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Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare • Dec. 2017 • Volume XLIV • Number 4
95
During the mid- to late-twentieth century, Pierre Bourdieu crated a
conceptual framework that describes how underclass status becomes
embodied in individuals, and the ways that personal, professional,
andpoliticaleldsperpetuatethisoppression.Bourdieu’stheoriesalso
outlinetheroleofthe“critical intellectual”inundermining oppres-
sionandghtingforsocialjustice.UsingkeytermsfromBourdieu’s
explanatory framework, this article examines the power relations and
symbolic violence built into the interactions between social workers
andclients,andoerssuggestionsastohowreexiveandrelationalso-
cial work can help workers reduce this impact. This paper also explores
the role of social workers in addressing social inequalities by examining
Bourdieu’s writings in terms of macro approaches to disparity.
Keywords:Bourdieu,habitus,power,reexivity,socialwork,symbolic
violence
Pierre Bourdieu’s Theoretical Contribution
Field and Capital
According to Pierre Bourdieu, the arenas, networks, and so-
cial spaces where individuals live dene their social lives (Ea-
gleton & Bourdieu, 1992; Waquant, 2008). Otherwise known as
elds,Bourdieu described these social spaces in language sim-
ilar to that of a war or game, with “balegrounds,” “stakes,”
“rules of the game,” “power relations,” “common interests,” and
Habitus, Symbolic Violence, and
Reexivity: Applying Bourdieu’s
Theories to Social Work
Wendy L. Wiegmann
University of California—Berkeley
96
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
“trump cards” (Bourdieu, 1990; Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992; Ea-
gleton & Bourdieu, 1992). In addition, elds have recognizable
boundaries—for example, the professional (various professions),
personal (families, social networks, residence), and political (ad-
ministrative institutions, political agencies). Some of the more
common elds found in Bourdieu’s work include the cultural,
economic, intellectual, bureaucratic, and power elds. In addi-
tion, elds also include sub-elds. For example, the intellectual
eld may include the sub-elds of arts and social sciences; or
in the case of the bureaucratic eld, sub-elds may include the
welfare and penal “arms” of the state (Waquant, 2010).
The “stakes” “power relations” and “common interests” in-
herent within elds revolve around Bourdieu’s notion of capi-
tal. As described by Bourdieu, capital is any resource in a social
arena that enables an individual to benet from participation
(Bourdieu, 1979/1980, 1986; Waquant, 2008). Capital comes in
three major forms: economic (material and nancial assets), cul-
tural (education, accent, clothing, behavior, and objects such as
books and art), and social (networks with well-placed individ-
uals) (Bourdieu, 1979/1980, 1986, 1989). As dened by Bourdieu
(1992), symbolic capital is best understood as a trait of favorabil-
ity, held by of any of the three primary forms when they are
recognized by the majority or by individuals in power as le-
gitimate. Bourdieu’s theory also contends that there is always
competition for capital because it can only have value when it is
scarce and unevenly distributed. Thus, competition is an essen-
tial component of capital, and exists within elds and between
them—individuals are in a constant struggle to assert particular
forms of capital, gain access to and control them, and to devalue
other forms of capital (Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992).
Habitus, Embodiment, and Doxa
With his concept of habitus, Bourdieu developed an anal-
ysis describing the interplay between society, status, and the
body (Ignatow, 2009). According to Bourdieu’s theory, an in-
dividual’s habitus is comprised of the unconscious schemata,
acquired through perpetual exposure to social conditioning,
through which we perceive, judge, and act in the world (Bour-
dieu, 1972/1977; Waquant, 2008). Schemata, a term developed by
97
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
Jean Piaget in the mid-1920s, describes the structures by which
individuals’ thoughts are organized. According to Piaget’s the-
ory (2006), through the use of schemata, most new situations do
not require conscious processing. Instead, people organize new
experiences within their mind’s organizational structure. Simi-
larly, Bourdieu’s denition of habitus represents an instinctual
understanding of new events based on previous experience.
Bourdieu describes the embodiment of these understand-
ings insofar as an individual’s response to the world may be
physical as well as mental. Individuals do not simply believe
or think within certain structural boundaries—they “feel”
conned by them, and are incapable of thinking outside them
(Bourdieu, 1972/1977). As the common point of contact between
past inuences and present experiences, habitus is at once
structured—by the social forces that produced it—and structur-
ing: it gives form and coherence to new experiences (Bourdieu,
1972/1977, 1989; Waquant, 2008). Bourdieu also theorized that
while the habitus is capable of adapting to new stimuli, it is also
extremely stable, with a xed tendency to act within preexisting
limits and toward specic responses (Grenfell, 2004).
