ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Pierre Bourdieu

Okay kiddo, imagine you are playing a game where you have to pretend to be a different person, but you also have to follow some rules. Well, Pierre Bourdieu was a grown-up who liked to watch people play the game of life and see how those rules affected them.

He thought that people often did things because they felt like they had to or because others expected them to. He called these rules "social structures" and believed they influenced all sorts of things like how smart people thought they were, what they liked to do for fun, and even how they talked and dressed.

Pierre Bourdieu studied the different groups of people in society (like rich people, poor people, and middle-class people) and how they held different amounts of power based on their social structure. For example, rich people might have more power because they can buy expensive things, and people will listen to them more. It's kind of like playing a game where some people get to have more points than others.

But here's the thing, kiddo. Pierre Bourdieu didn't think this was fair. He thought it was important to look at why things were the way they were and how people were affected by these social structures. He wanted people to question the rules of the game and work towards making things more equal for everyone.

So, Pierre Bourdieu was a smart man who watched people play the game of life, studied the rules that influenced them, and wanted to make the game more fair for everyone.