Distinction (sociology)

In sociology, distinction is a social force whereby people use various strategies—consciously or not—to differentiate and distance themselves from others in society, and to assign themselves greater value in the process. In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (La Distinction, 1979), Pierre Bourdieu described how those in power define aesthetic concepts like "good taste", with the consequence that the social class of a person tends to predict and in fact determine his or her cultural interests, likes, and dislikes.

Political and socio-economic, racial and gender distinctions, based upon social class, are reinforced in daily life within society. In The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't be Jammed (2004), Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter describe "distinction" as a social competition in which the styles of social fashion are in continual development, and that the men and women who do not follow the development of social trends soon become stale, and irrelevant to their social-class stratum.^[1][2]