According to Waquant (2008), by formulating the concepts
of eld, capital, and habitus, Bourdieu was able to redene in so-
ciological terms the notion of doxa. Originally conceptualized
by Edmund Husserl, doxa involves a practical sense of what
does or does not constitute a real possibility in the world (Lane,
2000; Myles, 2004). According to Bourdieu’s (1972/1977) theory,
there is a natural t between individuals’ habitus and the elds
in which they exist. As a result of this reciprocal t, individu-
als develop a “common sense” of what is doable and thinkable
(or unthinkable) within society, and perceive these as being
self-evident and natural. This “common sense” is dened as the
orthodoxy or doxa of the eld. Anything outside of a particular
way of acting is unorthodox, a challenge to the status quo, and
is assumed to be forbidden, even when the status quo is oppres-
sive or detrimental to the individual (Waquant, 2008). Hence,
without even being aware of it, individuals develop an assumed
knowledge about the “the established cosmological and polit-
ical order [which] is perceived not as arbitrary, that is, as one
possible order among others, but as a self-evident and natural
order” (Evere, 2002, p. 66).
98
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Symbolic Violence
Following from the conceptualization of doxa is the idea of
symbolic violence, which exists when doxa produces or sustains
an unequal distribution of capital (Evere, 2002). By adopting
the status quo as obvious and appropriate, even when it is hurt-
ful to them, individuals position themselves within the struc-
ture of society, further legitimizing and solidifying it (Bourdieu
& Waquant, 1992; Eagleton & Bourdieu, 1992; Waquant, 2008).
Furthermore, having accepted as legitimate the established (in-
equitable) social order and their position within it, individuals
who are powerless and dominated believe the doxa which ari-
butes blame to themselves for their subordinate position (Bour-
gois, 2001; Bourgois & Schonberg, 2009). In eect, individuals
within the underclass come to believe that they deserve their
status. Thus, the “violence” within symbolic violence refers to
the physical domination that is replaced or made purposeless
because the individual sees the existing social order as natural
and appropriate (Evere, 2002; Lane, 2000). According to Bour-
dieu, these actions upon the self make the domination under
which they suer more dicult than ever to challenge:
There are many things people accept without knowing. In
fact, I think that in terms of symbolic domination, resistance is
more dicult, since it is something you absorb like air, some-
thing you don’t feel pressured by; it is everywhere and nowhere,
and to escape from that is very dicult … With the mechanism
of symbolic violence, domination tends to take the form of a
more eective, and in this sense more brutal, means of oppres-
sion. (Bourdieu, in Eagleton & Bourdieu, 1992, pp. 114–115)
Reexivity
In an interesting departure from most theorists, Bourdieu
included social scientists within the framework of his theories
through a conceptualization of reexivity. Bourdieu’s concept of
reexivity rests on the idea that it is impossible for the social
scientist to be fully objective because he is an individual who
exists within various elds in society, holds certain forms of
capital, and whose habitus includes certain doxic notions (Bour-
dieu, 1980/1990; Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992). Thus, reexivity
99
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
refers to the need for the social scientist to continually “turn
the instruments of social science back” (Waquant, 2008, p. 273)
upon him or herself in order to reduce distortions that may be
introduced by the scientist’s personal experience:
What distresses me when I read some works by sociologists
is that people whose profession it is to objectivize the social
world prove so rarely able to objectivize themselves, and fail
so often to realize that what their apparently scientic dis-
course talks about is not the object, but their relation to the
object. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 68–69)
In line with his call for reexivity, Bourdieu argued against
intellectuals assuming the point of view of the “impartial spec-
tator” (Waquant, 2008). Instead, he suggested that by assuming
such a point of view the social scientist is not only unaware of
the inuence of his own personal habitus and eld, but also
“(mis)construes the social world as an interpretive puzzle to
be resolved, rather than a mesh of practical tasks to be accom-
plished in real time and space” (Waquant, 2008, p. 273). In such
a way, Bourdieu argued that by portraying the world in purely
objective terms (as “things” to be studied), the social scientist
does not provide insight into the truth, but instead perpetuates
delusions that already exist (habitus within individuals; doxa
within elds). It is by this process that Bourdieu warned that in-
tellectuals become the “toys of social forces” who contribute to
the maintenance of the status quo (Bourdieu, 1984/1988; Bour-
dieu & Waquant, 1992; Evere, 2002; Stabile & Morooka, 2003).
