The thesis aims to address the gap in the class research on Poland by offering a comprehensive investigation of the class divisions and their relation to cultural divisions and hierarchies as seen from the Bourdieusian perspective. Poland is taken to be an interesting case in the Bourdieusian approach, due to its state-socialist history, very different from Western European societies studied so far. The importance of this historical context is carefully considered in order to answer the question about the best way of investigating the class structure of Poland, in the thesis understood as social space. The historical part of the thesis is meant to generate hypotheses on the possible shape and logic of the Polish social space. In the empirical part of the thesis, the Polish social space in constructed on the basis of indicators of economic and cultural capital with the use of multiple correspondence analysis. The second goal of the thesis is an exploration of the contemporary cultural hierarchies in Poland at the backdrop of the key debates in cultural sociology, most importantly, the cultural omnivorousness thesis. The patterns of cultural consumption and elements of lifestyle differentiation are examined through the construction of the space of lifestyles/symbolic space, another key element of the Bourdieusian theory of class. In the final step, the relationship between the constructed social and symbolic spaces is investigated to determine whether a homology between the spaces could be found.
Distinction in Poland. Testing elements of the Bourdieusian theory of class.
Marzec, P. M. (Author). 1 Oct 2019
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)