ANTI-SOCIAL FAMILY- Michele Barret and Mary McIntosh

Q. Explain how does the family reproduce the class structure in society.

a. Discuss Bordieu- forms of capital, especially cultural capital.

The authors Michele Barret and Mary McIntosh in the essay ‘The Anti-Social Family’, explain in the
part ‘Inheritance’ how in most situations people’s class position is determined by their parentage.
They argue that there has emerged an idea which has gained popular consciousness- the experience
of social fluidity, breaking out of one’s class and acquiring a position higher than one’s parents or
family, can all be achieved through education. This, sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu is not the
case. This is because Bourdieu writes how children’s performance in schools is significantly related
to their parents’ position in the society. In other words children with parents from a disadvantage
position are much likely to not complete their schooling. In order to have a better understanding of
why this happens, it would be helpful to understand French sociologist Pierre Bordieu’s theory of
capital.

The concept of social reproduction refers to the replication of social structures and systems across
generations based. A good example of this would be how children from rich families often tend to
end up rich, while the contrary is often true for children from poor families. Social reproduction is
one of the means through which social inequality continues in the society and class structure keeps
getting reproduced. Bordieu’s theory of capital attempts to explain this.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in his essay "The Forms of Capital" (1985), proposes the idea
of capital and different forms of capital. According to Bourdieu, capital is an asset that buys an
individual a higher position in the society and facilitates social mobility. It is a result of "labour"
and gets accumulated over time. There is a domestic transmission of capital through time and
socialisation.

He writes mainly on two types of capital- cultural and social. Cultural capital can be understood in
terms of an individual’s educational qualification, class, style of speech, mannerisms etc. Bourdieu
further divided cultural capital into three subtypes- embodied, objectified and institutionalized
cultural capital. The embodied state refers to the individual’s ideas and beliefs, dialect, body
language, one’s taste in music, art and literature. In the objectified state, it exists in the form of
cultural goods- pictures, books, instruments, machines. Institutionalized cultural capital are
symbols of cultural competence and authority- educational certificates/university degrees.
Cultural capital merges inherited property (such as class, hobbies, body language) with acquired
property, (which is what a person earns outside of what they are born into, such as, an educational
degree higher than that of their parents’). Cultural capital on the other hand, doesn’t overtly
portrays itself as being guided by self-interest. It however, has a hidden sense of self-interest, as it
passes from parents to the child and helps the child in acquiring a much desirable societal position.

Economic capital (I.e. wealth or income) aids and facilitates the pursuit of cultural capital, for
instance, by possessing enough wealth one can study in a desired university or take up classes for a
desired hobby. Cultural capital also aids economic capital. A person with a valuable college degree is
likely to get a well paying job, thereby increasing their economic capital.

In schools, teachers often prefer children coming from a privileged background who already possess
enough abilities and resources to take better advantage of the school curriculum. Children from
those sections might also have other skills (fine art, training in playing a classical musical instrument,
proper training in sports) that also helps them gain soft skills such as communication skills and
confidence. All this becomes possible because their parents have enough knowledge, wealth and
connections to provide them with such advantages. This already puts children from poorer families
at a disadvantage as their parents are not able to provide them with it, leading to inequality in the
schools, as it affects their learning ability.

While the authors of The Anti-Social Family do acknowledge that there have been instances where
people’s class positions is not always fixed by their parentage, it is a relatively smaller section of
the population. They cite a survey (John H. Goldthorpe, Social Mobility and Class Structure in
Modern Britain, Oxford 1980), where 62% of sons of men who worke a professionals, admintrators,
superisors (Class I and II occupations) were in jobs in the same range as their father’s. And only
13% of them had manual jobs. Moreoever, 58% of sons of men in manual jobs themselves had
manual jobs and only 18% of them had Class I and II jobs. Another major factor that reproduces
class, the authors argue, is inheritance of wealth. In the quarter of the twentieth century Britain,
two-thirds to four-thirds of those who died rich, owed their wealth to inheritance.

b. Discuss Engel on origin of private property.

Friedrich Engels’ work ‘Origin of Family, Private Property and the State’ was published in 1884 and
was largely based on American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan’s work ‘Ancient Society’. Engels
sought to explain the major stages of human development by explaining the transition from
prehistoric hunting gathering societies to agriculture practicing civilisations. Engels writes about
Morgan’s three stages of development- savagery, barbarism and civilisation. In the stage of
savagery, man lives in his original habitat, in forests, there is use of fire, development of articulate
speech, and invention of bow and arrow, men and women live together. The stage of barbarism
dates from the introduction of pottery. During this stage, man learns to domesticate and breed
animals. And by the last stages of it, learns to practice agriculture. The stage of civilization was
marked by advanced application of work on the products of nature, period of industry and art.

The transition of the three stages also went hand in hand with the transition of the family. Initially
so as to survive men and women lived in hordes/ groups and communally shared resources
amongst themselves. It is also important to note that the first domestic institution in the early
stages of human history was the matrilineal clan. According to Engels, study of primitive history
(savagery and barbarism) revealed that men and women practiced polygyny and there existed
unrestricted sexual freedom.

Towards the end of barbarism, we see the emergence of the pairing family. In this stage one man
lives with one woman, but polygamy and infidelity are still acceptable as long as it is committed by
the man, but not for a woman, in order to maintain legitimacy of the child. With domestication of
animals, formation of tools for production and emergence of slavery in the last stages of barbarism,
there was a higher source of wealth generated and which needed to be taken care of. This new
wealth was taken care of by the men as the means of labour was the responsibility of the male.

With the emergence of the monogamous family, which also marked the beginning of the stage of
civilisation, the role of property and ownership grew even stronger. It was based on the supremacy
of the man and an emphasis on undisputed paternity, as the idea that children were the natural
heirs of the father was deemed worthy.

While we seek to understand the origin of ownership, class differences and how class inequality
continues to exist in society through social mobility, it is also provides us with insights on how
people’s living conditions can be improved and how disadvantaged sections can be emancipated by
facilitating their social mobility and helping them climb the class hierarchy. It is necessary to teach
educational institutions to be aware and sensitive towards children who may not be coming from a
privileged social and cultural position and to strive for curriculums that are also equally beneficial to
these children.

- Deepnayana Sinha
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