Bourdieu (1998/1998) argued that social scientists should
guard against this possibility by remaining vigilant to their own
biases, but also by aligning themselves with their subjects. Spe-
cically, Bourdieu argued that social scientists should “devote
some of their time and energy, in their activist mode,” to help
“non-professionals to equip themselves with specic weapons
of resistance” (1998/1998, p. 57). Within this idea is Bourdieu’s
belief that intellectuals have a civic mission to “intervene in the
public sphere on maers for which [they have] competency,”
and to use the cultural, social, and intellectual capital that ac-
companies the position of the intellectual to expose the inequal-
ities inherent in society, and the methods by which they are
perpetuated (Waquant, 2008, p. 275).
100
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Bourdieu believed that this mission was essential, and in
Weight of the World (Bourdieu et al., 1993/2000), he organized the
research of more than twenty sociologists to demonstrate how
such a process could be conducted. Specically, Bourdieu and
his colleagues produced detailed ethnographies exploring in
great depth the experiences of individual suering throughout
the world. In summarizing this process, Bourdieu explained
that by speaking with and relating to their subjects, he and the
other researchers were able to transcend the intellectual doxa
that had previously dened their experience, illuminating the
real social problems that contributed to their misery, and coun-
tering the symbolic violence built into their experiences. For
scientists interested in uncovering the truth, Bourdieu believed
that such a role was not only benecial, but was necessary to
conducting meaningful social science.
Social Work’s Position Within the Bureaucratic Field
Bourdieu’s contention that elds occur in hierarchies di-
rectly applies to the eld of social work, particularly its history
of ghting for status as a respected profession. Since Abraham
Flexner (1915) stated that social work was a non-profession, the
eld has been preoccupied with its status, working continuous-
ly to demonstrate its legitimacy as a profession commensurate
with medicine or law. According to Morris (2008), these eorts
by social workers to prove the eld’s status have resulted in
some signicant achievements, but have also come at a price.
While social work has developed many of the aributes of pro-
fessionalization (e.g., a systematic body of knowledge, stan-
dardized curriculum, professional associations), some authors
have argued that social work has left behind the tradition of
social reform and replaced “its humanistic foundations with
scientic positivism” (Morris, 2008, p. 30). According to Reid &
Edwards (2006), social work has turned increasingly towards a
model where services are no longer provided by social workers
themselves, but are contracted through nonprot and for-prot
agencies. In a fervent critique, Reamer (1993) argues that due to
professionalization, the eld of social work aracts fewer peo-
ple drawn to a commitment to social justice and public welfare.
This view is shared by Ferguson (2008), who argues that social
101
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
work’s turn toward professionalism, managerialism, and evi-
dence-based practice has resulted in a desertion of its original
mission to promote social justice and to provide aid and com-
fort to the vulnerable, oppressed, and impoverished.
In their article reviewing social work elds in ten countries,
Weiss-Gal & Welbourne (2008) distinguish between two ap-
proaches for determining professionalization: the aributes (or
trait) approach and the power (or control) approach. As outlined
above, the successes that have been made in distinguishing
American social work as a profession fall under the aributes
approach. Despite these successes, a number of authors have
argued that social work continues to fall short of professional
status, particularly because it lacks the ability to make decisions
on the basis of its own professional knowledge and values, free
of the restraints of managers or agencies outside the profession
(Hugman, 1996). In Bourdieusian terms, the eld of social work
lies under the control of the state, which itself is not a single
monolithic entity, but a collection of sub-elds “vying over the
denition and distribution of public goods” (Waquant, 2010,
p. 200). Within this collective, social work represents the “left
hand of the state”—the “feminine” “spendthrift,” in charge of
“social functions” such as education, health, housing, welfare,
and oering protection and relief to the poor. In contrast, the
“right hand” or “masculine” side of the state is oriented toward
economic discipline and law and order (Bourdieu, 1998/1998;
Bourdieu & Waquant, 1993/1994).
