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Social Reproduction

The habitus plays a vital role in a process sociologists call social reproduction, the perpetuation of unequal relations such that almost everyone, including the disadvantaged, come to view this inequality as normal and legitimate and tend to shrug off or resist calls for change. According to Bourdieu, no institution does more to ensure the reproduction of inequality than education. He argues that the system of education is widely misperceived as meritocratic—that grades are awarded according to demonstrated academic abilities and not family connections or class privilege.