How Caste Reproduces Class: Intersecting Educational Inequalities in India through Bourdieu's Theory

This paper critically examines the intersection of class and caste inequalities and its dynamics within the Indian educational system through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction. In India, caste and class hierarchies are deeply intertwined, and students from lower castes who are frequently aligned with lower socioeconomic strata face structural and symbolic barriers to educational mobility. Bourdieu’s key concepts, such as habitus, cultural capital, and field, are deployed to elucidate how these marginalized students are systematically disadvantaged within an educational field that privileges the cultural capital of dominant privileged-caste and upper-class groups. The reproduction of social hierarchies occurs as lower-caste students’ habitus shaped by material deprivation and social exclusion mismatches the dominant educational norms, leading to symbolic violence wherein their underachievement is naturalized and legitimized. This study is part of a broader Ph.D. thesis that examines schools and educational institutions across India as sites of social reproduction. Using qualitative methods, the research focuses on how lower-caste students experience educational mobility within a system that reinforces both class and caste inequality. Educational institutions, functioning as sites of social reproduction, contribute to the perpetuation of both class and caste inequality by reinforcing the preexisting social order. This process results in a restricted acquisition of cultural and social capital for lower-caste students, further consolidating their subaltern status in the labor market. The paper contends that Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, particularly his analysis of the subtle mechanisms of power and domination through symbolic violence, is indispensable for understanding the persistence of caste and class inequalities in Indian society. Bourdieu’s concepts provide a sociological lens to examine how the educational system, as a field of social reproduction, covertly reinforces existing hierarchies by privileging the cultural capital of dominant caste and class groups.