Bourdieu and the Big Society: empowering the powerful in public service provision?
本文运用布迪厄的实践理论，分析中产阶级如何利用其惯习在公共服务中获取不成比例的收益，并指出地方主义可能加剧不平等。
There is concern that the ‘localism’ promoted by the UK Coalition Government will further empower the already powerful. This paper uses Bourdieu’s theory of practice to theorise middle-class public service use. Building on a previous evidence review (Matthews and Hastings, 2013) it considers whether the habitus of the middle-classes enables them to gain disproportionate benefit from public services. Service provision is understood as a ‘field’ marked by a competitive struggle between social agents who embody class-based power asymmetries. It finds that engagement with the state is a classed practice producing benefits to those already empowered and that localism may exacerbate inequalities.