Habitus is one of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's most prolific ideas. Through the concept of habitus, Bourdieu aims to think about the link between socialization and the actions of individuals. The habitus is in fact made up of all the dispositions, patterns of action or perception that the individual acquires through his social experience. By his socialization, then through their social trajectory, each individual slowly incorporates a set of ways of thinking, feeling and acting, which prove to be lasting. Bourdieu thinks that these dispositions are at the origin of the future practices of individuals.
However, the habitus is more than a simple conditioning which would lead to mechanically reproducing what one has acquired. The habitus is not a habit that one performs mechanically. Indeed, these provisions are more like the grammar of his mother tongue. Thanks to this grammar acquired by socialization, the individual can, in fact, create an infinity of sentences to deal with all situations. He does not repeat the same sentence over and over again. The dispositions of the habitus are of the same type: they are patterns of perception and action that allow the individual to produce a set of new practices adapted to the social world in which he finds himself. The habitus is “powerfully generative”: it is even at the origin of a practical sense. Bourdieu thus famously defines the habitus as “structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures”. The habitus is a structured structure since it is produced by socialization; but it is also a structuring structure because it generates an infinity of new practices.
Insofar as these dispositions form a system, the habitus is at the origin of the unity of the thoughts and actions of each individual. But, insofar as individuals from the same social groups have experienced similar socializations, it also explains the similarity of ways of thinking, feeling and acting specific to individuals of the same social class.
However, this does not mean that the dispositions of the habitus are immutable. the social trajectory of individuals can lead to their habitus being partially transformed. On the other hand, the individual can partially appropriate it and transform it by a sociological return to himself.
Bourdieu's concept of habitus is closely realated to his concept of cultural capital.