The signicance of this conceptualization of social work is
twofold. First, because the eld is viewed as feminine-gendered,
it is not on par with other sub-elds in terms of symbolic cap-
ital. In fact, some theorists (Hearn, 1982; Kadushin, 1976) have
argued that it is because the eld is characterized by the seem-
ingly natural and feminine qualities of listening and caring that
it is considered by some to be a semi-profession. Added to these
diculties are doubts about social work’s knowledge base:
Although increasingly accepted as rigorous, the social scienc-
es continue to have a more ambiguous standing in political or
popular consciousness compared to the natural science base
of medicine, or the ancient traditions of the law. Social scien-
tists may nd themselves caught between their work being
accepted, and so seen as merely common sense (what people
102
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
knew anyway), and not being accepted because it challenges
preconceptions. (Hugman, 1996, pp. 133–134)
Thus, as a sub-eld vying for the resources of the state, so-
cial work has more to do to gain and maintain its legitimacy—it
must ght for capital, and cling desperately to it. Furthermore,
the sub-eld is at pains to assert its “masculinity”—to prove (of-
ten through means-testing and other “tough-love” interventions)
that it is a sensible and responsible trustee of the state’s resources.
A second implication of Bourdieu’s understanding of social
work is that within this framework, the eld is not autonomous.
According to Bourdieu (1980/1990, 1990), an autonomous eld
possesses its own history, operates according to its own habitus,
and upholds a distinctive set of beliefs. As the mere inverse of the
“right hand” of the state, social work does not have such sover-
eignty. As demonstrated in Wacquant’s (2010) description of the
retrenchment of the welfare state and the correlated growth in
the penal state over the last two decades, within this dichoto-
my, when one hand benets, the other loses. Furthermore, as the
feminine-associated “spendthrift” member of this duo, there is a
doxic notion that social work should be placed under the guid-
ance of “disciplined” managers, distancing the eld even further
from self-determination in line with its values.
The concept of autonomy is particularly salient within Bour-
dieu’s theory, since he believed it to be crucial for individuals to
exercise critical analysis and debate on behalf of the underpriv-
ileged. Bourdieu believed that social scientists have a civic duty
to invest their social and intellectual capital in political strug-
gles, and to apply critical reasoning to overthrow the doxa that
denes the social conditions of the underclass and legitimizes
their suering. While in line with social work values, and ad-
vocated for directly in the NASW Code of Ethics (1999, Preamble
section, para. 1), so long as the social work eld remains pre-
occupied with its own legitimacy as a profession, and seeks to
establish its validity by imitating the punitive and stingy meth-
ods of the bureaucratic eld’s “right hand,” social work will be
crippled in its ability to advocate for social justice and provide
relief to the poor.
103
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
Power and Symbolic Violence
Bourdieu’s theoretical tools are also useful in highlighting
the power relations and symbolic violence built into the inter-
actions between workers and clients. In a ing application of
Bourdieu’s theories to the practice of providing cash aid, Peillon
(1998) describes the impact of means testing on the relationship
between client and worker:
… ocials police access to social benets, ensuring that only
those with a legitimate entitlement receive them. They oper-
ate in a eld with political capital, and the exercise of their
power immediately produces stigma, negative symbolic cap-
ital for their clients. (p. 223)
Aiming to minimize this stigma and to recoup their posi-
tive symbolic capital, Peillon demonstrates that clients employ a
number of strategies, from resistance to submission, inducing a
response from workers charged with maintaining compliance.
This relationship carries consequences for the habitus of both
recipients and workers: clients identify themselves as “objects”
of welfare, powerless and dependent; workers develop an ad-
ministrative habitus that is oriented towards power and con-
trol. The net eect is that:
[w]elfare agencies and welfare clients belong to a structure of
domination, but one which is largely misrecognized. Bour-
dieu’s notion of ‘misrecognition’ simply indicates, in this con-
text, that the relationship between administrative agencies
and welfare recipients, which is organized in terms of con-
trol, is misrecognized as caring. Misrecognition is of course
not accidental: it activates symbolic structures which are in-
corporated in the habitus and are likely to ensure compliance.
(Peillon, 1998, p. 221)
Bourdieu (1979/1980) writes that the importance of sym-
bolic power is in its ability to impose the principles of reality
construction on others. As trusted members of society who
encounter individuals at their most vulnerable and dene this
experience through wrien assessments, it is incumbent upon
104
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
social workers to consider the eects of social inequalities on
their clients’ habitus, the ways in which clients may have em-
bodied their dominated social position, the shame and blame
of that subjected position, and the potential of their own ac-
tions in reinforcing symbolic violence (Bourgois, 2001; Bourgois
& Schonberg, 2009). Approaches that aempt to improve client
functioning though threats, punitive practices, and shaming
may not only miss the mark, but may also do harm.
