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University of California Irvine Social Mobility & Symbolic Struggles Discussion
The issues that I found most interesting this week were social mobility and symbolic struggles. I found the idea that not only do each individual person has a unique habitus, that shares characteristics with those around them, but are also wholly special to each person. Not only that, but the fact that people are excellent judges of people’s habitus. This intrigued me because it made a lot of sense because society is very judgmental, and they can easily point out certain differences that make you stand out from the rest of them. This leads to difficulties in social mobility, where someone born in the countryside would have a hard time fitting into a big cityscape, as their appearance, dialect, mannerisms, and tastes would all reflect someone that is not from the city. This puts a huge strain on people going into new environments if the people already there are not accepting of outsiders. This also points to some issues within symbolic struggles, since each person believes their lifestyle is the best, people who do not accept others would most likely condemn others lifestyles as well, since they could lack culture and capital, in their eyes.
