reflexivity, and the Cognitive Foundations of Social Mobility

• In Event: 212 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Identity and Inequality

Abstract

The possibility for upward mobility has long served as the justification for inequality in the United States. For this reason, among others, sociology has devoted significant attention to the question of how social mobility actually works. At the micro level, the lion’s share of scholarship approaches this issue from a Bourdieusian perspective, studying the ways that individuals’ habitual background dispositions and tastes change during successful social mobility (or fail to do so in less effectual instances). But Bourdieusian theory, as many scholars have noted, largely fails to explain what habitus change actually means on an experiential and cognitive level—the micro processes underpinning habitus dislocation and transformation. In this paper, I propose that reflexivity constitutes one such process, showing both how it integrates well with Bourdieusian theory and gains support from recent research on human cognition. New social settings, a reality for the socially mobile individual, leave the individual ill-equipped for habitual action in terms of dispositions and tastes and can catalyze more conscious forms of deliberation that may facilitate navigation of the unfamiliar setting. Finally, I draw on theory and empirical examples from the study of higher education, an institution integral to processes of social stratification and inequality, to illustrate how the application of this new reflexivity- habitus framework furthers our understanding of the experience of socially mobile individuals.

Author

• Jordan J Brensinger, Columbia University