ReexivityandSelf-Scrutiny
To adequately understand the impact of their involvement
in the life-experiences of clients, and to guard against imped-
ing clients’ progress or adding to their suering, social workers
must evaluate the assumptions under which they operate. Ac-
cording to Houston (2002):
Social workers [must] analyze their taken for granted views
… before they intervene in clients’ lives. Unless we reect on
our personal habitus and the professional eld in which it is
anchored, there is a danger of replicating biased notions that
have been inculcated through professional training, manage-
rial directives or experiences in embaled social work agen-
cies. (p. 159)
This awareness is gained through reexivity, or a process
where social workers reect on how the assumptions underly-
ing their practice have been mediated through their personal
habitus and eld as well as that of their profession (Bourdieu,
1984/1988). To do this, social workers should reect on the ways
that their personal values, aitudes, and perceptions allow cer-
tain questions and ideas but exclude others. To the point, are
workers trained to see individuals seeking help in terms of de-
ciencies? Are they inclined to judge clients as drains upon so-
ciety rather than in terms of socio-economic failures? Finally, to
what extent is lack of cooperation wrien o as evidence that
they are undeserving, rather than an indication that the worker
has not found a satisfactory t between their analyses and the
needs identied by clients (White, 1997)?
105
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
The importance of asking these questions lies in the fact
that the information and analyses arrived at by social workers
occurs through an interpretive process, with tremendous
consequences for their clients (White, 1997). As part of their
work, social workers make judgments and put together ar-
guments justifying their assessments. Importantly, however,
“these judgments do not rely on formal knowledge alone, but on
a range of other rationalities and warrants … judgments about
blameworthiness and creditworthiness, responsibility and ir-
responsibility” (Taylor & White, 2001, p. 47). Thus, the assess-
ments and recommendations made by social workers are not
simply the accumulation of objective knowledge, but a process
of interpreting information:
The process of engaging with others develops, recreates, chal-
lenges, negotiates, and arms meaning. Therefore, the search
for meaning requires reexivity, a process of self-reference
and examination. (Finn & Jacobson, 2003, p. 70)
In a critique of contemporary social work techniques, Finn
& Jacobson (2003) point out that “systems,” “ecosystems,” and
“person-in-environment” approaches oer lile basis for crit-
ical engagement with questions of power. Based on the idea
that social workers should help clients adapt to their current
conditions, these approaches tend to naturalize arbitrary pow-
er dierences and acquiesce to the dominant social, political,
and economic order. In contrast, Finn and Jacobson (2003) ar-
gue, structurally-focused social workers start from the assump-
tion that the dominant political and economic order directly
contributes to social problems, focusing all of their aention
on the transformation of existing structures and ignoring the
role of individuals. Both approaches have pitfalls: the systems
and ecosystems approaches do not go far enough in addressing
the power structures that cause client suering, and structur-
alists overemphasize social inequalities while overlooking the
capacity of individuals to achieve personal and social change
(Finn & Jacobson, 2003). By engaging in a continual process of
reexivity and self-scrutiny, social workers can remain vigilant
to the assumptions involved in their practice and balance the
strengths and pitfalls of both methods.
106
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Relational Analysis
In The Weight of the World (1993/2000), Bourdieu and col-
leagues demonstrate the practice of relational analysis, a practice
developed and employed by the authors where they interacted
with subjects on a personal level over prolonged periods, and
related to them as individuals who were experts about their
own experiences. Describing the approach, Bourdieu identied
ve strategies for ensuring the truth and thoroughness of inter-
views: (1) making the project’s intentions, goals, and procedural
principles explicit; (2) clarifying what subjects can and cannot
say; (3) overcoming the limitations of documentation by taking
into account body language, vocal stress, or irony; (4) making
sure that interviewers had extensive knowledge of the social
contexts of their subjects; and (5) ensuring through a process
of self-reexivity that interviewers objectied their social and
professional contexts, and tried to distance themselves, as far
as possible, from preconceived notions and values taken from
their habitus and eld (Schirato & Webb, 2003).
