Peter Sandiford - Learning life and citizenship in hospitality, volunteering and society

In this presentation I will introduce the work of Piere Bourdieu, the French sociologist, to help understand explore employee and management practice in two types of organisation, public houses and a volunteering NGO. In particular, I will consider the often blurred line between work and non-work practice, through a habitus lens.
Habitus refers to the way people learn how to behave consistently in social situations, a sort of social application of the broader idea of ‘habit’. Habitus theorises how our behaviour and practice maintains and reinforces social structures, like families, cultures, societies and (in this case) work organisations.