Having described an engagement process that employs
many of the strategies utilized in standard social work prac-
tice, why did Bourdieu distinguish the sociologists at work in
Weight of the World from social workers, whom he characterized
as “agents of the state”? Bourdieu believed that in order to pro-
vide true critical analysis of social conditions and to arrive at
“truth,” it was essential for the “critical intellectual” to remain
autonomous from social conditions that could inuence his as-
sessment (Bourdieu, 1980/1990, 1990). Although Bourdieu be-
lieved that there were a number of problems with the eld of
sociology during his time (Garre, 2007a), he also believed that
sociologists were particularly capable of this task:
One does not enter sociology without severing all the ad-
herences and adhesions by which one is ordinarily bound to
groups, without abjuring the beliefs constitutive of member-
ship and without renouncing all ties of liation or aliation.
(Bourdieu, 1990, p. 178)
Furthermore, as argued earlier, Bourdieu harbored many
doubts about the ability of social workers to remain autonomous
107
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
and to practice within the context of their own professional val-
ues, especially given the broader context of their position with-
in the bureaucratic eld.
Evident in Bourdieu’s relational analysis is the idea that
social workers must be skeptical of the assumed dichotomy
between a worker’s professional and personal self. In the eld
of social work, professional objectivity is highly valued as a
quality that allows workers to divorce themselves from subjec-
tive feelings, aitudes, and beliefs that might negatively inu-
ence practice. Rather than aempting to develop a synthesis in
which professionals make use of their personal selves in im-
plementing professional functions (Shulman, 1991), workers are
encouraged to remain autonomous from the clients they serve.
Shulman (1991) suggests that such a separation is not only im-
possible, but that it undermines an essential component of the
helping process—the interpersonal relationship between the
worker and the client:
In addition to being complex, social work practice is also a
dynamic and interactional process in which the variables
that contribute to the outcomes aect and are aected by
each other. For example, the worker’s use of particular skills
and investment of activity and energy may well depend upon
the worker’s perception of the clients motivation. In turn, in a
manner of inuence best described as reciprocal, the client’s
motivation may increase or decrease as he or she senses the
worker’s level of investment. (p. 3)
In a similar fashion, Bourdieu argued that social scientists
must keep in mind, rst and foremost, that they are not research-
ing “things” but “relations” that are continually changing and
up to interpretation (Bourdieu, in Bourdieu et al., 1993/2000,
p. 609). Furthermore, Bourdieu argued that social scientists
must employ “active and methodical listening” as opposed to
“half-understanding” based on a “distracted and routinized
aention” (p. 614). Bourdieu suggested that through these pro-
cesses, social scientists may “avoid the condescension and in-
sensitivity characteristic of other interview situations,” which
does lile more than oer a “projection of doxic belief” (Stabile
& Morooka, 2003). Bourdieu believed that this practice of en-
gaged listening was eective in suspending, if not completely
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Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
transcending, commonly held beliefs (doxa) that serve to per-
petuate the symbolic violence experienced by social work cli-
ents (Stabile & Morooka, 2003). As such, Bourdieu believed that
while relational analysis may at rst seem subjective, when
paired with reexivity, it could in fact become a more eective
means of arriving at truth.
Addressing Inequality
In addition to highlighting the ways that social workers
should examine themselves, their eld, and their relationships
with clients, Bourdieu’s theories also call for social workers
to critically engage with the sociopolitical order shaping their
clients’ reality, and to invest their cultural, social, and intellec-
tual capital to oppose inequalities. According to Fram (2004),
Bourdieu’s formulation of habitus, which is dened in terms of
an individual’s position within society, and the self-worth he
derives from his position, requires that social workers consid-
er structural barriers and the eects of underclass status when
considering the aitudes and behaviors of clients. Furthermore,
due to the interrelationship of poverty, individual well-being,
and behavior, Bourdieu’s theoretical framework also makes it
clear that social work with clients must involve eorts to dimin-
ish the eects of poverty, both material and embodied, in order
to achieve meaningful change.
Citing Bourdieu and Waquant’s (in Bourdieu et al.,
1993/2000) depiction of American gheos, often characterized
by an absence of police, schools, health care institutions, and
social service organizations, Garret (2007a) argues that social
workers must also resist the push of neoliberalism and the re-
treat of the state in providing a social safety net for the poor. As
Pileggi and Paon (2003) maintain, when working in a neoliber-
al context, “practitioners of a eld become liable to two masters:
the practices and norms of [their] discipline and the practices
and norms of the market” (p. 318). In line with this, social work-
ers must resist eorts to make social work more “managerial”
and market-focused (Garre, 2007a, 2007b), and to use social
work as a means of controlling the poor (Bourdieu, in Bourdieu
et al., 1993/2000). As such, Bourdieu’s theories encourage social
workers to employ a multi-level approach, addressing not only
109
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
individual factors but also the eect of structural forces on cli-
ent circumstances.
Unanswered Questions
In Jeremy Lane’s (2000) text, Pierre Bourdieu: A Critical In-
troduction, the author makes a salient point that Bourdieu’s
theories are elitist and deterministic, and that they insinu-
ate that oppressed individuals do not have the proper reex-
ivity to liberate themselves. To what degree then, is it possi-
ble that by adopting Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, social
workers also introduce elitism and determinism into the habi-
tus of their clients? If, as Bourdieu’s theories postulate, reex-
ivity is exclusive to social scientists and sociologists, or barring
that, those with the social and economic means to engage in
such a practice, how do such claims feed into clients’ feelings of
hopelessness, dependency, or the notion that they are “objects”
of welfare? Furthermore, where is there room within Bourdieu’s
theories for empowerment? A theory that focuses solely on the
distinction between “victims” and “perpetrators,” and which
claims that a protest movement amongst the oppressed would
be a “social miracle” (Bourdieu, 1998) does not hold much hope
for self-liberation.
While some social workers engage in community and mac-
ro-level social work, most engage one-on-one with clients, within a
limited span of time. A number of authors (Emirbayer & Williams,
2005; Emond, 2003; Horvat & Davis, 2011; Houston, 2002; Kita, 2011)
have argued that Bourdieu’s theories can be used to inform social
work with individuals. However, Bourdieu’s theories largely ne-
gate the ability of individuals to change their habitus outside of
structural change, or with any immediacy:
… such transformations, as any number of sociological stud-
ies suggest, do not happen ‘spontaneously.’ They must be pre-
pared within the social formation over time, events building
upon events and opening up spaces of opportunity. This is
only possible, however, if the events of the present do not
pass away into nothing but rather cumulate and sediment; if
the actions of today have a durable impact upon the actions of
tomorrow. (Crossley, 2001, p. 116)
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Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Within this context, are Bourdieu’s theories useful in help-
ing clients nd meaningful change in their personal lives on a
day-to-day basis without bringing change to the larger social
context? Also, if Bourdieu’s theories oer no place for liberation
consciousness (Lane, 2000) or agency (Fram, 2004; Schinkel,
2007), how can social workers engage with clients to solve in-
dividual-level problems? Especially considering the limitation
of time, how do social workers help clients change their per-
sonal circumstances in the absence of structural change? Fur-
thermore, what does it mean for social workers to advocate for
structural change? Must all social workers ght the “scourge of
neoliberalism” or are smaller bales also meaningful?
Finally, as pointed out by Sayer (2010), Bourdieu’s theories
do not leave room for social workers to engage with clients in
terms of morality, responsibility, or concern for others. What
does this mean for social workers that work with clients who
have hurt others? Is there room within a Bourdieusian frame-
work to approach clients in terms of personal responsibili-
ty, restorative justice, and compassion for those who have been
hurt? Within the context of strategic moves within elds, how
do social workers assist clients in seing things right?
Ways Forward
Bourdieu’s theories call equally upon critical intellectuals to
address inequality at the deeply personal level, undermining the
doxa that denes client’s habitus, while also using social capi-
tal to enact change at the mezzo and macro levels. The fact that
Bourdieu and his colleagues (1993/2000) specically identied
social workers as not living up to this duty may indicate that the
eld has lost its way as the champion for the poor and oppressed.
As illustrated by Reisch and Andrews (2002), the eld
of social work has a long tradition of zealous progressivism
spanning from the selement houses in the early 20th centu-
ry, through the Rank and File Movement of the 1930s, and cul-
minating in the Radical Social Work Movement of the 1970s.
These campaigns, headed primarily by social workers, were
characterized not only by the direct help provided to clients,
but also by their greater eorts toward equality, including labor
activism, marches, boycos, and strikes. In addition, The Rank
111
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
and File Movement and Radical Social Work Movement both
challenged the professionalization of social work, believing
that it undermined the relationship between social workers and
clients. Instead, these movements encouraged closer relation-
ships between social workers and clients, based on common
class interests (Ferguson, 2008).
Despite this tradition, Ferguson (2008) and others (Garre
2007a, 2007b; Waquant, 2010) argue that social work has become
increasingly conservative, characterized by:
… policies that insist that the primary role of social work-
ers is to ‘manage’ ‘high-risk’ families or individuals, to ration
increasingly meager services, and to collude in the demoni-
zation of groups such as young people and asylum seekers.
(Ferguson, 2008, p. 4)
In his book, Reclaiming Social Work, Ferguson (2008) also
makes the point that recent trends toward managerialism have
left many social workers alienated, despondent, and estranged
from the profession. If social work is to reclaim its identify as
a compassionate profession, commied to and aligned with the
interests of the underclass, it is necessary for it to return to its
progressive roots and challenge the social structures that under-
mine social justice. According to Ferguson, this is a direction that
is not only necessary for the well-being of social work clients, but
also for social workers to be happy and fullled in their work.
For some, however, a command toward structural activism
may be overwhelming. Are all social workers responsible for
macro-level social work? What about clients? How do they t
within this macro-level activity? Despite his rhetorical focus on
neoliberalism in Acts of Resistance (1998/1998), Bourdieu’s writ-
ings also demonstrate that he saw the value of small bales
oriented toward larger social goals. It one example, Bourdieu
describes eorts by French welfare ministries to protect social
housing policy:
For example, within the French bureaucracy, when housing
nance was being reformed, the welfare ministries fought
against the nancial ministries to defend the social hous-
ing policy. Those civil servants had an interest in defending
112
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
their ministries and their positions; but they also believed in
what they were doing, they were defending their convictions.
(Bourdieu, 1998/1998, p. 33)
In a similar way, social workers can engage in a number of
everyday actions that are benecial to the lives of their clients.
Most importantly, social workers must use reexivity to exam-
ine and resist the tendency within themselves and their oces
to blame clients for their situations, focus on weakness, or exert
domination and control. In addition, within the elds in which
their clients live, social workers must use their expertise, train-
ing, and social capital to advocate for the provision of concrete
resources necessary to the lives of their clients. To this end, social
workers must push their agencies to be less punitive and stingy
in allocating food, money and other assets to clients, and should
work with clients to mobilize and access services within their
community. Above that, social workers must ght eorts within
their agencies to retract social services or to implement miserly
means-testing procedures that humiliate and discourage:
‘The world is not a commodity!’ reects the widespread feel-
ing amongst many social workers that their practice should
be driven by values of respect and social justice, rather than
budgetary considerations. (Ferguson, 2008, p. 4)
Finally, social workers should use their trade unions (Service
Employees International Union [SEIU], for example) and pro-
fessional organizations (National Association of Social Workers
[NASW]) to continually advocate on behalf of social work clients.
During the Occupy Wall Street Movement of 2011, both the SEIU
and the NASW were galvanized in the national eort to protest
cuts to essential social services among the poor and middle class.
While inspiring at the time, eorts among conservatives to cur-
tail basic social services began before the Occupy Movement,
and continued after. As such, social workers must push their
representatives to remain vigilant and vocal on behalf of clients,
even without a national movement to inspire them. At present,
a number of nationally popular politicians are advocating for
cuts to food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid, and other fun-
damental social safety net programs. On these issues and oth-
ers like them, clients depend on the social capital, support, and
113
Applying Bourdieu’s Theories to Social Work
activism of social workers to prevent retrenchment and maintain
a basic standard of living for the poor. Social workers must use
their unions and national organizations to lobby Congress and
to speak within governmental institutions on behalf of the poor.
To the extent that representatives of the social work community
are not doing this, it is the responsibility of every social worker to
spur their aliations to these causes.
While Bourdieu’s theories may appear elitist, esoteric, or
overly ambitious, they contain an explanatory framework with
real world meaning for the eld of social work. As argued by
Lane (2000), Bourdieu’s most important theoretical contribution
is the connection he built between structuralism and existential-
ism through the conceptual use of habitus. This is also Bourdieu’s
most important contribution to social work. By illuminating the
way that inequalities inuence the self-perception (via symbolic
violence), aitudes and behaviors of clients, Bourdieu signals to
social workers that their work on behalf of clients must aend to
inequality and structural barriers. In addition, as demonstrated
by Peillon (1998), social workers must also be cognizant of their
own habitus, using reexivity to remain fair and earnest advo-
cates for their clients. By applying these salient principles, social
workers can become more eective and meaningful in their prac-
tice, but also more connected, fullled, and relevant.
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